By Karen Hanna
The sudden closure in July of Yellow Corp., along with associated brands, including YRC and Holland, has caused delays for at least one company in the plastics industry.
An Aug. 18 email indicated that iD Additives is asking customers for a 10-day business lead time on all orders from the La Grange, Ill., supplier of chemical foaming agents, purging compounds, mold cleaners, preventative maintenance cleaning systems and other products for the plastics industry.
Yellow employed 22,000 people before bankruptcy finally spelled its demise, according to a legal notice provided to the Teamsters Union on July 31. But the long-troubled company was not a major shipper of iD Additives’ products, said Heather Vitullo, logistics coordinator for iD Additives. However, its elimination from the market creates cascading effects.
“iD Additives has been affected by shipments that have been picked up from our warehouse — and then they sit at the LTL terminal before shipping to [customers],” Vitullo said. “To correct for that, I have started shipping our LTL shipments two days earlier than I normally would for posted transit times. Similar but not nearly as bad as during Covid, when [suppliers] and customers actually shut down — causing the market to come to a standstill. There are still plenty of carriers — they are just bogged down a bit with all the freight.”
Along with lead times, shipping costs have trended up, Vitullo said.
To mitigate issues, Vitullo said she has been meeting with representatives of LTL carriers to discuss discounts, and she stays abreast of the fastest available transit times. As of Aug. 22, iD Additives was confirming orders based on when the ship date would be, rather than the delivery date.
Vitullo said, “Our customers are dealing with the same challenges, and we’ve asked them to try [their] best to put [orders] in earlier, expecting the lead times to be longer.”
Karen Hanna, senior staff reporter
