Sea-truck, not air-truck.(manufacturing industry supply chains may be serviced with fast track marine cargo)

BYLINE: BY PETER T. LEACH

As U.S. manufacturers of industrial products follow the lead of consumer products manufacturers in outsourcing their production to Asia, their time-critical supply chains are being hit even harder by any delays in the ocean, port and rail segments of the import sequence.

That's because the production lines run by their industrial customers in the U.S. depend on timely delivery of parts. Any interruption in deliveries can lead to costly production delays, especially in the case of auto parts, where U.S. manufacturers are struggling to return to profitability by outsourcing production to China.

One way around the delays is by combining airfreight from Asia with …