Contingency planning key to any project move

A Heavy Lift SWAT Team

The company has nicknamed that kind of team “special projects operations and tactics,” or “SPOT.” It is likened to a project cargo or heavy-lift SWAT team. It’s one of the strengths of Logistics Plus, based in the old Union Station in Erie, PA. The company is a mid-sized 3PL, with 500 plus employees located in more than 20 countries. But a particular focus on heavy lift logistics started early on. It was founded in 1996 and its first big client was GE Transportation, the locomotive manufacturer, which merged last year with Wabtec Corp.

Logistics Plus now has dedicated project cargo teams that, the company believes, is critical in attracting and successfully completing heavy-lift operations assignments around the world. The teams are individually tethered to one country or region, but collectively global in scope and reach.

With a traditional dependence on energy-related plant and equipment, the heavy-lift, project cargo market has seen its fortunes rise and fall over time. When oil prices fell in 2016, so, too, did the project cargo market. More recent trade tensions haven’t helped, either.

However, that project cargo marketplace is diversifying, expanding geographically and becoming increasingly complex. Think wind-related power, for example, and the difficulties of moving blades that can eclipse 100 meters each in treacherous waters.

Heavy lift cargo is becoming heavier, as pieces of equipment grow in size. A single power transformer now can weigh upwards of 500 tons.

Project cargo is getting more complicated, more challenging and just more expensive. Some of the biggest construction projects — say a mammoth petrochemical plant — can have logistics costs in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Accurately predicting transport costs can sometimes spell the difference between profit and ruin. “If we calculate something wrong, it would be a disaster” for the manufacturer, said Erdil.

Heavy lift cargo demands brain as well as brawn. “Project logistics is not only a transportation operation from location A to B,” Erdil. “It consists of lots of engineering planning.”