Retailers are increasingly treating ocean schedule reliability not simply as a transportation metric, but as a strategic lever for inventory performance.
Speaking at TPM26 by S&P Global in Long Beach, executives from Dollar General and Ashley Furniture Industries said that more reliable vessel schedules are helping them improve planning, lower variability and reduce the risk of stockouts and operational disruption.
For Dollar General, the benefits are closely linked to the Gemini network, the operational alliance between Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd launched in 2025. The network says it is operating at 90% schedule reliability, using around 340 vessels with a combined capacity of roughly 3.7 million TEU, according to Hapag-Lloyd.
Chelsea Morris, Dollar General’s vice president of global inbound transportation, said better reliability directly influences how much product the retailer needs in the pipeline and how much safety stock it has to carry. When variability declines, the company does not need to build as much buffer inventory into the system.
That improvement matters because not all products carry the same risk. Morris explained that some goods have a narrow selling window and cannot tolerate delays, while others can absorb a longer transit time. Having clear data on which carriers are performing more consistently helps the retailer make smarter routing decisions and align shipping choices with product risk.
Reducing variability, she added, also helps prevent inefficiencies from spilling through the supply chain and creating avoidable bottlenecks.
Ashley Furniture sees similar value in reliability, especially for products tied to promotions or production deadlines. Rebecca Ziebarth, vice president of global trade management, said the stakes are high when critical goods fail to arrive on time. With 9,000 employees in the United States relying on uninterrupted operations, a delayed shipment can carry significant consequences if it causes a production line to stop.
Ashley Furniture ships to around 150 countries, and manufacturing represents the largest component of its supply chain. In that environment, dependable ocean service is not just about transit—it is about business continuity.
For shippers operating in a volatile freight market, the message from TPM26 was straightforward: reliability is no longer a nice-to-have. It is increasingly shaping inventory strategy, risk management and cost control.
