Advanced ID Corp. has received an order for 2 million RFID tags from Chinese tire producer Mesnac, which had previously tested the technology in tires for trucks, buses, and passenger vehicles.
John Johnson joined the DC Velocity team in March 2004. A veteran business journalist, John has over a dozen years of experience covering the supply chain field, including time as chief editor of Warehousing Management. In addition, he has covered the venture capital community and previously was a sports reporter covering professional and collegiate sports in the Boston area. John served as senior editor and chief editor of DC Velocity until April 2008.
The use of RFID tags in tires is finally set to become a reality. Advanced ID Corp. has received an order for 2 million RFID tags from Chinese tire producer Mesnac, which had previously tested the technology in tires for trucks, buses, and passenger vehicles. Mesnac plans to lobby for widespread adoption of RFID technology for use in all tires driven or made in China.
The primary benefit of RFID-enabled tires is the ability to identify and track them for the life of the unit. The technology could be a huge benefit in the event of another mass tire recall, such as Firestone's 2000 recall of 6.5 million tires, which created a logistical nightmare for the company.
"With many of the world's largest tire manufacturers working with Advanced ID, we believe Mesnac's first-mover status will serve as a catalyst for broader adoption of our tire tags," said Dan Finch, president and CEO of Advanced ID, in a press release. "China is a market that Advanced ID is deeply committed to as we believe it represents fertile ground for RFID solutions and is a major component of the Asian tire manufacturing market."
The UHF RFID tire tag solution from Advanced ID is based on the company's proprietary RFID tag readers and RFID tag technology obtained through a licensing agreement with Michelin. Advanced ID's solution is twopronged; it provides a tire tag that is embedded in the tire during the manufacturing process, as well as a tire patch that can be applied to the tire after manufacture or to replacement tires already in the field. Both applications provide a life-of-tire, unique ID that can be used for inventory control, tire maintenance, theft prevention, and managing tire recalls.
Michelin and Goodyear have been among the leaders in testing the technology in the United States. Two years ago, Michelin, the world's largest tire maker, produced the first rewriteable, cured-in transponder that can store vital information. The RFID transponder, which is embedded into the tire during the manufacturing process, allows the tire's identification number to be tied to a vehicle identification number (VIN), making tires uniquely identifiable with an individual vehicle. The tags also store information such as when and where the tire was made, and its maximum inflation pressure.
Goodyear is also proving to be a pioneer when it comes to tires and RFID technology. The tire-maker installed RFID tags on the Eagle tires it leases out to cars competing in NASCAR races. The company says the solution is the quickest way to log in the thousands of new and used tires that must be returned at the end of a race before teams can leave the track.
RFID-tagged tires could be a welcome development for fleet managers. Along with tracking and monitoring tire conditions, RFID tags promise to improve vehicle performance. The tags can sense road conditions and communicate the information to the vehicle's operating system, enabling it to make adjustments if needed. In addition, tagged tires reduce the need for inspections, saving maintenance crews hours of work.
Identec makes concrete case for RFID
RFID is playing a major role in the construction of the Freedom Tower, the 1,776-foot structure being built where the Twin Towers once stood in New York City. As many as 20,000 active RFID tags with temperature sensors will be embedded in the concrete being poured for the building's foundations as well as other parts of the structure.
The RFID tags will allow the contractors to record temperature profiles as the concrete cures. That information will help them determine when the concrete can start bearing loads, thereby cutting down on construction time and costs. In some cases, the curing process can take weeks.
Although the building will have a blast-resistant steel frame, thousands of yards of concrete will be used in the foundation, stairwells, and other areas, according to Peter Linke, executive vice president of sales and marketing at Identec Solutions, the company that is supplying the tags.
Linke reports that there have been no problems reading the RFID tags, even though some are embedded in concrete that is between eight and 12 feet thick. The RFID tags will remain in the concrete once it cures. Linke says that the tags could be read for up to five years, or as long as the battery lasts, but that the tags have no use once the concrete hardens.
Identec Solutions' temperature-tracking tags and readers have been used in some highway applications, but the Freedom Tower represents the first major application of the technology to construction. Pricing information was not available at press time, but the cost is believed to be in the area of $100 per tag.
The Freedom Tower, which will include more than 2.6 million square feet of office space, will open in 2011.
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.