CN ORION SUB!!!!

[Mike H]

Where were you when I was trying to get CN to accommodate a road construction company that wanted 3500 car loads per year of limestone shipped to Romeo from Alpena

How long ago was this? Is that construction company still around?

This makes no sense at all. Pontiac Metal Fab only stamps for Orion Assembly and it would be silly to have rail service just for that. GM and their "just in time delivery" over the years got rid of most of the shipping of parts by rail. The truck plants are really the only ones who get any parts by rail still and that's not much. Besides, there haven't been tracks into Orion Assembly since the late 90's. It would seem the only thing they would ship out of Pontiac Metal Fab is scrap. As for switching Orion Assembly, all of it was done on plant grounds. I used to watch them switch sometimes before I went in for second shift.

That might have been true at one time, but it is not the case anymore. This is a weekly parts move to the south, just be patient and you will see.

This is just an opinion, but I feel like a lot of the automotive companies are starting to think that paying truckers "Fedex prices" just to keep inventory costs low/just in time is not worth it when considering the freight costs.

Mike H

[AARR]

Where were you when I was trying to get CN to accommodate a road construction company that wanted 3500 car loads per year of limestone shipped to Romeo from Alpena

How long ago was this? Is that construction company still around?

1999. No, the road construction company is no longer around. CN was not interested in it, CMGN was very interested, LSRC had one of the unfriendliness sales reps I've ever talked to at any company ever. The road construction company ended up getting their limestone from Canada delivered by ship to the terminal next to DTE's Marysville plant and trucked to Shelby Twp from there.

[conrailmike]

I just remembered, they are also stamping for the Volt and I believe the Chevy Cruze (Lordstown).

As far as the "just in time" stuff goes, they (speaking only for GM here) will never go back to keeping a lot of parts inventory on hand due to the way the production process is these days. Product lifecycles are very short now and plants are made to change products quick (we have a year and a half left on the lifecycle of our current vehicles at LDT, they are already now focusing on the next product). Lots of parts inventory also means lots of money sitting on the production floor. Especially when any new plants are designed like the way Lansing Delta Township is. The distance from truck to assembly line is VERY short now, there is no "central parts dock" now.

[Mike H]

Don,

Your are breaking my heart, I got all excited for a minute there. To bad they are not still around, I would be all over that opportunity.

ConrailMike,

I agree. You will never see a large parts inventory again, but I think you will see a bit of a parts revival by rail. It will never be what it was, but there are certainly some parts moves that make more sense by rail than by truck and those will come back as rail efficiency and predictability get better in addition to increased trucker costs and driver shortages.

Mike H

[AARR]

Don,

Your are breaking my heart, I got all excited for a minute there. To bad they are not still around, I would be all over that opportunity.

Sorry, if you had been around 15 years ago we could have nailed that business!

[MSchwiebert]

In addition to these reasons JIT will not go away because it also provides for more rapid identification & correction of problems/issues that may crop up on the parts. In the old method, if a part didn't fit, the installer would just root around in the tub and find one that did & the producers of the part would not know that there was an issue for quite some time. With JIT, if the part doesn't fit - it's identified immediately.

Yes the industry has identified that air-freighting parts all over the place is an expense that is best to be avoided - which is why places like BAX in Toledo closed up shop, the industry isn't doing near as much as they used to.

As for return to rail, I could see the possibility of some returning, but only shipping to a 3PL facility for staging/sequencing etc. (a great example is Jeep in Toledo - there's a very large 3PL facility nearby that receives, checks in, stages & sequences the parts and then loads them in a truck for the JIT delivery to the plant a couple miles away) - then trucked over to the assembly facility when needed. I doubt highly that there will be a return to the 1970's era model of boxcar loads of parts being warehoused at the plants - there's just too many valid reasons not to do it.

I just remembered, they are also stamping for the Volt and I believe the Chevy Cruze (Lordstown).

As far as the "just in time" stuff goes, they (speaking only for GM here) will never go back to keeping a lot of parts inventory on hand due to the way the production process is these days. Product lifecycles are very short now and plants are made to change products quick (we have a year and a half left on the lifecycle of our current vehicles at LDT, they are already now focusing on the next product). Lots of parts inventory also means lots of money sitting on the production floor. Especially when any new plants are designed like the way Lansing Delta Township is. The distance from truck to assembly line is VERY short now, there is no "central parts dock" now.

[conrailmike]

In addition to these reasons JIT will not go away because it also provides for more rapid identification & correction of problems/issues that may crop up on the parts. In the old method, if a part didn't fit, the installer would just root around in the tub and find one that did & the producers of the part would not know that there was an issue for quite some time. With JIT, if the part doesn't fit - it's identified immediately.

Yes the industry has identified that air-freighting parts all over the place is an expense that is best to be avoided - which is why places like BAX in Toledo closed up shop, the industry isn't doing near as much as they used to.

As for return to rail, I could see the possibility of some returning, but only shipping to a 3PL facility for staging/sequencing etc. (a great example is Jeep in Toledo - there's a very large 3PL facility nearby that receives, checks in, stages & sequences the parts and then loads them in a truck for the JIT delivery to the plant a couple miles away) - then trucked over to the assembly facility when needed. I doubt highly that there will be a return to the 1970's era model of boxcar loads of parts being warehoused at the plants - there's just too many valid reasons not to do it.

Right, like I said... right now maybe the truck plants are the only ones that still have actual tracks that are running into them. Plants like LDT didn't have any to begin with and most of the others (like Orion) had them ripped out years ago. I have seen air shipment of parts (speaking of GM) only when things like trucks get stuck in bad weather or some other event prevents normal shipment of parts. Ryder Logistics does a major share of sequencing for GM and most if not all of those parts are trucked in, sequenced and then trucked to the plant.