ICE Delivers On A 500-Tonne Logistics Project And Saves Fabritecture $110k AUD in Customs Duty

ICE assisted international developers Fabritecture with shipping over 2,130 m³ of material for the Cedar Mill, the multimillion-dollar redevelopment project in NSW.

Challenge

Fabritecture is an internationally renowned development company, providing specialist design and contracting for bespoke fabric architecture and modular fabric structures. Their latest project is the $235 million redevelopment of Morisset Golf Course, to be known as Cedar Mill, which includes a new concert venue, cafes and restaurants, tourist accommodation and Australia’s largest aquatic play park across a 90-hectare site.

Fabritecture contracted ICE to arrange the shipping of more than 500,000kgs of material from Asia to the project’s site.

The volume of half a million kilos of material was a challenge (more than 2,130 m³) meaning we would need to balance delivery with project timelines, the need to unload by crane on site, and the risk of warehouse storage, terminal charges and container detention costs.

Additionally, some of the steel product was out-of-gauge vertically. This required shipping in open-top units and extra consideration for tunnel height during the road transport leg of the delivery.

In total, there were 38 containers of steel shipped – 27 40’OHs and 9 40’HCs – and two 40’GPs.

To summarise, our key challenges for this project were:

• The volume of goods required.
• The requirement for unloading by crane on site.
• Risk of high additional costs for warehouse storage, quay rent, container detention, or crane hire if too much cargo arrived at once or if the deliveries were too spaced out.
• Tunnel height when delivering out-of-gauge cargo by road.

From a customs perspective, we also needed to ensure quick clearance to avoid delays and try to reduce the tax spend if possible.

Solutions

When booking the carriage with the shipping line, we were able to negotiate 14 days free-time for the steel shipments. This allowed us to plan for maximum use of the time on and off quay to avoid any unforeseen issues – such as a vessel delay, prolonged vessel unloading, or customs examination.

We also understood that the nine 40’HCs required unloading at a warehouse with a weighted forklift first to allow for efficient unloading on site. This cargo would be loaded onto a flatbed trailer for the delivery to destination so that the goods could be offloaded from the trailer by crane.

Once we had established our boundaries for the operation, we worked with Fabritecture to understand how the cargo would be staged based on ready dates. We then created a schedule that balanced the priorities and schedule of the site with the logistical requirements for delivery.

Our solution was to ship the goods over four consignments, three steel shipments followed by the shipment of fabrics for the roof of the project structure:

Consignment one

The majority (eight) of the 40’HCs were delivered in the first consignment, with deliveries to site planned to begin nine days later – on the Monday –  to allow time for unloading at the warehouse.

Additionally, two of the 40’OH were shipped in consignment one. These were delivered direct without unloading via the warehouse, but required the use of specialised drop deck trailers. This reduced the height of the vehicle by half a meter, allowing the vehicle to pass through tunnels and save the customer costly diversion surcharges.

All the cargo in consignment one was delivered within two days with one hour staging between the delivery times, ensuring the customer did not overspend on crane hire charges or incur vehicle detention.

Consignment two

Due to the requirement for most of consignment one to unload at the warehouse, we scheduled consignment two for arrival three weeks later.

This shipment consisted of 14 open top containers, which were all delivered direct to site within a week of vessel arrival.

Again, we utilised low profile trailers to take into account the tunnel height and save the client diversion surcharges, and minimised the crane hire cost by delivering all the units within three days.

Consignment three

Consignment three arrived two weeks after consignment two, and consisted of 11 40’OH units with one 40’GP.

All the goods were delivered within a week and over the space of two days, with the warehouse unloading the 40’GP on day one for delivery on day two.

Consignment four

The shipment of fabric from The Philippines needed to be delivered last because it was for the roof of Fabritecture’s structure. We also had significant notice for this shipment because it would not be required on-site until a few months after the steel delivery.

This meant that we could book the consignment on an economy service, taking 35 days to arrive via Singapore. Additionally, we spotted that the proposed shipment of four 20’GPs could be consolidated into two 40’GPs.

This saved the client over AUD 8,000 in sea freight costs before the goods had left origin.

The two 40’GPs were devanned and both deliveries were made to the warehouse on the same day.

Customs implications

To help avoid any delays with customs, our team processed the import declarations ahead of arrival.

Furthermore, our customs brokers applied for duty-free import thanks to the Free Trade Agreements in place with the two countries of import.

We worked with the overseas suppliers to ensure that all paperwork was in order so that Fabritecture could make use of these preferential rates.

Results

Due to our project team’s planning, our client:

• Had all materials on site when required
• Only incurred eight days of crane hire costs for 38 deliveries
• Saved more than AUD 8,000 in shipping costs
• Incurred no additional costs for quay rent, container detention, or warehouse storage
• Eliminated duty costs, saving approximately AUD 110,000

Our team was in constant communication with the client and maintained daily a personalised shipment tracker to ensure that they had transparency of our operation at all times.

If you have a large-scale operation and could use experienced project logistics coordinators to help you save money and reduce complications – contact our team for more information.