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 president and CEO of the South Carolina State Ports Authority said the Port of Charleston can continue to grow
its volumes above industry trend only if its harbor is dredged to the 50-foot depths needed to accommodate the larger
vessels that will be plying the world's seafaring trades in the years to come.
James I. Newsome III told the South Carolina International Trade Conference at Isle of Palms Monday that a strong
exporting region like the Southeast needs a harbor with a 50-foot depth if it is to attract the mega-ships that will
be serving the East Coast once the expanded Panama Canal opens sometime in 2015. Newsome said the ports authority is
"basing an aggressive business plan" on Charleston's having five more feet of water depth than its current 45-foot
level at low tide, which is still the deepest channel in the Southeast.
Charleston today can accommodate vessels with 48-foot drafts but only during periods of high tides that last about two hours.
Newsome said ships don't want to wait for high tide or be forced to enter and exit the harbor during specific times. A 50-foot
depth will allow large vessels unrestricted access to the port, Newsome said.
The $5.5 billion Panama Canal expansion will enable ships carrying up to 13,000 twenty-foot equivalent units of containers
(TEUs) to bridge the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Currently, the Canal cannot accommodate vessels larger than 5,100 TEUs. Work
on the Canal is about three-quarters complete, Rodolfo Sabonge, executive vice president, market analysis and research for the
Panama Canal Authority, told the group.
At this time, the ports of New York and New Jersey, Norfolk, and Baltimore have 50-foot depths. Port Miami is expected to reach
that level by 2015.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is about halfway through a feasibility study to determine if the Charleston harbor should be
deepened. The final report, due by September 2015, will identify the project's economic benefits and environmental impacts and
establish a benefit-to-cost ratio that includes the mitigation costs needed to offset environmental impacts. Congress is
responsible for authorizing projects like the harbor deepening under the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA). The current
version of the WRDA, which would authorize deepening the Charleston harbor, passed the Senate in May and is now moving through the
House.
If all goes according to plan, the Charleston project should be completed by the end of 2018, according to Newsome. However,
Corps officials have gone on record targeting 2020 as a completion year.
The South Carolina legislature has set aside $300 million in state funds for the estimated construction costs. Of that, $120
million will be spent only if federal funding doesn't come through. Newsome lauded lawmakers' commitment to the harbor-deepening
project, saying he knows of no other circumstance where a state has been willing to pony up all the money for such a major
initiative. However, he told the audience that South Carolina's citizens should not have to shoulder an additional $120 million
burden given the project's economic benefits to the region and the country.
The Port of Savannah, about 100 miles to the south, faces a somewhat similar situation. Georgia port officials would like to deepen their harbor
to 47 feet by 2016 or 2017. The port currently has only 42 feet of harbor depth and has been working for years to get adequate
federal funding to deepen its harbor. Last fall, the port received final approval from the federal government to deepen more
than 30 miles of the Savannah River. But the funding in President Obama's budget proposal came in millions of dollars below
what state officials hoped to receive.
Vessels in the 9,000 to 10,000 TEU range will be the initial workhorses when the expanded Canal opens, Sabonge told the
conference Tuesday. But Newsome, in an interview Monday with DC VELOCITY at the port's Charleston headquarters, said
13,000-TEU vessels will eventually become the norm after the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey completes a $1.3 billion
project to raise the roadway on the Bayonne Bridge by 64 feet to create a 215-foot clearance at high tide to accommodate the
bigger ships. The project is set for completion in late 2016.
Newsome said that ships transiting the Canal from Asia will likely call first at the Port of New York and New Jersey because
it supports the nation's largest consumption base. From there, they will call at either Charleston or Savannah to load export
tonnage, he said.
Newsome said the other two primary Southeast ports in a 350-mile radius, Wilmington, N.C., and Jacksonville, Fla., lack the
infrastructures and the water depth to attract the mega-ships. Without that traffic, they cannot justify the investments needed
to compete, he said. Savannah and Charleston are the nation's fourth and fifth busiest container ports, respectively, behind Los
Angeles, Long Beach, and New York and New Jersey.
Newsome dismissed Miami's contention that vessels will use south Florida as their first-in, last-out location with cargo
radiating across the Southeast from there. "I don't believe in that thesis," he said.
Charleston handled 1.56 million TEUs in the 2013 fiscal year, which ended June 30, a 9- percent year-over-year increase
and roughly double the industry average. It expects a 6 percent increase in TEU volumes for fiscal year 2014.
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 U.S. manufacturing sector has become an engine of new job creation over the past four years, thanks to a combination of federal incentives and mega-trends like nearshoring and the clean energy boom, according to the industrial real estate firm Savills.
While those manufacturing announcements have softened slightly from their 2022 high point, they remain historically elevated. And the sector’s growth outlook remains strong, regardless of the results of the November U.S. presidential election, the company said in its September “Savills Manufacturing Report.”
From 2021 to 2024, over 995,000 new U.S. manufacturing jobs were announced, with two thirds in advanced sectors like electric vehicles (EVs) and batteries, semiconductors, clean energy, and biomanufacturing. After peaking at 350,000 news jobs in 2022, the growth pace has slowed, with 2024 expected to see just over half that number.
But the ingredients are in place to sustain the hot temperature of American manufacturing expansion in 2025 and beyond, the company said. According to Savills, that’s because the U.S. manufacturing revival is fueled by $910 billion in federal incentives—including the Inflation Reduction Act, CHIPS and Science Act, and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act—much of which has not yet been spent. Domestic production is also expected to be boosted by new tariffs, including a planned rise in semiconductor tariffs to 50% in 2025 and an increase in tariffs on Chinese EVs from 25% to 100%.
Certain geographical regions will see greater manufacturing growth than others, since just eight states account for 47% of new manufacturing jobs and over 6.3 billion square feet of industrial space, with 197 million more square feet under development. They are: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, and Tennessee.
Across the border, Mexico’s manufacturing sector has also seen “revolutionary” growth driven by nearshoring strategies targeting U.S. markets and offering lower-cost labor, with a workforce that is now even cheaper than in China. Over the past four years, that country has launched 27 new plants, each creating over 500 jobs. Unlike the U.S. focus on tech manufacturing, Mexico focuses on traditional sectors such as automative parts, appliances, and consumer goods.
Looking at the future, the U.S. manufacturing sector’s growth outlook remains strong, regardless of the results of November’s presidential election, Savills said. That’s because both candidates favor protectionist trade policies, and since significant change to federal incentives would require a single party to control both the legislative and executive branches. Rather than relying on changes in political leadership, future growth of U.S. manufacturing now hinges on finding affordable, reliable power amid increasing competition between manufacturing sites and data centers, Savills said.
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.