Archive for Transportation
Logistics executives face many transportation-related challenges, both today and in the future: volatile fuel prices, capacity constraints, road congestion, driver shortage, hours-of-service and safety regulations, sustainability initiatives, new taxes and fees (e.g., carbon emissions tax? vehicle miles travelled fee?), and the list goes on. This reality has led many shippers and carriers to focus on ways to improve the productivity of their transportation operations. Some have invested in… Continue reading
Innovating the Lowly Truck Trailer
· CommentsWhat will truckers haul when there’s nothing left to haul?
This question popped into my head yesterday when I heard the news from Amazon that over the past month it has sold 180 Kindle books for every 100 hardcover books it has sold. Simply put, the Internet is a growing transportation mode in some industries.
Of course, not everything is going digital. There is still plenty of stuff to ship around… Continue reading
Back in February, I wrote a piece on courage, trust, and patience in logistics where I relayed the following story:
I recently came across a Fortune 500 company that could have saved millions of dollars in transportation costs by putting its freight out to bid. But after much internal debate, the company decided to honor its current rates with carriers. Why?… Continue reading
VICS Empty Miles: A Retailer’s Experience
· CommentsVICS, the Voluntary Interindustry Commerce Solutions Association, has a program called “Empty Miles.” It is an online backhaul solution that enables a collaborative business process for identifying transportation efficiency opportunities between trading partners. When I attended the annual JDA user conference a few weeks ago, one of JDA’s retail customers endorsed this program.
Empty Miles matches a shipper’s trailers that are returning empty with another pre-qualified shipper’s… Continue reading
Most of the world will be focused on the World Cup these coming days. But for those of you more interested in supply chain and logistics, here’s some noteworthy news:
- Freight Transportation Services Index (TSI) Rose 0.3% in April from March
- AAR Reports Monthly Rail Traffic Continues Mixed Gains in May 2010
- State of the Air Transport Industry (from IATA)
- Con-way
Last summer, I wrote a posting highlighting the “white spaces” of transportation management—i.e., existing opportunities for companies and software vendors to innovate the way transportation is planned and executed. In many cases, these opportunities are not new, but either the technology hasn’t existed to enable them very well or companies have simply chosen to focus on other priorities.
One positive effect of the recession is that it has… Continue reading
A few weeks ago, I moderated a panel discussion at Transplace’s Shipper Symposium on “Reengineered Packaging and Its Impact on Transportation and Trailer Utilization.” The panelists included:
- Dave Allen, Executive Vice President, Operations, Del Monte Foods
- Richard Stocking, President and COO, Swift Transportation
- Dr. Terry Tremwel, Chairman of the Board, Trem│Wel Energy LLC
- Jack Ampuja, President, Supply Chain Optimizers
- Simon Ellis, Practice Director
This was a relatively quiet week, but here are some items that caught our attention:
- SAP Underpins On-Demand Strategy With the Proven Power of Partners
- New Release of SAP® Business ByDesign™ Gives Customers In-Memory Analytics, Support for Mobile Devices, and Customizable User Interfaces
- CDC Software Acquires TradeBeam, a Leading Cloud-Based Provider of Global Supply Chain Visibility and Trade Management Solutions
- UPS
