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<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">Unlike many UK firms, heavy-lift and installation contractor ALE said it isn’t losing any sleep over the potential negative fallout from Brexit. Here's why.</div>

Unlike many UK firms, heavy-lift and installation contractor ALE said it isn’t losing any sleep over the potential negative fallout from Brexit. Here's why.

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<div class="phx-topic">British heavy-lift and installation contractor ALE has expanded its global footprint and equipment fleet during the industry downturn that followed the Great Recession, and is pitching for complex projects in a recovering market.ALE works in most of the world’s heavy-lift markets and felt the impact of the plunge in crude oil prices. Prices on the benchmark North Sea Brent crude crashed from $110 a barrel in November 2014 to $27 in January 2016, forcing delays and cancellations of oil and gas infrastructure projects.Diversification has helped ALE weather the slump. Offshore and onshore <a href="https://www.joc.com/breakbulk/ale-installs-saudi-arabia-first-wind-energy-turbine_20170301.html">wind power</a> has provided business, and the company has used its heavy-lift equipment on a variety of petrochemical, marine, mining, and construction projects around the world.“We have moved and lifted the biggest things in the world ... all with our own equipment,” said Michael Birch, global sales director of the privately owned company.The key oil market is staging a comeback as crude prices recover — North Sea Brent topped a 2 1/2 year high in mid-December, at just short of $66 a barrel. “Discussions on projects will start to come back,” Birch said. He noted that most big projects require lead times of three to five years for planning and engineering.Another potentially lucrative market is decommissioning of offshore oil and gas fields, starting with North Sea and Gulf of Mexico wells that are starting to decline. “It’s a business in the waiting,” Birch said.ALE, founded in 1983, has some 1,800 employees and about 40 offices across the world. The company has two main international rivals — Netherlands-based Mammoet and Belgium’s Sarens group — and also faces strong regional competition in the US, the Middle East and Asia.Unlike many UK firms, ALE said it isn’t losing any sleep over the potential negative fallout from Brexit, the country’s scheduled March 2019 exit from the 28-nation European Union. Brexit has triggered a steep decline in the value of the pound sterling against the dollar and the euro. “Ninety percent of our business is abroad; we trade less than 10 percent in sterling,” Birch explained.The company has extended its reach by moving into new strategic sectors. Its most recent acquisition was Conbit, a Dutch structural engineering and lifting contractor specializing in offshore engineering and maintenance, and onshore tower markets.“This is an increasingly competitive market to enter; by acquiring one of the forerunners in offshore, we are able to strengthen our overall service and position as heavy-lift leaders,” said Mark Harries, ALE’s global managing director.The company also signed a memorandum of understanding in August with <a href="https://www.joc.com/maritime-news/container-lines/cosco">China’s Cosco</a> Shipping Project Logistics to work together on specific logistics and heavy-lift projects. The aim is to boost both companies’ market shares nationally and globally.ALE’s attraction to Cosco is that “lots of things we do are very specialist,” Birch said. “We are not an equipment operator but an engineering company that provides solutions that are not already available or not yet designed.” He said specialized lifting for Cosco will be only “one piece of the jigsaw.”China is a growing market for ALE. Last October, the company signed a cooperation deal with Shanghai Kangfu Nuclear Energy Machinery Co. (KFNE) to secure entry into China’s nuclear power market and join forces with its new partner to pitch for international contracts. And it has just added a second Chinese office in Shanghai alongside its first office, which opened in Tianjin in 2015.ALE has teamed up with other partners for some big contracts such as Russia’s $27 billion <a href="https://www.joc.com/maritime-news/trade-lanes/russian-energy-projects-breathe-life-northern-sea-route_20170715.html">Yamal LNG project </a>in the Siberian Arctic region. On the Yamal project, ALE formed a joint venture with Lemants, a Dutch steel construction company, and Belgian roll-on, roll-off terminal operator ICO. Plant modules fabricated in Asia were transferred at the port of Zeebrugge, jacked down, and stored for onward shipment via the Northern Sea Route to the Arctic port of Sabetta.There could be more Arctic business to come. The Russian gas company Novatek has said it plans to spend up to $47 billion on new projects, including a second LNG plant near its majority-owned Yamal 1 plant, which will start production in 2023.Right now, ALE is busy working on a contract for the Korchagin oil project in Russia involving the engineering, weighing, jacking, load-out and offshore pulling of a satellite platform’s topside in Astrakhan.The first phase involved jacking up the 2,570-ton topside to 1.5 meters so the client can integrate the skid beams in between the offshore structure’s topside and the desk-support frame underneath.“Considering the sheer size of the desk-support frame on-site, we have completed a complex engineering design to account for the limited space available to perform the operation,” said Lernik Mirzakhanyan, ALE’s Russia sales executive. “As we cannot use forklifts or cranes to rig the equipment, we have utilized manual tools.”The second stage involves the load-out of the topside, with the desk support frame weighing about 3,100 tons, to a transport barge.ALE has invested in heavy-lift equipment such as its two AL.SK350s, the world’s largest land-based cranes. The cranes were ordered nine and six years ago. The investment was a calculated bet on the market’s future direction and has paid off, Birch said. “We think we have been quite smart in our investments, so we don’t have a big ball chain around our neck,” he said.He said the AL.SK350s are easy to move between projects anywhere in the world, because they break down into pieces that fit into 20- and 40-foot containers Some of the equipment is the size of a container with wheels attached.ALE recently added eight Iveco Trakker trucks at its regional base in Argentina, which also covers Chile. The company also has supplied its Caspian regional office in Atyrau, Kazakhstan, with three new cranes that have capacities of 220, 130, and 100 tons each.Last year, the company claimed two new heavy-lift records. ALE said its lift of a 3,000-metric ton module in Brazil by one of its AL.SK350’s was the heaviest commercial lift of a module using a land-based mobile crane. ALE also used a record-breaking number of self-propelled modular transporters (SPMTs) in the salvage operation of the South Korean ferry Sewol, which capsized and sank a mile off the Korean coast in April 2014 with the loss of 304 lives. Contact Bruce Barnard at <a href="mailto:Contact%20Bruce%20Barnard%20at%20brucebarnard47@hotmail.com.">brucebarnard47@hotmail.com</a></div>

