Mark Solomon joined DC VELOCITY as senior editor in August 2008, and was promoted to his current position on January 1, 2015. He has spent more than 30 years in the transportation, logistics and supply chain management fields as a journalist and public relations professional. From 1989 to 1994, he worked in Washington as a reporter for the Journal of Commerce, covering the aviation and trucking industries, the Department of Transportation, Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court. Prior to that, he worked for Traffic World for seven years in a similar role. From 1994 to 2008, Mr. Solomon ran Media-Based Solutions, a public relations firm based in Atlanta. He graduated in 1978 with a B.A. in journalism from The American University in Washington, D.C.
The CEO of global freight forwarder CEVA Logistics, John Pattullo, was a visible presence on the transportation scene last week. He sat on CEO panels at the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) Annual Global Conference and the concurrently run International Air Cargo Forum and Exposition. He also presided over a media breakfast at CSCMP that is fast becoming a tradition, albeit only in its third year.
Turns out it was Pattullo's swan song.
The Scottish-born veteran of the logistics wars at Procter & Gamble, DHL, and CEVA will retire effective on Friday, Dutch-based CEVA said today. Pattullo, 59, will be succeeded by Marvin O. Schlanger, CEVA's chairman. Pattullo will remain on CEVA's board, the company said.
CEVA, owned by affiliates of asset management company Apollo Global Management LLC, generated about $8.8 billion in revenue for the 2011 calendar year.
Pattullo became CEVA's CEO in August 2007 after spending two years running the old Exel's Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) division, and then heading contract logistics in the same region for the combined DHL and Exel operations after DHL acquired Exel.
In a statement, Schlanger said Pattullo had expected to stay at CEVA for only five years. However, during the CSCMP media breakfast in Atlanta on Oct.1, Pattullo did not come across as someone who was about to retire as he discussed with great enthusiasm CEVA's accomplishments and its future plans.
Perhaps Pattullo's two most enduring legacies were overseeing the integration of TNT Logistics and the former air freight forwarder EGL Inc.—the amalgam that became CEVA—and expanding the company's ocean freight business. At one point during his tenure, CEVA was ranked 35th in the world based on the volume of twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) handled. However, following a milestone five-year deal announced in August with food giant H.J. Heinz Co., CEVA jumped to seventh.
CEVA said the Heinz deal marked the first time a shipper with annual volume of at least 60,000 TEUs turned over all its ocean freight management to one logistics provider.
The blunt-spoken Pattullo wasn't short of opinions at the two conferences. He said that Europe, where the company gets 45 percent of its revenue, is effectively a two-tiered continent with the Northern half doing fine and the southern region a monumental mess that could take as long as five years to clean up. He expected global growth to be muted for the next two to three years as sovereign governments around the world enter a period of deleveraging after taking on massive amounts of debt.
Pattullo also had strong words for what he called the "absence of a standard minimum threshold of operating" in the logistics industry. Saying there is no consistency in training processes, Pattullo called on the industry to focus on building a workforce of "logistics engineers" like the ones that exist in other fields such as electric power and chemicals.
In fact, CEVA Logistics has had such problems finding top talent that one-third of the company's senior executives during his tenure were recruited from its customers, Patullo said.
Parcel giant FedEx Corp. is automating its fulfillment flows by investing in the AI robotics and autonomous e-commerce fulfillment technology firm Nimble, and announcing plans to use the San Francisco-based startup’s tech in its own returns network.
The move is significant because FedEx Supply Chain operates at a large scale, running more than 130 warehouse and fulfillment operations in North America and processing 475 million returns annually. According to FedEx, the “strategic alliance” will help to scale up FedEx Fulfillment with Nimble’s “fully autonomous 3PL model.”
“Our strategic alliance and financial investment with Nimble expands our footprint in the e-commerce space, helping to further scale our FedEx Fulfillment offering across North America,” Scott Temple, president, FedEx Supply Chain, said in a release. “Nimble’s cutting-edge AI robotics and autonomous fulfillment systems will help FedEx streamline operations and unlock new opportunities for our customers.”
According to Nimble founder and CEO Simon Kalouche, the collaboration will help enable FedEx to leverage Nimble’s “fast and cost-effective” fulfillment centers, powered by its intelligent general purpose warehouse robots and AI technology.
Nimble says that more than 90% of warehouses today still operate manually with minimal or no robotics, and even those automated warehouses use robots with limited intelligence that are restricted to just a few warehouse functions—primarily storage and retrieval. In contrast, Nimble says its “intelligent general-purpose warehouse robot” is capable of performing all core fulfillment functions including storage and retrieval, picking, packing, and sorting.
