Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

newsworthy

MSC to begin double-calls at Port of Norfolk

Shipping line will adjust port rotation on Suez Canal route to make two stops at Virginia port.

The Mediterranean Shipping Co. S.A. (MSC), one of the world's leading liner companies, plans next month to begin "double-calls" at the Port of Norfolk as part of its weekly Asia-U.S. sailing through the Suez Canal, the Virginia Port Authority, which operates the port, said today.

According to port officials, Geneva-based MSC will adjust its port rotation on the journey in order to call twice at Norfolk, the first time a shipping line has chosen the port for this type of service.


MSC's Golden Gate route currently uses the Suez Canal to link Hong Kong and China with New York, Baltimore, Norfolk, Charleston, Savannah, and Freeport in the Bahamas. However, under the adjusted port rotation, an MSC vessel will then return to Norfolk from Freeport, take on a full load there, and return to Asia via the Suez.

Joe Harris, a port spokesman, said Norfolk's 50-foot channel drafts, the deepest on the East Coast, were a key factor in MSC's decision to schedule a "double-call" at the Virginia port.

The Latest

More Stories

survey on late ecommerce deliveries

Survey: 53% of e-com orders are late, damaged, or misplaced

More than half of home deliveries to U.S. online shoppers arrive either late, damaged, or at the wrong address, totaling 53% of orders with one of those issues, according to a study from e-commerce software vendor HubBox.

Specifically, almost one in three (27%) home delivery packages are currently delivered late, while almost one in six (15%) online orders are delivered to the wrong address. The results come from Atlanta-based HubBox, which works with networks and carriers to provide retailers with pickup access to over 400,000 locations worldwide.

Keep ReadingShow less

Featured

Something new for you

Regular online readers of DC Velocity and Supply Chain Xchange have probably noticed something new during the past few weeks. Our team has been working for months to produce shiny new websites that allow you to find the supply chain news and stories you need more easily.

It is always good for a media brand to undergo a refresh every once in a while. We certainly are not alone in retooling our websites; most of you likely go through that rather complex process every few years. But this was more than just your average refresh. We did it to take advantage of the most recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI).

Keep ReadingShow less
FTR trucking conditions chart

In this chart, the red and green bars represent Trucking Conditions Index for 2024. The blue line represents the Trucking Conditions Index for 2023. The index shows that while business conditions for trucking companies improved in August of 2024 versus July of 2024, they are still overall negative.

Image courtesy of FTR

Trucking sector ticked up slightly in August, but still negative

Buoyed by a return to consistent decreases in fuel prices, business conditions in the trucking sector improved slightly in August but remain negative overall, according to a measure from transportation analysis group FTR.

FTR’s Trucking Conditions Index improved in August to -1.39 from the reading of -5.59 in July. The Bloomington, Indiana-based firm forecasts that its TCI readings will remain mostly negative-to-neutral through the beginning of 2025.

Keep ReadingShow less
trucks parked in big lot

OOIDA cheers federal funding for truck parking spots

A coalition of truckers is applauding the latest round of $30 million in federal funding to address what they call a “national truck parking crisis,” created when drivers face an imperative to pull over and stop when they cap out their hours of service, yet can seldom find a safe spot for their vehicle.

The Biden Administration yesterday took steps to address that problem by including parking funds in its $4.2 billion in money from the National Infrastructure Project Assistance (Mega) grant program and the Infrastructure for Rebuilding America (INFRA) grant program, both of which are funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

Keep ReadingShow less
Raymond lift truck lifting pallet

The Raymond Corporation

How to handle a pallet

Robotic technology has been sweeping through warehouses nationwide as companies seek to automate repetitive tasks in a bid to speed operations and free up human labor for other activities. Many of those implementations have been focused on picking tasks, a trend driven largely by the need to fill accelerating e-commerce orders. But as the robotic-picking market matures and e-commerce growth levels off, the robotic revolution is shifting behind the picking lines, with many companies investing in pallet-handling robots as a way to keep efficiency gains coming.

“Earlier in this decade and the previous decade, we [saw] a lot of [material handling] transformation around e-commerce and the handling of goods to order,” explains Josh Kivenko, chief marketing officer and senior vice president at Vecna Robotics, which provides autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) for pallet handling and logistics operations. “Now we’re talking about pallets—moving material in bulk behind that line.”

Keep ReadingShow less