- Image by didbygraham via Flickr
Courtesy of supply chain expert and unfortunate malware perpetrator Bob Ferrari — Google blocked access to his site for over a month even after he solved a malware issue in a number of days — I came across a number of useful logistics numbers that provide insight into the overall state of the manufacturing economy at the end of Q1. For those interested in digging both into technology and the broader economics of supply chain management, I can’t recommend Bob’s blog, Supply Chain Matters, enough. In the above-linked post, Bob highlights the financial results of DHL, Fed-Ex and logistics and 3Pl providers, suggesting these numbers can be a useful tool in gauging the economy.
Bob starts with DHL, sharing that “their volume growth continues to accelerate: Asia is strongest (up 30.3%) but Europe is weakest” with “Air freight volumes up 34%” and “Ocean Freight up 15.1%.” DHL suggested this shows “Clear signs of economic recovery” — or at least a lot of busy work and the moving of highly subsidized/government manipulated goods coming from and going to China. Moving along to Fed-Ex, Bob notes …
I sincerely thank Jason for his endorsement.
I also wanted to clarify a statement made in Jason’s posting. The Supply Chain Matters blog site was actually only down for two hours because of a malware attack, but it took over three weeks for Google to catch-up with the cleared status. Readers could access the site but were receiving security warnings. All issues were resolved week ago and everything is working fine.
Bob Ferrari
Executive Editor
Supply Chain Matters blog