For the past seven years, third-party service provider ODW Logistics has provided logistics support for the Pelotonia Ride Weekend, a campaign to raise funds for cancer research at The Ohio State University’s Comprehensive Cancer Center–Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute. As in the past, ODW provided inventory management services and transportation for the riders’ bicycles at this year’s event. In all, some 7,000 riders and 3,000 volunteers participated in the ride weekend.
Photo courtesy of Dematic
For the past four years, automated solutions provider Dematic has helped support students pursuing careers in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields with its FIRST Scholarship program, conducted in partnership with the corporate nonprofit FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology). This year’s scholarship recipients include Aman Amjad of Brookfield, Wisconsin, and Lily Hoopes of Bonney Lake, Washington, who were each awarded $5,000 to support their post-secondary education. Dematic also awarded $1,000 scholarships to another 10 students.
Motive, an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered integrated operations platform, has launched an initiative with PGA Tour pro Jason Day to support the Navy SEAL Foundation (NSF). For every birdie Day makes on tour, Motive will make a contribution to the NSF, which provides support for warriors, veterans, and their families. Fans can contribute to the mission by purchasing a Jason Day Tour Edition hat at https://malbongolf.com/products/m-9189-blk-wht-black-motive-rope-hat.
MTS Logistics Inc., a New York-based freight forwarding and logistics company, raised more than $120,000 for autism awareness and acceptance at its 14th annual Bike Tour with MTS for Autism. All proceeds from the June event were donated to New Jersey-based nonprofit Spectrum Works, which provides job training and opportunities for young adults with autism.
I recently came across a report showing that 86% of CEOs around the world see resiliency problems in their supply chains, and that business leaders are spending more time than ever tackling supply chain-related challenges. Initially I was surprised, thinking that the lessons learned from the Covid-19 pandemic surely prepared industry leaders for just about anything, helping to bake risk and resiliency planning into corporate strategies for companies of all sizes.
But then I thought about the growing number of issues that can affect supply chains today—more frequent severe weather events, accelerating cybersecurity threats, and the tangle of emerging demands and regulations around decarbonization, to name just a few. The level of potential problems seems to be increasing at lightning speed, making it difficult, if not impossible, to plan for every imaginable scenario.
What is it Mike Tyson said? Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.
It has never been more important to be able to pivot and adjust to challenges that can throw you off your game. The report I referenced—the “2024 Supply Chain Barometer” from procurement, supply chain, and sustainability consulting firm Proxima—makes the case for just that. The company surveyed 3,000 CEOs from the United Kingdom, Europe, and the United States and found that the growing complexities in global supply chains necessitate a laser-sharp focus on this area of the business. One example: Rightshoring, which is the process of moving business operations to the best location, means companies are redesigning and reconfiguring their supply chains like never before. The study found that large numbers of CEOs are grappling with the various subsets of rightshoring: 44% said they are planning to or have already undertaken onshoring, for instance; 41% said they are planning to or have undertaken nearshoring; 41% said they are planning to or have undertaken friendshoring; and 35% said they are planning to or have undertaken offshoring.
But that’s not all. CEOs are also struggling to deal with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and its application to business processes, the potential for abuse and labor rights issues in their supply chains, and a growing number of barriers to their companies’ decarbonization efforts. For instance:
Nearly all of those surveyed (99%) said they are either using or considering the use of AI in their supply chains, with 82% saying they are planning new initiatives this year;
More than 60% said they are concerned about the potential for human or labor rights issues in their supply chains;
And virtually all (99%) said they face barriers to decarbonization, with 30% pointing to the complexity of the work required as the biggest barrier.
Those are big issues to contend with, so it’s no surprise that 96% of the CEOs Proxima surveyed said they are dedicating equal (41%) or more time (55%) to supply chain issues this year than last year. And changing economic conditions are adding to the complexity, according to the report.
“As inflation fell throughout last year, there were glimmers of markets stabilizing,” the authors wrote. “The reality, though, has been that global market dynamics are shifting. With no clear-set position for them to land in, CEOs must continue to navigate their organizations through an ever-changing landscape. Just 4% of CEOs foresee the amount of time spent on supply chain-related topics decreasing in the year ahead.”
Simon Geale, executive vice president and chief procurement officer at Proxima, added some perspective.
