Why Panama?

How the tool works

This tool is designed to aid in choosing between two alternative locations for a redistribution hub. The primary factors that a company needs to consider are:

differences in investment for inventory
lead-time to get products from the hub to customers
transportation costs, and
warehousing costs.

This tool provides analytics regarding the first two factors. It should be noted that the only inventory investment considered here is in-transit inventory. While the inventory investments required at the hub and at the customer locations are major factors in determining whether a company should have a hub structure, this investment is generally independent of where the hub is located. Also, obtaining transportation and warehousing costs is necessary to complete the analysis but this requires detailed information sharing between the company and the potential service providers.

Using the tool

1 Define the main flows that would use the redistribution center

Select a country from which goods will be shipped.

Select the specific port of origin from that country’s list.

Do the same with the destination country and port.

Introduce the monthly volume of goods to be shipped between those two ports, and the approximate value of the shipped cargo.

Using the tool

2 Create a network of any size

Add as many lines as you require.

Or remove those you wish to exclude.

When you are ready, click the Proceed button to see the results.

Using the tool

3 Visualize the results for the input scenario

The standard output from a line of input is as follows:

About the calculations:

Average days spent by in-transit inventory at port of origin are estimated as half the inbound service frequency.
Average days spent at hub are estimated as half the outbound service frequency.
Transit times for inventory estimates are based on the liner service with the shortest time linking the respective ports, as published by BlueWater Reporting.
In-transit inventory does not include goods stored at the intermediate hub.
Total in-transit inventory is only shown when a full set of connections is available through the chosen hubs. If a connection is missing, the estimate will be shown as ’not available’.

Using the tool

4 Interact

If you wish to correct any line of input, use the button on the top left of the result page to return to the input sheet. All your changes will be updated the next time you advance to the results page.

The second panel allows you to compare an alternate hub to Panama. Use

to choose a location from the list.