Lloyd's Register (LR) has recently launched a new service called "Supply Chain Resilience Services" to assist ports, governments, and logistics operators in moving critical cargo when business disruptions arise, including geopolitical crises, congestion, severe weather, or infrastructure failures.
Disruption Detection and Assessment
When a port, border, or transport link is under significant pressure, disruptions can quickly spread throughout the logistics network. In this regard, Lloyd's Register assesses disruptions at ports, airports, road borders, and rail connections to identify how pressure on one part of the network can lead to new bottlenecks in other areas. Following this assessment, LR helps its clients evaluate alternative gateways and combinations of sea, air, and land transport in relation to cost, capacity, delays, and risk.
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Planning and Responding to Disruptions
In the early stages (0-90 days) of a disruption, Lloyd's Register can conduct a rapid assessment of affected routes and provide a response plan for the next 30, 60, and 90 days. This plan may include alternative routing, prioritization of cargo, deviation timing, emergency capacity measures, and clear operational rules that enable clients to adapt to changing conditions.
For essential and time-sensitive shipments such as food, medicine, energy supply, and industrial exports, Lloyd's Register can assist in determining which cargo should be prioritized and how to utilize available capacity. Alternative maritime, sea-air, sea-land, and air-land routes can also be explored.
Kamran Al Haq, Senior Vice President of Port Consulting Services at Lloyd's Register, said, "The worst time to discover that an alternative route cannot handle your required cargo is when your main gateway has already been disrupted." He also noted that diverting cargo is not simply a matter of choosing another port, as multiple factors such as capacity, internal connections, border processes, costs, and availability must be considered.
This service also helps clients turn lessons learned from short-term disruptions into long-term decisions about their logistics networks and infrastructure. Over a time horizon of three months to five years, Lloyd's Register can assess how diversity in corridors and infrastructure development can reduce dependence on specific gateways and bottleneck points.
Kamran Al Haq added, "Resilience does not mean predicting where the next disruption will occur, but understanding the vulnerable points in the supply chain and preparing viable options before they are needed. This includes looking beyond immediate diversion. Decisions made during a disruption can indicate where future investments, additional capacity, or greater diversity in corridors can make the network more resilient."
