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 Teamsters Union has imposed the UPS Inc. small-package contract on all 235,000 unionized UPS employees
despite repeated objections by several Teamster locals, including the largest in the UPS system.
The move, disclosed in a memo dated yesterday, is considered unprecedented in the 111-year history of the Teamsters,
according to Ken Paff, national organizer of the Teamsters For a Democratic Union (TDU), a Teamster dissident group. Never
before have Teamster leaders overridden the sentiments of some of its rank and file and agreed to impose a
collective-bargaining agreement, Paff said.
In late March, DC Velocity reported
comments from TDU that union leaders were mulling a plan to impose the five-year contract by effectively stripping members
of the recalcitrant locals of the right to vote on supplements and riders to the UPS master contract. Although a five-year
contract was ratified last June, it has not taken effect because all locals had not ratified their respective riders and
supplements. Supplements cover such issues as health care benefits, part-time wages, and the number of new jobs that can be
created.
The union won the right in its 1991 contract with UPS to vote on all supplements and riders. Prior to that, the master
contract and all supplements and riders were voted on at one time nationwide.
Yesterday's move came almost two weeks after members of Local 89 in Louisville, Ky., which represents workers at UPS global
air hub known as "Worldport," rejected its contract supplement by a vote of 2,804 to 185. The local had already overwhelmingly
rejected the master contract, and the April 10 vote marked the second time it rejected its supplement. With about 9,300 members,
the local is the largest in the UPS system.
Besides Louisville, locals in Philadelphia and western Pennsylvania have rejected their respective supplements.
About 95 percent of UPS' unionized small-package workers have voted to approve their supplemental agreements, the Teamsters
National Negotiating Committee said in the memo. The actions by the three locals are holding up the payment of about $300 million
in unpaid wages and benefit contributions from UPS, the committee said.
In its memo, the committee said it could declare a contract to be in force if members are repeatedly rejecting a supplement or
rider based on language already ratified as part of the national agreement. According to the committee, the main sticking point
has been a shift in UPS' health insurance, an issue that had already been voted on and ratified as part of the master contract.
The three supplements take effect tomorrow, while the switch to the new health insurance becomes effective June 1, the
committee said. The supplements represent UPS' best and final offers to the locals, the committee said.
However, in a statement last night, Local 89 officials said "many unresolved issues" remain besides the concerns over health
coverage. Those issues include how many full-time jobs can be created, employee disability, and UPS' subcontracting policies,
among others.
The statement blasted Ken Hall, the Teamsters' vice chairman and head of the committee negotiating the small-package agreement,
for "selling out thousands of [his] fellow Teamsters" and for groveling "for table scraps of [his] corporate master, UPS." The local,
which has been vocal in its displeasure over Hall's efforts, said he has "catastrophically failed in his duty to the membership" by
mishandling contract negotiations and for failing to protect the members' right to strike.
Teamster officials declined comment. UPS, which at the time labeled the late March story in DC Velocity as "speculative,"
was unavailable to comment.
In March, Local 89 filed a charge with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against UPS for unfair labor practices and
"regressive" bargaining. The local said that UPS has reneged on contract provisions that both sides had already agreed upon.
Besides the locals in Kentucky and Pennsylvania, contracts covering 15,000 UPS Teamsters at two locals in Chicago and northern
Indiana remain open. These contracts are separate from the national agreement, TDU said.
The supply chain software vendor Cofactr today said it has raised $17 million from Bain Capital Ventures to scale up its product, a supply chain and logistics management platform that streamlines production, processes, and policies for critical hardware manufacturers.
The “series A” round was led by Bain and included additional participation from Y Combinator, Floating Point Ventures, Broom, and DNX. The new investment brings Cofactr’s total funding to $28.8 million.
The New York-based company said it will use the funding to scale up its go-to-market efforts and grow its suite of supply chain risk management and process tools. The company plans to introduce additional product categories, with multiple applications slated to launch each year.
Cofactr says its product is a supply chain management platform that eliminates compliance and operational roadblocks for manufacturers that need to move fast on high- velocity projects. That platform is currently in use by more than 50 companies, spanning a mix of hardware manufacturers and R&D groups at digital enterprises with plans to diversify into hardware products. These customers span both high-compliance sectors—such as aerospace, defense, robotics and medical technology—and consumer-facing industries, such as autonomous vehicles and wearables.
Think you know a lot about manufacturing? Your hard-won knowledge might be about to pay off in the form of a brand-new pickup truck. No, you don’t have to physically assemble the vehicle. But you could win a Ford F-150 by playing an industry-themed online game.
The organization says the game is available to anyone in the continental U.S. who visits the tour’s web page, www.manufacturingexpress.org.
The tour itself ended in October after visiting 80 equipment manufacturers in 20 states. Its aim was to highlight the role that the manufacturing industry plays in building, powering, and feeding the world, the group said in a statement.