Heavy-lift specialist ALE pitches for complex projects

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">Italian heavy hauler Fagioli used trucks, barges, and ships to move sections of the world’s third-largest tunnel boring machine from Germany to Italy.</div>

Italian heavy hauler Fagioli used trucks, barges, and ships to move sections of the world’s third-largest tunnel boring machine from Germany to Italy.

<div class="phx-topic">Hannibal used elephants to cross the Alps into Italy, but more than 2,000 years later that was not an option for the movement of a large tunnel-boring machine from Germany to Italy.Italian heavy hauler Fagioli used trucks, barges, and ships to move sections of the machine, built by Herrenknecht AG in Schwanau, Germany, to Barberino di Mugello, Italy, for use in boring a 7,528-m-long tunnel in the Apennine Mountains near Florence.<div class="wrapper-narrow center-element"><img src="/images/phoenix/5259565_1.0.jpg"></img></div>With a diameter of 15.87 m (52 ft), the tunnel borer was described as the largest ever built in Europe, and the third-largest in the world. The machine comprises multiple large components, including the 904,000-pound cutting wheel.Too large to cross the Alps by land, the wheel took a roundabout route from Germany to Italy. From the plant, the wheel was moved to the nearby Rhine River port of Kiel and barged downriver to Rotterdam. <div class="wrapper-narrow center-element"><img src="/images/phoenix/5259566_1.0.jpg"></img></div>The next leg of the journey was on a heavy-lift ship to Italy’s port of Ravenna. <div class="wrapper-narrow center-element"><img src="/images/phoenix/5259567_1.0.jpg"></img></div>There, the sections were transferred to trailers for the 165-km (103-mile) trip to the destination. The equipment was delivered in three convoys, ranging in length from 28 to 68 m, and in weight from 180 to 320 tons. The widest cargo on the convoys was 9.3 m.Fagioli spent two months surveying and checking the route, working with several local and national road authorities on a transportation plan, and analyzing the structural integrity of 96 bridges.<div class="wrapper-narrow center-element"><img src="/images/phoenix/5259568_1.0.jpg"></img></div>The largest sections of the machine were moved by a 30-axle-line modular trailer propelled by two trucks, one at the front and one at the rear. The convoys’ speed was limited to 20 km per hour on open roads, and 5 km per hour through viaducts.Fagioli’s handling of the move was recognized this year by the Specialized Carriers &amp; Rigging Association with its “Move of the Year” award for shipments of more than 500,000 pounds.</div>

Slideshow: How Fagioli handled the 'move of the year’

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">Zeebrugge is the intermediate shipment point for a $27 billion project.</div>

Zeebrugge is the intermediate shipment point for a $27 billion project.

