Daily Maersk is a game changer and it’s even changing how we do maths. With Daily Maersk 34 days is now less than 28 days. Here’s how.

On average, the transit time on the Asia–North Europe trade offered to customers is 28 days. With Daily Maersk we’ve decided to focus on the ‘transportation time’ instead of the transit time because transportation time is what matters to our customers — and we promise a transportation time of 34 days (Shanghai to Felixstowe, Rotterdam or Bremerhaven); but it still looks slower than 28 days, right? Keep reading.

Transportation time is the true measure between the cut-off deadline for when a container needs to be at the origin terminal and when it is available to the customer at destination. In other words, the total time spent from cargo delivery to cargo availability including port time, loading time, transit time, customs clearance, waiting time. Well, basically any kind of time.

So, taking the 28-day average transit time for a shipment, you then need to add the time that the container spends in the terminals — on average this is two days at origin before loading and one day at destination after the arrival of the vessel.

So now 28 days has already become 31 days — and the promise is already broken. But, it still seems faster than Daily Maersk’s 34 days from Shanghai, right? Keep reading.

Frequency
Next, you need to take into account that you don’t have a daily cut-off with other carriers, but more likely just one cut-off per week.

With only one cut-off per week you will only get the shortest transportation time if you ‘gate in’ at origin just in time for the cut-off for that week’s service — usually two days before departure. In that case, you would then get the total transportation time of 31 days.

However, if you gate-in one day later, your cargo would then have to wait an additional six days in the terminal to catch the next west-bound vessel; and the total transportation time would then be 37 days.

If you waited yet another day before gating in, your transportation time would become 36 days. And so on and so on.

So in reality, other carriers’ transportation time would then be anything between 31 days and 37 days — each time breaking the 28-day promise.

In the case of a feeder connection, you usually have to wait a week if you miss the connection. Now missing a connection does mean having to wait a week as your cargo will catch the next west-bound vessel still within same transportation time. In other words, other carriers will not be able to provide a fast transportation time each and every day, but just once in a while.

Reliability
In shipping today, the carriers are not very good at keeping their promises as vessels are often delayed. According to the Drewry Shipping Consultants, the industry average on schedule reliability is only 56 % with a delay of around one day on average.

Adding the average is not enough as the delays could range from one day to more than a week; and if you want to be sure that you do not run out of stock, you would most likely have to add a week.

This means that half of the time you need to add a week to other carriers’ transportation time which means you’re actually facing a total transportation time between 38 and 44 days.

With Daily Maersk we’re offering a fixed transportation time that is always the same to our customers: 34 days (from Shanghai). This means that customers will get the same service almost like a conveyor belt connecting Asia to North-Europe that runs all the time and always at the same speed. The contingencies built in to Daily Maersk also guard against weather and port delays leaving no impact on the 34-day promise.

So there you have it. That’s how 34 days is faster than 28 days.

Consistency
With this level of consistency you get the opportunity to optimise your supply chain, in effect using our vessels as your ‘floating warehouses’ or an extension of your production line. With Daily Maersk you can now get rid of the buffer stock that has been built up to compensate for the unreliability and inconsistency of the shipping industry.

To sum it up, Daily Maersk is the solution that is very demanding on our part, and very carefree for you – just as it should be.

Daily Maersk is shipping made easy!