Diane Rand is Associate Editor and has several years of magazine editing and production experience. She previously worked as a production editor for Logistics Management and Supply Chain Management Review. She joined the editorial staff in 2015. She is responsible for managing digital, editorial, and production projects for DC Velocity and its sister magazine, Supply Chain Quarterly.
Pitman Creek replaced its inhouse warehousing system with WarehouseOS. Workers carry iPads connected to Bluetooth scanners. The tablets tell them what to scan.
In 2015, Pitman Creek Wholesale found itself facing the classic growth challenge. Founded in 1978 by Don and Marella Stephens, the Danville, Ky.-based fishing gear company started out as a custom lure manufacturer catering to customers in Central Kentucky. But after James S. Coffey purchased the company in 1993, it evolved into a full-line tackle distributor serving more than 2,000 retail locations in 49 states and several foreign countries.
That kind of growth is great for the bottom line, but it can create problems elsewhere in the organization. In Pitman Creek's case, it was the company's distribution operation that was feeling the strain. The wholesaler, which by then was stocking over 26,000 items from some 240 vendors, had outgrown the piecemeal warehousing system it had patched together over the years. "We were basically building our own warehouse management system with all the different applications [for packing, picking, and receiving]," says John D. Johnson, the company's chief operating officer. "The problem was supporting these applications when we [needed to ramp up operations]." The applications did not have the capability to scale, he explains, which caused the apps to slow down or even crash during peak periods.
On top of that, the lack of a comprehensive inventory tracking system was hindering efforts to receive and put away inbound merchandise promptly. That, in turn, was compromising order pickers' ability to fill orders swiftly. With inventory missing from the pick bins either because it had not been received or had not been restocked, order fill-rates and order accuracy were starting to suffer.
Those slowdowns and delays were unacceptable to Pitman Creek. What makes the company unique in its marketplace is its delivery speed. The company offers same-day shipping to its customers, something its competitors do not, Johnson says. "We do not use a batch system business model. Every live order is live. It's sent directly to the warehouse and immediately picked, packed, and shipped," he explains.
To turn the situation around, Pitman Creek purchased the WarehouseOS solution from Warehouse Mobile Solutions. A tablet-directed bar-code/order fulfillment solution, WarehouseOS enables Pitman Creek to manage the flow of products from the time they are received through putaway, replenishment, picking, and packing. Today, this process involves 70 operators on the floor utilizing iPads that are connected to small Bluetooth scanners. For purposes of putaway and picking, operators simply scan items and locations as directed by the tablet devices.
With the system in place, the company now has the ability to track receipts throughout the facility, whether they're in a temporary home, a back stock area, or the pick/storage locations. The solution also enables Pitman Creek to generate constant restocking reports so it can ensure the home pick locations are always filled, increasing the efficiency and speed of pickers.
On top of that, the WarehouseOS solution has enabled Pitman Creek to run a picking and packing incentive program for personnel based on their production. Following the initial implementation phase, the company launched an incentive base structure for warehouse employees that provided for workers to be paid by the units produced through picking, packing, and putaway, taking into account the accuracy of work as a qualifier. "This has been the single most productive program we have put in place to date," Johnson says. "Our speed to shelf has never been faster, and we are [getting] more orders out than ever before with fewer resources in place."
As for the project's timeline, full implementation of the solution, including the new incentive system, was around three months. Since going live with WarehouseOS in August 2015, Pitman Creek has seen an increase in output, better inventory accuracy, and more effective allocation of resources. Among other gains, picks per minute per operator went from less than six to as high as 9.9 (almost 500 picks per hour), daily fill rates (orders shipped same day) went from 84 percent to more than 92 percent, and output pieces per minute for the overall facility increased from 45 to 110 units of picks per man-hour, resulting in an average of 10,000 pieces per hour.
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.