“This tour [was] about recognizing the essential contributions of U.S. equipment manufacturers and engaging the public in a fun and interactive way,” Wade Balkonis, AEM’s director of grassroots advocacy, said in a release. “Through the Manufacturing Challenge, we’re providing a unique opportunity to raise awareness of our industry and giving participants a chance to win one of the most iconic vehicles in the country—the Ford F-150.”
Makers of robotic truck-unloading solutions are refining their offerings now that the technology is being used in many warehouses—and that means solutions are getting “smarter” and more adept at handling challenges that arise in real time. Increased handling capabilities, better dexterity, and even more autonomy are at the heart of the updates.
“There are certain behaviors you don’t see in the lab but you do see in the real world,” explains Pete Blair, vice president of product and marketing for Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Pickle Robot, which completed its first commercial installation in the summer of 2023 and now has roughly 12 truck-unloading robots up and running around the country. “We’ve been improving the system over that time period. Right now, [we’re] moving forward with the next generation of the robot.”
As of this past fall, all customers had been upgraded to the new robot, which features better wheels on its custom-built base, a sturdier onboard conveyor, additional sensors, and an improved gripper, according to Blair. The updates are making the robot more efficient and are in line with enhancements other robotic developers are making as well—all in the name of automating one of the toughest jobs in the warehouse.
“This technology is something [warehouses have] wanted for so long,” Blair says, emphasizing the difficulty of manually unloading box after box from a trailer, often in extreme temperatures. “The value at the end of the day is just so big and easy to recognize. [Truck unloading] remains one of the worst jobs in the warehouse … these jobs are getting harder and harder to fill.”
SMOOTHING OUT THE PROCESS
Pickle’s truck-unloading robot consists of a robotic picking arm on a wheeled base, with sensors, cameras, and an advanced software system that enable it to move boxes of different shapes and sizes out of trailers and into the warehouse. The robot, whose gripper can handle cartons measuring up to 36 inches long, 24 inches high, and 24 inches wide, can retrieve boxes weighing up to 60 pounds from high up in the trailer and handle floor-loaded boxes of up to 100 pounds. The robot then places the items on a flexible conveyor that moves them into the warehouse for the next step in the receiving process.
Some of the next-generation updates are part of ongoing refinements to the system—such as the ability to move smaller items, perform multipick moves, and recover boxes that fall on the floor during unloading. Today, Pickle’s robot can grip items as small as six-inch cubes for multipick moves, for example. And it can autonomously respond to changing conditions in the trailer, just as a human would.
“If you pick something and something shifts and falls on the floor, the robot picks it up, just takes care of it,” Blair explains. “We had been field testing that function; now we can do it.
“We’re making the robot smarter, making it do things differently—with more sophisticated path-planning algorithms. Now it can make more sophisticated moves that are more efficient, faster—grabbing two things rather than one, for example.”
Other changes are a direct result of the robots actively working in the field. For example, the robot’s gripper is designed to break away if it’s under too much stress, but users found that the process of reattaching the gripper was difficult and time-consuming—and ultimately slowed the unloading process.
“This has been completely redesigned and is now a one-minute fix,” Blair says.
BUILDING A SYSTEM
Global robotics supplier Mujin is also continuing to refine its truck-unloading solution—TruckBot. Although the developer does not disclose the number of TruckBots in use around the world, company leaders say user feedback from pilot tests and recent rollouts is playing a large role in refining the system. Mujin is working to improve the robot’s capacity—so that it can handle an increasing array of sizes, shapes, and weights—and also ensure that the TruckBot, which is part of a larger effort to automate the entire inbound logistics workflow, can operate effectively alongside other types of warehouse robots, according to Josh Cloer, vice president of sales and marketing.
“Truck unloading is only part of the challenge; [you also have to consider] what happens next [in a warehouse’s inbound freight operation],” Cloer explains, pointing to downstream functions such as sorting the unloaded boxes and building pallets. “We focus on areas where we can solve all those problems.”
The company starts with its MujinController, a robotic platform that powers its products and allows them to work autonomously. TruckBot is different from other unloading solutions in that it doesn't use a robotic arm to grab and move boxes—instead, it uses advanced gripper technology attached to a standard telescoping conveyor. Powered by the controller, and using sensors and advanced software, TruckBot can reach as far as 52 feet into the truck trailer, grasping boxes weighing up to 50 pounds from the front and seamlessly transferring them to the conveyor, which transports the packages into the warehouse. Cloer says the design allows for faster unloading so that warehouses can turn those trailers around quickly: TruckBot can move up to 1,000 cases per hour.
Although customers can use TruckBot on its own, the robot is designed to work in concert with Mujin’s other robots—including its automated case-handling solution, called QuickBot, which can depalletize, palletize, and repalletize boxes in the warehouse. The combination allows for a smoother, more efficient inbound process.