“It’s fair to say that the complexities of global supply chains continue to have CEOs around the world scratching their heads,” he wrote. “The results of this year’s Barometer show that business leaders are spending more and more time tackling supply chain challenges, reflecting the multiple challenges to address.”
Perhaps the extra focus on supply chain issues will help organizations improve their ability to roll with the punches and overcome resiliency challenges in the year ahead. Only time will tell.
Investing in artificial intelligence (AI) is a top priority for supply chain leaders as they develop their organization’s technology roadmap, according to data from research and consulting firm Gartner.
AI—including machine learning—and Generative AI (GenAI) ranked as the top two priorities for digital supply chain investments globally among more than 400 supply chain leaders surveyed earlier this year. But key differences apply regionally and by job responsibility, according to the research.
Twenty percent of the survey’s respondents said they are prioritizing investments in traditional AI—which analyzes data, identifies patterns, and makes predictions. Virtual assistants like Siri and Alexa are common examples. Slightly less (17%) said they are prioritizing investments in GenAI, which takes the process a step further by learning patterns and using them to generate text, images, and so forth. OpenAI’s ChatGPT is the most common example.
Despite that overall focus, AI lagged as a priority in Western Europe, where connected industry objectives remain paramount, according to Gartner. The survey also found that business-led roles are much less enthusiastic than their IT counterparts when it comes to prioritizing the technology.
“While enthusiasm for both traditional AI and GenAI remain high on an absolute level within supply chain, the prioritization varies greatly between different roles, geographies, and industries,” Michael Dominy, VP analyst in Gartner’s Supply Chain practice, said in a statement announcing the survey results. “European respondents were more likely to prioritize technologies that align with Industry 4.0 objectives, such as smart manufacturing. In addition to region differences, certain industries prioritize specific use cases, such as robotics or machine learning, which are currently viewed as more pragmatic investments than GenAI.”
The survey also found that:
Twenty-six percent of North American respondents identified AI, including machine learning, as their top priority, compared to 14% of Western Europeans.
Fourteen percent of Western European respondents identified robots in manufacturing as their top choice compared to just 1% of North American respondents.
Geographical variances generally correlated with industry-specific priorities; regions with a higher proportion of manufacturing respondents were less likely to select AI or GenAI as a top digital priority.
Digging deeper into job responsibilities, just 12% of respondents with business-focused roles indicated GenAI as a top priority, compared to 28% of IT roles. The data may indicate that GenAI use cases are perceived as less tangible and directly tied to core supply chain processes, according to Gartner.
“Business-led roles are traditionally more comfortable with prioritizing established technologies, and the survey data suggests that these business-led roles still question whether GenAI can deliver an adequate return on investment,” said Dominy. “However, multiple industries including retail, industrial manufacturers and high-tech manufacturers have already made GenAI their top investment priority.”
Regardless of the elected administration, the future likely holds significant changes for trade, taxes, and regulatory compliance. As a result, it’s crucial that U.S. businesses avoid making decisions contingent on election outcomes, and instead focus on resilience, agility, and growth, according to California-based Propel, which provides a product value management (PVM) platform for manufacturing, medical device, and consumer electronics industries.
“Now is not the time to wait for the dust to settle,” Ross Meyercord, CEO of Propel, said in a release. “Companies should approach this election cycle as an opportunity to thrive in the face of constant change by proactively investing in technology and talent that keeps them nimble. Businesses always need to be prepared for changing tariffs, taxes, or geopolitical tensions that lead to unexpected interruptions – that’s just the new normal.”
In Propel’s analysis, a Trump administration would bring a continuation of corporate tax cuts intended to bolster American manufacturing. However, Trump’s suggestion for spiraling tariffs may benefit certain industries, but would drive up costs for businesses reliant on global supply chains.
In contrast, a Harris administration would likely continue the current push for regulatory reforms that support sectors like AI, digital assets, and manufacturing while protecting consumer rights. Harris would also likely prioritize strategic investments in new technologies and provide tax incentives to promote growth in underserved areas.
And regardless of the new administration, the real challenge will come from a potentially divided Congress, which could impact everything from trade negotiations to tax policies, Propel said.
“The election outcome is less material for businesses,” Meyercord said. “What is important is quickly adapting to shifting policies or disruptions that address ‘what if’ scenarios and having the ability to pivot your strategy. A responsive manufacturing sector will have a significant impact on the broader economy, driving growth and favorably influencing GDP. One thing is clear: the only certainty is change.”