Hytrol Conveyor Co. has named Graham Starling manager of multimedia and marketing specialties. Starling has been with Hytrol for over 15 years, 10 of them in the marketing area.
Mario Herndl has been promoted to chief operating officer of TGW-ERMANCO. He previously served as chief liaison officer between parent company TGW GmbH of Austria and the Michigan-based TGW- ERMANCO.
The National Industrial Transportation League has added C. Jake Jacoby to its staff as a policy analyst. His primary focus will be on highway transportation issues, such as funding, public partnerships, and productivity. He will also work as the staff liaison with the Highway Transportation Committee.
Keogh Consulting, a management consulting firm for the supply chain industry, is opening a new office in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metro-Plex. The company currently has offices in Cleveland, Minneapolis, and Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. Norm Saenz has been hired as an associate principal and will head the new Texas office.
Grimes Trucking Co. has chosen Ike Sherlock as its new director of fleet operations, responsible for the general management of the company's trucking business. Before his latest move, Sherlock worked for the company's non-assetbased subsidiary, Grimes Transportation Brokerage.
HighJump Software has hired Joel Levinson as its new president. Levinson joins HighJump after 20 years with EDS.
Joel Hoffner has retired as president and CEO of Paragon Technologies, an Easton, Pa.-based supplier of material handling equipment and warehouse and distribution software solutions. Hoffner will continue as a consultant to the company. Leonard Yurkovic, former CEO and a current board member, has been appointed acting CEO, and William Casey has been named president and chief operating officer of SI Systems, Paragon's material handling business.
Descartes Systems Group, a vendor of software-as-aservice logistics solutions, has hired Stephanie Ratza as its new chief financial officer. She has worked for more than 12 years in financial capacities with other public technology companies.
Hans-Georg Frey has been named chairman of the board of management for lift truck manufacturer Jungheinrich, AG. Prior to the appointment, Frey had been managing director for Liebherr-Werk Ehingen GmbH, a German manufacturer of vehicle cranes and heavy-duty crawler cranes. In addition to lift trucks, Jungheinrich supplies integrated material handling solutions, rack systems, and other logistics products.
Michael Lavelle has been promoted to president of the U.S. truck division for Doosan Infracore Forklifts. He had been vice president of sales and marketing for the company for the past 10 years. Lavelle replaces Tom Yoon, who has been reassigned to the post of managing director for overseas sales and marketing in Seoul, Korea.
Con-way has promoted Lynn Reinbolt to president of its trailer manufacturing subsidiary, Road Systems Inc. Road Systems designs, builds, and sells freight trailers and other equipment to its sister transportation and logistics operating companies within the Con-way organization. Reinbolt previously was general manager of Road Systems.
In other Con-way news, Con-way Freight's director of safety and environmental compliance, Robert Petrancosta, has been selected as a member of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee.
The Conveyor Equipment Manufacturers Association has elected Fred Thimmel as its new president. In his regular role, Thimmel is president of Bryant Products of Ixonia, Wis. The association also elected Daniel Fannin of Emerson Power Transmission as vice president; R. Todd Swinderman of Martin Engineering as secretary; and Bill Pugh of Ralphs-Pugh Co. as treasurer. The following were elected to the board: Jim Calhoun of FMC Technologies; Warren Chandler of Stephens- Adamson; Rick Lee of Transnorm; and Jim Lamb of Drives Inc.
White Systems, a manufacturer of carousel storage systems, has appointed Michael Brandel vice president of manufacturing. He has been with the company since 2003. White also named Charles Scagliozzi senior vice president of customer service and support. Scagliozzi has been with White since 1985 and brings over 20 years of experience working with customers to his new position. In addition to customer support, he will be responsible for all of White's IT efforts.
Angelica Rodriguez has been named director, loss prevention for the National Retail Federation. Prior to her promotion, Rodriguez worked in the NRF membership department as a member relations manager.
Supply chain planning (SCP) leaders working on transformation efforts are focused on two major high-impact technology trends, including composite AI and supply chain data governance, according to a study from Gartner, Inc.
"SCP leaders are in the process of developing transformation roadmaps that will prioritize delivering on advanced decision intelligence and automated decision making," Eva Dawkins, Director Analyst in Gartner’s Supply Chain practice, said in a release. "Composite AI, which is the combined application of different AI techniques to improve learning efficiency, will drive the optimization and automation of many planning activities at scale, while supply chain data governance is the foundational key for digital transformation.”
Their pursuit of those roadmaps is often complicated by frequent disruptions and the rapid pace of technological innovation. But Gartner says those leaders can accelerate the realized value of technology investments by facilitating a shift from IT-led to business-led digital leadership, with SCP leaders taking ownership of multidisciplinary teams to advance business operations, channels and products.
“A sound data governance strategy supports advanced technologies, such as composite AI, while also facilitating collaboration throughout the supply chain technology ecosystem,” said Dawkins. “Without attention to data governance, SCP leaders will likely struggle to achieve their expected ROI on key technology investments.”
