South America encompasses almost 18 million square meters. Natural landscapes, mountain chains, rainforests and natural resources make it an extraordinary continent. As experienced project cargo logistics specialist, we develop international transport solutions within South America. And that is not always easy. Our best-practice example shows why. It takes us through the jungle to the coast, across the Pacific Ocean and the Andes – with an oversized overhead crane and a tight time schedule.
The accessibility of the pick-up locations and of the places of delivery sometimes brings along challenges. In few cases South America has good direct connections between the single countries that can be used for the transportation of project cargo. Although the infrastructure in the coastal regions and in the metropolitan areas is quite well developed, that is often not true for the infrastructure in the hinterlands.
For door-to-door deliveries, out-of-the-box-thinking is often required, especially for the pre-carriage and on carriage – and they have to be well thought through – as our example shows.
An example: tight time schedule and dimensions far beyond the usual
We received the order to organize a transport related to an infrastructure project in Chile. Our task: to organize the pick-up of an overhead crane at one construction site and its transport to another. There are three main reasons why we well remember this order:
First: the tight schedule.
Secondly: for the main carriage – the ocean journey. For that, we were dependent on a breakbulk vessel service due to the oversized dimensions of the cargo, and these vessels are rather rare on this specific transport route in South America.
Thirdly: the pre-carriage had to go through the South American jungle and the on-forwarding needed to take the cargo across the Andes – a challenging job.
The multimodal transport included the road haulage to the port of loading, ocean freight transportation to Chile, and road haulage from the port of discharge to the final place of delivery – again using special extendible trailers. Some of the transport sections on the road were very challenging. The cargo had to be carried to altitudes of up to 3,000 meters – on narrow roads in the Andes. The road transports were escorted by the police. Entire route sections were completely closed for regular traffic.
Part charter of breakbulk vessel
For the main carriage, only a shipment via a partly chartered breakbulk vessel came into question. It was also clear that all transport steps in the supply chain had to fit perfectly together in view of the tight schedule. Thanks to a detailed planning and close project supervision, we were able to ensure that all parts of the overhead crane reached their final place of delivery on time.
Our Chilean team is specialized in developing tailor-made project cargo logistics solutions and is familiar with the logistical challenges in South America. While not all orders include such a volume and such special tasks as outlined in our example, it illustrates, quite well how challenging project cargo logistics in South America can be.
