You may not think of the military as a wellspring of logistics innovation. But the Defense Department has a long history of developing (and implementing) cutting-edge tools. Here are just a few examples.
Steve Geary is adjunct faculty at the University of Tennessee's Haaslam College of Business and is a lecturer at The Gordon Institute at Tufts University. He is the President of the Supply Chain Visions family of companies, consultancies that work across the government sector. Steve is a contributing editor at DC Velocity, and editor-at-large for CSCMP's Supply Chain Quarterly.
When you think about innovative organizations, what comes to mind? Amazon? Facebook? Apple?
If you're a logistician, the military—yes, the people who brought us the $435 claw hammer, the $640 toilet seat, and $7,600 coffeemakers—should be on your short list. Throughout history, the defense establishment has led the way in developing and implementing crucial tools and practices that have eventually seen widespread adoption by the business world.
The Department of Defense (DOD) has been a relentless early adopter of new logistics technologies and strategies. But in many cases, it has been more than just an early adopter; it played a major role in the innovations' fundamental research and development. What follows are just a few examples.
Intermodal freight and containerization. Containerization and intermodal transportation are deeply embedded in the way the world moves goods today. The commercial breakthrough for containers happened in the mid-1950s, brought about by visionary trucking executive Malcom McLean. After building and selling a successful motor carrier operation, McLean Trucking, he purchased the steamship line U.S. Lines and led the way in developing the containerships shippers now take for granted.
McLean deserves enormous credit for that. But in fact, the concept of containerized transportation originated with the U.S. Army. In the latter years of World War II, the Army used something it called "transporters"—standardized boxes that were really mini-containers—to speed up the loading and unloading of cargo ships ferrying goods between the U.S. and Europe.
When the Korean conflict erupted, the military started using the "transporters" for sensitive military equipment heading to the Pacific Rim as well. In 1952, the Army adopted the term "CONEX," short for "container express," to refer to the transporters. Late that same year, the first major shipment of CONEXes, containing engineering supplies and spare parts, moved by rail from Georgia to the Port of San Francisco and then by ship to Yokohama, Japan, and on to Korea.
So, Malcom McLean ran with the idea and created an industry, but containerization and intermodal started with the military, not McLean.
Roll on/roll off cargo ships. Intermodal carriage and containerization are not the only transportation innovation we owe to the World War II-era military.
In the fall of 1946, the Atlantic Steam Navigation Co.'s Empire Baltic—a seagoing roll on/roll off (Ro/Ro) cargo ship with a built-in ramp—sailed from Tilbury in the United Kingdom to Rotterdam loaded with 64 vehicles for the Dutch government. Thus began the first commercial Ro/Ro service, which relied on a fleet of three ships: the Empire Baltic, the Empire Cedric, and the Empire Celtic.
The Atlantic Steam Navigation Co. didn't own the ships, though.
The Ro/Ros were leased from the UK's Royal Navy, which used the specialized cargo ships during the Normandy landings in 1944. Known as LSTs, short for "Landing Ship, Tank," the vessels were the first purpose-built seagoing ships enabling road vehicles, like trucks, jeeps, and tanks to roll directly on and off. For the D-Day invasion, many of the LSTs were loaded in the United States and unloaded on the beaches of France.
From this military innovation grew the roll-on roll-off ferry cargo ships of today.
The Internet.The Internet is now so ubiquitous, so essential to business operations, that it's easy to forget how recent a development it is. It grew out of work carried out at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with funding from the Department of Defense. The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), renamed the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in 1972, oversaw the effort.
The first Internet message was sent over the wires from UCLA to SRI on Oct. 29, 1969. By the mid-1990s, the original network was decommissioned. By that time, there was no further need for DOD involvement. Commercial Internet service providers (ISPs) were off and running, and the rest is history.
Automated freight payment. In 1998, the Department of Defense evaluated the benefit of re-engineering the freight payment process and abandoning the use of military manifests and government-defined bills of lading. That same year, DOD went all in with a commercial off-the-shelf solution from U.S. Bank called PowerTrack.
Not only did this support an emerging commercial capability with millions of dollars a year of DOD funds, but it also helped legitimize the overall market for automated freight payment systems. Even if you don't work with U.S. Bank, if you use an automated system, you have DOD to thank. A rising tide lifts all boats.
WHAT'S NEXT?
And these are but a few examples. We could also mention the military's groundbreaking work with radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology, global positioning systems (GPS), and even the Internet of Things.
As for what's next, innovations in military logistics will keep on coming, and commercial applications are sure to follow. Delivery drones are already in use at the Marine Corps. Driverless cargo trucks are being tested by the Army. Field-deployable 3-D printing capabilities went forward in Afghanistan.
More innovations—some still on the military drawing board, some in development—are now taking shape. The Army is rolling out leading-edge virtual reality combat simulators to train people in battlefield conditions without an actual battlefield. Perhaps someday we'll train truck drivers the same way.
What the military has learned over the years is that creativity by itself is insufficient, that better is sometimes not good enough. The drive for different—innovating an entirely new approach—may be what's required to win the battle, or even the war.
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.