<div class="phx-topic">Heavy-lift operator ALE is leading a joint venture company at Belgium’s port of Zeebrugge for intermediate storage and transshipment of plant modules for the $27 billion Yamal liquefied natural gas (LNG) project under construction in Russia’s Arctic region.The Yamal project requires shipment of some 150 modules weighing as much as 450 metric tons each. Several of the shipments have been shipped <a href="http://www.joc.com/breakbulk/module-carrier-makes-mid-winter-arctic-voyage_20170103.html">via the Northern Sea Route</a> to Russia’s Port of Sabetta. Russia <a href="http://www.joc.com/maritime-news/ships-shipbuilding/russia-doubles-down-arctic-sea-route_20170224.html">has been working</a> to develop more shipping on the route.At the Zeebrugge transshipment site, ALE is working with the steel construction company Iemants and roll-on, roll-off terminal operator International Car Operators. The work includes discharge of modules shipped from Asian fabrication yards, jacking down and storage of the modules on the ground, and loading of the modules on Siberia-bound vessels.Work on the Yamal project began at the end of 2013 to supply Asian and European customers with gas produced in Russia’s South Tambey field. Construction has been challenging. The site is above the Arctic Circle and is supported by thousands of piles driven into permafrost.The project encompasses natural gas production, liquefaction, and shipping of gas from three gas liquefaction trains — or refrigeration units — that will have total output capacity of about 16.5 million tons per year.The LNG plant is being designed and built by Yamgaz, a JV led by TechnipFMC with JGC and Chiyoda.</div>

ALE leads joint venture for transshipment of Yamal LNG modules

<div class="phx-topic abstract-wrapper">The mockup will weigh 104 metric tons.</div>

<div class="phx-topic">Heavy-lift specialist Barnhart Crane &amp; Rigging has been chosen by the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration to transport a mockup of the core stage of NASA’s space launch system, the agency’s rocket for deep space missions.Memphis-based Barnhart will deliver the components by barge from the final assembly point at the G&amp;G Steel plant in Cordova, Alabama, to NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility at New Orleans. The mockup will weigh 104 metric tons [114 tons] and measure 64 meters [210 feet] long.An overhead crane will be used at G&amp;G to load the core stage onto a 61-meter Barnhart deck barge and 76-meter canal deck barge. At Michoud the mock-up will offloaded onto Goldhofer transporters.The cargo is scheduled for load-out and transport in March to the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The inaugural flight of the space launch system is expected in late 2018.</div>

Barnhart to move NASA space launch component

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The world of LTL is slow to embrace change. Business anachronisms permeate current supply chain processes. These vestiges of the way things used to work define the LTL freight transportation procurement process of many modern shippers.David Knuth, logistics specialist at IEWC, a global supplier of cable and wire based in Wisconsin, is happy to have modernized the RFP process, automating the entire LTL bidding procedure with Bid$ense, SMC³’s automated truckload and LTL freight transportation sourcing solution. But when prompted, he can still recall what once was.In his previous job, a large part of his duties were consumed by creating an intermodal bid package for carriers. In a spreadsheet, Knuth detailed the company’s volumes lane by lane, taking care to delete any errant keystrokes or misleading data. He would then email out the information to each carrier, taking time to respond to detailed technical questions about the spreadsheet data. Finally, he had to compile all the results, create an algorithm that would compare the carriers on each lane, and award the business.“It was a huge undertaking. It took about four months to do,” Knuth said of the old process. “It was almost a full-time job for that part of the year, every year.”In his new job at IEWC, he sat down with Bid$ense on day one and was amazed at the capabilities. Knuth had never before used a bid tool. SMC³’s latest versions of Bid$ense automate the process even further, taking truckload and LTL RFPs entirely online. The tool draws on RFP best-practices protocols to streamline the bidding communication process, enabling bidding carriers to respond accurately and promptly to shipper requests. The solution also does all the distribution work automatically, electronically submitting shipper bid data to carriers based on their actual service capabilities and performance records. Carriers are alerted with timely prompts for RFP deliverables, so shippers aren’t waiting by the phone for responses.Another benefit of automating the process is the data-cleansing assistance. When Knuth sent spreadsheets to carriers, data errors might cloud the bidding process; he might have to resend data or simply accept a price that did not truly reflect the costs of doing business. Data cleansing is incredibly beneficial, he said.The spreadsheet technique also made bidding analysis an onerous task. Since Bid$ense automates and streamlines the entire RFP process, intensive examination is now simple. SMC³ knows that each bid has more than one best outcome. With uniform responses from each carrier, shippers can quickly rank results and create an unlimited quantity of what-if scenarios to make the optimal procurement decision.Jesse Burnett of Central Garden &amp; Pet experiences many of the same benefits. Founded in 1980, Central Garden &amp; Pet has spent the last three decades growing from a small garden supply company to a provider of a range of products from dog chews and bird seed to soil supplements and natural insecticides. For much of its life, the company shipped these disparate goods via LTL and truckload carriers to retailers throughout the country, relying on each business unit to negotiate directly with their freight transportation providers. This arrangement worked fairly well for a small company, but as Central Garden &amp; Pet expanded, leadership decided to consolidate decision making.Burnett helped centralize the transportation decision making in 2015 with SMC³’s Bid$ense. Before Bid$ense, every business unit operated independently as far as negotiating with carriers.“There were a lot of different things just floating around,” he said. “We didn’t have master agreements in place; no national pricing at all. The pricing from carriers was just all over the place, depending on where you were.”The transformations he saw with Bid$ense were immediate. Burnett has been using the tool about every other year since its implementation at the company. Central Garden and Pet’s $19.6 million 2019 LTL bid saved the company just more than 9 percent when compared to its historical average. For Burnett, though, bid automation extends far beyond savings.“We knew that we weren’t getting the best pricing offer from our carriers just because nothing was centralized,” he continued. “We knew that if we combined everything from all these business units and paired it with one corporate offering, then it would drive some cost benefit with it.”When the company initially decided to centralize bid procurement, executives researched a number of different methodologies and technologies. In the end, though, Burnett found that Bid$ense was both widespread and well known, and that his carrier partners already knew how to use the application. Burnett also highlighted the data-cleansing process as a major benefit, saying the rigorous process ensures that carriers always return the best price.“It definitely has helped drive savings,” he said. “Any time you go out there and you drive that competitiveness with the carriers and they know they’re in a bid environment, it seems to sharpen their pencils.”Transportation procurement is an integral part of the modern supply chain. With Bid$ense, shippers can develop a strategic implementation plan that saves them time and money, but also helps them create strong relationships with their carrier partners. These carriers appreciate the solution’s data-cleansing process; when carriers receive a complete shipment history and future volume forecast, they don’t have to guess on pricing. Carriers that receive more data from shippers get a complete picture of that shipper’s freight, allowing them to accurately plan instead of simply preparing for the worst-case scenario. Clean data presented through an automated system can lead to both bigger shipment savings and a lasting partnership between carrier and customer.Whether customers are looking to streamline over-the-road transportation bidding by automating the RFP process or create an entirely new, centralized sourcing process, Bid$ense has the analytical horsepower to get the job done.SMC³ 2020 Customer Case Study

