PLAINFIELD, Ind. — The supply chain issues the U.S. is facing won’t be solved overnight, says one Hoosier logistics company executive.
Mark DeFabis is the CEO of Integrated Distribution Services, Inc. based in Plainfield. He tells Inside Indiana Business that in order for the supply chain to even back out, many things need to happen over the next year.
“We’re not going to magically create more truck drivers overnight,” DeFabis said. “We need to look at hours of service. Can the drivers we have work an hour or two longer because of all the dwell time they have?
DeFabis also said that Drive Safe Act being considered by Congress needs movement soon. It would allow truck drivers between 18 and 21 years old to be allowed to drive an 18-wheeler across state lines. Right now, that’s illegal.
“I mean right now, they can drive an 18-wheeler from South Bend to Evansville, but they can’t go from Evansville into Kentucky, which I think is ridiculous,” said DeFabis.
He said these things will certainly help get the ball rolling on fixing supply chain bottlenecks. Right now, wait times are significantly longer on getting containers from overseas shipped to the places inland that they need to go from the west coast.
“From the west coast, almost every container has to go through Chicago,” DeFabis said. “In a typical wait time in Chicago’s rail yards to get a container off onto a chassis to it can be transported down south would be about three days. Now you are seeing wait times significantly longer.”
In the grand scheme of things, DeFabis says it will likely be over a year before the supply chain issues can be resolved.
