critical shipment

Critical Shipment Services: 4 Key Industries That Rely on Them

Certain industries demand shipping solutions that go far beyond the general, more traditional shipping methods. The industries we’re going to discuss typically depend on critical shipment services to ensure equipment, materials, and other goods arrive quickly, safely and often under very tight time constraints. The timely delivery of goods is crucial to their operations and, ultimately, their success. Whether the critical shipment is made up of life-saving medical equipment or essential parts for manufacturing to stop a production line shutdown, industry-specific, critical shipments play a vital role in maintaining efficiency and meeting specific customer demands.

Here are four of the top industries that rely heavily on critical shipment services:

Healthcare 🏥

Although we’re not writing these in any particular order, the healthcare industry is arguably the industry that we would put as number one for the most dependent on critical shipment services. Medications and life-saving operative equipment often require rapid and secure transportation. Any sort of delay could have detrimental, serious and sometimes even fatal consequences. So, in the healthcare industry, the margin for error is almost non-existent.

  • Pharmaceuticals 

To maintain their efficacy, many pharmaceuticals like vaccines, medication and sensitive drugs require meticulous handling and transportation. Critical shipment services ensure these shipments reach hospitals and other healthcare settings in optimal condition.

  • Medical Equipment

Hospitals and other medical facilities depend on critical shipment services for equipment like ventilators, dialysis machines, surgical tools, etc. and for obvious reasons, we’re sure you can imagine just how important it is that these types of shipments are delivered promptly.

  • Regulatory Compliance

The healthcare industry is so heavily regulated, with extremely strict standards regarding how medical supplies are handled, transported and delivered. This means specialized shipping companies that offer medical supply deliveries must be up to date with and comply with regulations and industry standards, according to HIPAA and FDA guidelines.

Aerospace & Aviation ✈️

Critical shipment services in the aerospace and aviation industry are critical in a completely different way to healthcare shipments. Where healthcare shipping is focused on patient well-being, aerospace and aviation rely on timely deliveries to prevent delays in essential parts, which can result in significant operational and financial losses.

critical shipment

  • Aircraft Parts

A grounded aircraft for any period of time due to maintenance needs or malfunctions costs a lot of money. It can cost an airline tens of thousands of dollars per hour for one of their planes to be grounded. This is why they rely so heavily on critical shipment solutions to get parts quickly and get planes back up in the air.

  • Expensive Parts

These parts we’re talking of are often very expensive components as they’re highly specialized. Therefore, shipments of this kind require special handling, packaging and a white glove service to prevent damages in transit.

  • Global Reach

As you’re probably well aware, not all aeroplanes are built in the USA. So, if you imagine you’ve got an Airbus that’s built in Germany and there’s a malfunctioning issue that requires a new, really niche part, more than likely that part will come from Germany. Critical shipment providers with a global network can ensure necessary components can be sourced and delivered from anywhere in the world within a 24-hour window.

Energy & Utilities 💧💨

Energy infrastructures often require the efficient transportation of large and heavy materials used for maintaining them. It’s super important to keep our energy and utility grids up and running to stop power and water outages.

  • Maintenance & Repairs

Power plants, oil rigs and wind farms all take on regular maintenance schedules and delays in components can lead to outages. Critical shipments ensure the delivery of urgent parts and avoid disruptions to power supply.

  • Emergency Repairs

During grid failures, natural disasters or any other event that can cause problems to utility infrastructures, companies in these industries rely heavily upon urgent delivery of parts and tools to make repairs and restore power as quickly as possible.

  • Hazardous Material Handling

There are for obvious reasons, specialized safety protocols around transporting and handling hazardous materials, such as gases, and water treatment chemicals. Critical shipment services ensure they abide by safety regulations and compliances.

Manufacturing & Automotive 🚘

critical shipment

Manufacturing and automotive industries are particularly reliant on just-in-time supply chains for parts and materials. This is so they can minimize their storage costs and delays.

  • Automotive Production Lines

Critical shipment services are needed to keep production lines moving. Any delays can cause ripple effects through the entire supply chain, as car manufacturers operate on tight schedules.

  • Recalls & Repairs

You hear about vehicles being recalled all of the time, right? Well for manufacturers recalls are nothing short of a nightmare. Their aim is to get all of the recalled vehicles back with their owners as quickly as possible. Meaning, they rely heavily on critical shipment services to help with the rapid delivery of parts to replace any faulty ones causing the recall.

  • Just-in-time Manufacturing

The automotive and manufacturing industry utilize just-in-time production models. So, parts and components are ordered as and when they’re needed, delayed shipments can lead to costly downtime due to an assembly line shutdown.

How Can PEI Help? 😊

Although we’ve covered some of the top industries relying on critical shipment services most frequently. The reality is that at some point most industries will require some form of expedited, critical or emergency shipping service. If you regularly need help with these types of shipments then we want you to imagine…no more worrying whether your critical shipments will arrive on time and intact, because, even when you have a difficult shipment with stringent requirements, we can create a custom plan that satisfies every objective:

  • Date-specific and time-specific shipments
  • Delivered to a specific person or group of people
  • Account manager who knows your business
  • Personalized service built around your process, not ours

Because that’s the type of service you get with us at PEI. We specialize in specialized, critical and emergency shipping solutions which means, we can offer efficient deliveries in time sensitive situations. Let us help you!

Need help with any of your specialized, or critcal shipments?

At PEI, we’re experts in dealing with specialized freight and can handle yours with any custom requirements.

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