The British logistics robot vendor Dexory this week said it has raised $80 million in venture funding to support an expansion of its artificial intelligence (AI) powered features, grow its global team, and accelerate the deployment of its autonomous robots.
A “significant focus” continues to be on expanding across the U.S. market, where Dexory is live with customers in seven states and last month opened a U.S. headquarters in Nashville. The Series B will also enhance development and production facilities at its UK headquarters, the firm said.
The “series B” funding round was led by DTCP, with participation from Latitude Ventures, Wave-X and Bootstrap Europe, along with existing investors Atomico, Lakestar, Capnamic, and several angels from the logistics industry. With the close of the round, Dexory has now raised $120 million over the past three years.
Dexory says its product, DexoryView, provides real-time visibility across warehouses of any size through its autonomous mobile robots and AI. The rolling bots use sensor and image data and continuous data collection to perform rapid warehouse scans and create digital twins of warehouse spaces, allowing for optimized performance and future scenario simulations.
Originally announced in September, the move will allow Deutsche Bahn to “fully focus on restructuring the rail infrastructure in Germany and providing climate-friendly passenger and freight transport operations in Germany and Europe,” Werner Gatzer, Chairman of the DB Supervisory Board, said in a release.
For its purchase price, DSV gains an organization with around 72,700 employees at over 1,850 locations. The new owner says it plans to investment around one billion euros in coming years to promote additional growth in German operations. Together, DSV and Schenker will have a combined workforce of approximately 147,000 employees in more than 90 countries, earning pro forma revenue of approximately $43.3 billion (based on 2023 numbers), DSV said.
After removing that unit, Deutsche Bahn retains its core business called the “Systemverbund Bahn,” which includes passenger transport activities in Germany, rail freight activities, operational service units, and railroad infrastructure companies. The DB Group, headquartered in Berlin, employs around 340,000 people.
“We have set clear goals to structurally modernize Deutsche Bahn in the areas of infrastructure, operations and profitability and focus on the core business. The proceeds from the sale will significantly reduce DB’s debt and thus make an important contribution to the financial stability of the DB Group. At the same time, DB Schenker will gain a strong strategic owner in DSV,” Deutsche Bahn CEO Richard Lutz said in a release.
Transportation industry veteran Anne Reinke will become president & CEO of trade group the Intermodal Association of North America (IANA) at the end of the year, stepping into the position from her previous post leading third party logistics (3PL) trade group the Transportation Intermediaries Association (TIA), both organizations said today.
Meanwhile, TIA today announced that insider Christopher Burroughs would fill Reinke’s shoes as president & CEO. Burroughs has been with TIA for 13 years, most recently as its vice president of Government Affairs for the past six years, during which time he oversaw all legislative and regulatory efforts before Congress and the federal agencies.
Before her four years leading TIA, Reinke spent two years as Deputy Assistant Secretary with the U.S. Department of Transportation and 16 years with CSX Corporation.
Serious inland flooding and widespread power outages are likely to sweep across Florida and other Southeast states in coming days with the arrival of Hurricane Helene, which is now predicted to make landfall Thursday evening along Florida’s northwest coast as a major hurricane, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
While the most catastrophic landfall impact is expected in the sparsely-population Big Bend area of Florida, it’s not only sea-front cities that are at risk. Since Helene is an “unusually large storm,” its flooding, rainfall, and high winds won’t be limited only to the Gulf Coast, but are expected to travel hundreds of miles inland, the weather service said. Heavy rainfall is expected to begin in the region even before the storm comes ashore, and the wet conditions will continue to move northward into the southern Appalachians region through Friday, dumping storm total rainfall amounts of up to 18 inches. Specifically, the major flood risk includes the urban areas around Tallahassee, metro Atlanta, and western North Carolina.
In addition to its human toll, the storm could exert serious business impacts, according to the supply chain mapping and monitoring firm Resilinc. Those will be largely triggered by significant flooding, which could halt oil operations, force mandatory evacuations, restrict ports, and disrupt air traffic.
While the storm’s track is currently forecast to miss the critical ports of Miami and New Orleans, it could still hurt operations throughout the Southeast agricultural belt, which produces products like soybeans, cotton, peanuts, corn, and tobacco, according to Everstream Analytics.
That widespread footprint could also hinder supply chain and logistics flows along stretches of interstate highways I-10 and I-75 and on regional rail lines operated by Norfolk Southern and CSX. And Hurricane Helene could also likely impact business operations by unleashing power outages, deep flooding, and wind damage in northern Florida portions of Georgia, Everstream Analytics said.
Before the storm had even touched Florida soil, recovery efforts were already being launched by humanitarian aid group the American Logistics Aid Network (ALAN). In a statement on Wednesday, the group said it is urging residents in the storm's path across the Southeast to heed evacuation notices and safety advisories, and reminding members of the logistics community that their post-storm help could be needed soon. The group will continue to update its Disaster Micro-Site with Hurricane Helene resources and with requests for donated logistics assistance, most of which will start arriving within 24 to 72 hours after the storm’s initial landfall, ALAN said.