The Panama Canal Authority has a drawing-board plan for further expansion of the canal should
ship lines start routing megavessels through the legendary passageway, the agency's deputy administrator said.
Manuel E. Benitez told the SMC3 annual winter meeting last week in Atlanta that the Authority has designs in the works to build a fourth set of locks to handle vessels holding up to 18,500 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs),
the largest containerships in the trades. The current $5.25 billion expansion creates a third shipping lane with new
locks on the Atlantic and Pacific sides. The project will also widen and deepen the existing channels. Once these
expansions are completed, the canal's passages will be wide enough and deep enough to handle vessels with between
13,000 and 14,000 TEUs, well more than twice the 5,500 TEU capacity of those ships that can currently transit the waterway.
Panamanian officials did not anticipate the development of a super-container ship when the expansion project began in 2007.
However, in 2011 Danish shipping giant Maersk Line placed orders for 20 18,500-TEU vessels known as the "Triple E." Five are
in service today, with the remaining 15 to be on the water by the end of next year. However, Maersk has no plans to use them
anywhere but on the Asia-Northern Europe trade route because only ports on those continents have the infrastructures to handle
them. Even Benitez acknowledged that even the possibility of megaships sailing through the canal is a long way off.
BILLING DISPUTE SLOWS PROGRESS
The Authority has far more urgent matters on its hands, namely attempting to get the current project finished
amidst a protracted billing dispute with a European construction consortium tasked with building the third set
of locks at both ends of the canal. The group, Grupo Unidos por el Canal (GUPC), is claiming $1.5 billion in cost
overruns and has threatened to suspend work on the locks until they are paid. Benitez said work is currently being
performed at about one-fourth the contractually stipulated pace, a tack he said is in breach of contract.
The group has argued that the Authority supplied poor geological studies, which drove costs way above initial projections.
The Authority said the consortium has overspent and that the overruns have nothing to do with the quality of the geological
reports. The group wants to reach a global settlement outside of the contract, an approach the Authority has rejected out of
hand. Benitez said the group can seek redress through dispute resolution mechanisms included in the contract.
Benitez told reporters last Tuesday that the consortium had a Jan. 26 deadline to resume work at a normal clip. If not, the
Authority could terminate the contract the next day and would install a management company to supervise the project's
subcontractors. Several days later, it was reported that the consortium would continue work on the locks into the first
week of February.
The overall expansion project is about 65 percent completed, and Benitez said the Authority would have no problem financing
the remaining work regardless of the labor issues. He was optimistic that a solution could be found, saying that the consortium
would be foolish to abandon such a high-profile contract at such an advanced stage.
The project was initially set for completion in October to celebrate the canal's centennial. However, the dispute has
pushed back the deadline to the second half of 2015. Should the Authority be forced to replace the contractor, the work
would likely be finished in the fourth quarter of 2015, Benitez said.
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.