“We provide the whole inbound automation solution,” Cloer explains. “We put these processes in parallel—unloading and palletizing really fast and sorting downstream.”
On the human side of the equation, labor can be reallocated from the loading dock to other parts of the warehouse. Cloer notes that many warehouses have multiple workers in a trailer performing the unloading tasks along with another set of workers handling the removal of boxes and building pallets. Automation solves that challenge.
“You can more greatly reduce the [number] of operators you need on the inbound side of the warehouse,” he says.
MAKING STRIDES
Vendors agree that interest in robotic truck unloading is growing as more systems are put in place. Quite simply, the ability to show systems in action, achieving real results, helps seal more deals, according to Blair.
“Being able to show other prospects … just [gives] the whole market confidence that this is ready for prime time,” he says, adding that Pickle just signed three more deals with customers this past summer. “Being able to automate this function—it remains a huge interest for a broad swath of customers.”
Hackers are beginning to extend their computer attacks to ever-larger organizations in their hunt for greater criminal profits, which could drive an anticipated increase in credit risk and push insurers to charge more for their policies, according to the “2025 Cyber Outlook” from Moody’s Ratings.
In Moody’s forecast, cyber risk will intensify in 2025 as attackers switch tactics in response to better corporate cyber defenses and as advances in artificial intelligence increase the volume and sophistication of their strikes. Meanwhile, the incoming Trump administration will likely scale back cyber defense regulations in the US, while a new UN treaty on cyber crime will strengthen the global fight against this threat, the report said.
“Ransomware perpetrators are now targeting larger organizations in search of higher ransom demands, leading to greater credit impact. This shift is likely to increase the cyber risk for entities rated by Moody's and could lead to increased loss ratios for cyber insurers, impacting premium rates in the U.S.," Leroy Terrelonge, Moody’s Ratings Vice President and author of the Outlook report, said in a statement.
The warning comes just weeks after global supply chain software vendor Blue Yonder was hit by a ransomware attack that snarled many of its customers’ retail, labor, and transportation platforms in the midst of the winter holiday shopping surge.
That successful attack shows that while larger businesses tend to have more advanced cybersecurity defenses, their risk is not necessarily diminished. According to Moody’s, their networks are generally more complex, making it easier to overlook vulnerabilities, and when they have grown in size over time, they are more likely to have older systems that are more difficult to secure.
Another factor fueling the problem is Generative AI, which will will enable attackers to craft personalized, compelling messages that mimic legitimate communications from trusted entities, thus turbocharging the phishing attacks which aim to entice a user into clicking a malicious link.
Complex supply chains further compound the problem, since cybercriminals often find the easiest attack path is through third-party software suppliers that are typically not as well protected as large companies. And by compromising one supplier, they can attack a wide swath of that supplier's customers.
In the face of that rising threat, a new Republican administration will likely soften U.S. cyber regulations, Moody’s said. The administration will likely roll back cybersecurity mandates and potentially curtail the activities of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), thus heightening the risk of cyberattack.
Even worse, many managers are overconfident in their data. The majority (91%) of supply chain managers believe they are equipped to drive accurate supply chain visibility, but the reality is that only a third (33%) consistently obtain accurate, real-time inventory data.
And in turn, that gap also hinders supply chain managers’ ability to address challenges such as counterfeit goods, shrink and theft, misload and delivery errors, meeting sustainability requirements, and effectively implementing AI within their organization’s supply chain. Those results came from Seattle-based Impinj’s “Supply Chain Integrity Outlook 2025” report, which was based on a survey of 1,000 US supply chain managers.
“Supply chain managers continue to face data blind spots that prevent them from ensuring secure, reliable, and adaptable supply chains,” Impinj Chief Revenue Officer Jeff Dossett said in a release. “It’s essential that organizations address the data accuracy gap by putting technology in place to surface accurate data that fuels the real-time, actionable insights and visibility needed to ensure supply chain resilience.”
In additional findings, the study showed that over half (52%) of supply chain managers face challenges responding to rapid peaks in customer demand driven by social media- and influencer-driven trends. Nearly half (47%) of supply chain managers also report that changes in customer demand due to growth in social media storefronts (49%) and the rise of the thrift movement (47%) are among the top challenges for their organization’s supply chain.
The survey also identified the most significant supply chain integrity challenges and priorities for several sectors:
in retail: 65% of supply chain managers agree it’s a challenge for their organization to reduce the amount of counterfeit goods entering the supply chain
also in retail: 60% of retail supply chain managers surveyed also agree that reducing rates of shrink and theft is a challenge for their organization, and 99% are investing in measures to mitigate these concerns
in the food, grocery, and restaurant sector, 82% of supply chain managers report challenges reducing shrink, which is primarily due to shoplifting (45%), food spoilage (37%), and food waste (35%)
in transportation and logistics, 74% of surveyed supply chain managers are concerned about growing volumes of Load Planning Problems (LPPs), misloads, and delivery errors