Contingency planning key to any project move

Multinational Nature of Project Moves

Project cargo is also becoming more and more multinational in nature. It’s increasingly commonplace to build in one country and then transport and deliver to another. That means the project cargo logistics provider must bridge borders as well as squeeze under bridges. So, detailed knowledge of local regulations and terrain is as fundamental as the skills necessary to transport the cargo itself. Bahadir calls these “regional experts.”

Giant projects demand years of forward planning. Project cargo specialists are called in at the very early stages of manufacturing, often shortly after the equipment provider has a contract. That’s sometimes as much as three years before the actual transportation. “There is a long planning process behind it,” Erdil said.

Erdil cited as an example last year’s transport of platforms used in shiplift and transfer systems from Iskenderun, Turkey, where they were manufactured, to Shuaiba, Kuwait. The manufacturer turned to Logistics Plus to not only plan the transport of these three platforms, which totaled 4,000 freight tons, but also where they could be manufactured. The client’s existing factory simply wasn’t big enough. So, Logistics Plus was called in to analyze where the platforms could be manufactured, in tandem with an optimum location for transportation, as well as the actual freight costs.

“We found some shipyards, we found some ports where our client could manufacture their products, so they could be transportable at the end of the day,” Erdil said.

Erdil, himself, grew up in Turkey, but is now based in Houston. That’s provided an unexpected outlet for his other passion — basketball. A talented youth player who also played amateur basketball in his 20s, Erdil was tapped by a friend to write about the Houston Rockets for TrendBasket, a Turkish sports magazine. Erdil, 35, is now an accredited NBA journalist.