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Shippers save money, time with automated transportation bidding tools

If there’s one immutable truth in the world of logistics, it’s this: LTL is an inherently complex form of transportation. Tariffs, rates, DIM weights, transit times — it’s enough to confuse even seasoned logistics professionals. The solution to this knowledge gap has historically been on-the-job training or university supply chain education, but for a variety of reasons there is now a pressing need for third-party, remote LTL training that prepares logistics workers for transportation success. Global Scope Can Overlook Local Intricacies In the past, professionals looking to move into a supply chain career learned about the basics of supply chain from universities. However, many of these college supply chain programs are now global in scope, focusing on worldwide supply chain management instead of the intricacies of specialized domestic transportation. And even these programs, which used to be widespread, are becoming less common. LTL is not an industry of broad-brush strokes; supply chain professionals really need a pointillistic understanding of the logistics of LTL in order to excel in the industry. Accelerating Need for Dedicated LTL Education This lack of specified training put the onus on employers to prepare new hires with the LTL knowledge needed to do their jobs. Dedicated LTL study is a necessity, not a luxury. At the same time, changes in LTL and the broader supply chain world are accelerating. The reliance on e-commerce has ballooned since the start of the pandemic, and last-mile LTL shipments and related e-commerce strains on the supply chain won’t diminish once social distancing abates. That genie isn’t going back into the bottle. So supply chain employers need logistics workers that are fully versed in all aspects of the industry, ready to solve unique shipping and delivery problems based on their extensive supply chain knowledge But why care about LTL? It’s been reported that some shippers in today’s world are no longer concerned with what mode is used to ship their goods. A Multimodal Approach Ensures On-Time Delivery This mode agnosticism means supply chain stakeholders have to be well versed in all modes of transportation. As unforeseen weather events and other disruptions, such as protests, become more common, savvy logistics employees will need to be armed with familiarity of all modes, not just the most popular, to ensure that freight is delivered on time, without damage, and in the most financially expedient way possible. Offerings like SMC³’s LTL online education courses cover a wide range of topics from LTL basics and operations to more advanced concepts like pricing analytics and transportation law. The company also has plans to continually refresh content, adding new expert presenters and taking the feedback of students to make the courses even better as time goes on. Learn more about&nbsp;<a href="https://logisticstrainingcenter.com/smc3-courses/" rel="noreferrer" class="joc_admin__link">SMC³’s LTL Online Education program</a>&nbsp;and view the 2021 hybrid schedule, featuring live industry experts,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.smc3.com/onlinelearning2021/" rel="noreferrer" class="joc_admin__link">here.</a>

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Filling the Supply Chain Education Gap with LTL Education Courses

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Heavy-lift specialist ALE pitches for complex projects

Slideshow: How Fagioli handled the 'move of the year’

ALE leads joint venture for transshipment of Yamal LNG modules

Barnhart to move NASA space launch component