Supply Chain Management Review

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Checking out Customs
October 4, 2007

Yesterday, I took a tour of U.S. Customs and cargo handling facilities here in Boston, courtesy of Massport and CONECT. While I knew going in that this was more of a materials handling event, as opposed to the "big picture" supply chain-related happenings you will see on this site, it was still a good education on international shipping. Hundreds of items a day, as small as a couple inches long and as large as airplanes, all arrive by cargo ship in huge, multicolored steel containers and have to be logged, inspected and otherwise processed by customs officials. 

Security, needless to say, was tight, so tight I'm not sure I want to go into detail lest Homeland Security storm our Waltham office to take me away, but it suffices to say they keep a good eye on things. People can't simply walk in off the street and start wandering around warehouses.

Schedules were equally tight, with cargo ships being unloaded and re-loaded in 12 hours - quite the turnaround time for a vessel longer than several football fields. 

The thing that got my attention the most was the low-tech actual handling the materials themselves. I'm sure it has something to do with standards - this stuff is coming from and going to foreign countries, after all, but still, none of the shiny warehouse-of-the-future equipment seemed to be there. I saw no evidence of RFID tagging, no automated picking, and no apparent signs of bar-code scanning or wearable computers.

Mind you, I don't judge the handlers. Clearly, they have been doing just fine without such high-tech gadgets for quite some time. It just serves as yet another reminder that high-tech materials handling looks great at the trade shows, but isn't quite there yet as far as "in the real world" goes.

Posted by Sean Murphy on October 4, 2007 | Comments (0)