The Impact of the Chip Shortage on Vehicle Life Cycles
Alliance DriveAway Solutions is a logistics company. As Lijun Ji, CEO at Alliance DriveAway Solutions, puts it, DriveAway is like ordering an Uber for machinery. Their solution focuses on the transportation of class A trucks. Ji spoke with Tyler Kern and Greg Crumpton about her business and its unique offering in the marketplace.
When a North Carolina factory manufactures a truck for use in Oregon, it needs to get there somehow. That’s where Alliance DriveAway Solutions takes over. Alliance pulls from many people and drivers to make such deliveries happen safely and efficiently.
“One of our essential functions as a business is to remove the risk from the end user,” Ji said. “When we pick up from the seller to deliver to the buyer, A to B, it’s all taken on by Alliance.” Everyone in the process recognizes risk as a significant factor to mitigate, so Alliance builds its foundation on trust to ensure deliveries go without a hitch.
Part of building, and earning trust, means honesty. Ji said Alliance needs to be open and honest when a request comes in for a delivery. If Alliance can’t make the timeframe requested, it is better to say they can’t do it, then to say yes, and then not deliver on the promise.
As Diesel prices skyrocket, uncertainties and questions impact the industry, making gauging the future tricky. Ji said Alliance feels the pressure driver shortages and the other economic impacts on today’s trucking industry. “Right now, we only use CDL drivers, which is operating class A,” Ji said. “So, that’s a 50,000 shortage.”
Alliance utilizes an extensive contractor network spread throughout the United States to combat these driver shortages. “It’s important to form an infrastructure,” Ji said. “That’s what we’re doing now to be able to specialize them to utilize them more efficiently.”
