It seems the iconic image of a friendly postman being bitten by a dog may soon need a makeover. After years of steady increases, the number of dog attacks on postal workers actually fell last year. According to the U.S. Postal Service's (USPS) latest annual dog attack city rankings, the number of postal employees attacked by dogs nationwide in 2017 was 6,244,
The postal service attributes the improvement to technology such as the delivery scanners carried by postal workers, which now send alerts if an unleashed dog is reported in a delivery area. It also noted that its website allows customers to indicate whether there's a dog at their address when scheduling package pickups, which USPS says is particularly helpful for substitute carriers. (For tips on ways consumers can help prevent dog attacks, check out the video below, "Dog Bite Prevention and Awareness Tips," from the USPS YouTube channel.)
As for the city rankings, Houston topped the danger list, with 71 dog attacks recorded in 2017. Houston was followed by Los Angeles, St. Louis, Cleveland, and San Diego. Rounding out the top 10 were Baltimore and San Antonio (tied), Columbus (Ohio), Dallas, Louisville (Ky.), and Chicago.
"We're encouraged by the decrease in dog attacks," USPS Safety Director Linda DeCarlo said in a statement. "The totals are still too high, but we're confident that with continuing education and dog bite prevention training, along with advancing technology, we can keep more people safe and keep attacks trending downward."
The private equity-backed warehousing and transportation provider Partners Warehouse has acquired PSS Distribution Services, a third-party logistics (3PL) provider specializing in warehousing, distribution, and value-added services on the East Coast, the company said today.
The move expands Partners Warehouse’s reach from its current territories, which stretch from its Elwood, Illinois, headquarters to its two million square feet of warehousing and rail transloading facilities across eight locations in Illinois, California, and Dallas.
In addition to adding East Coast operations to that footprint, the move will also strengthen Partners’ expertise in the food and ingredients sector, enhance its service capabilities, and improve the business’ capacity to support existing and new clients who require a service provider with a national footprint, the company said.
From its headquarters in Jamesburg, New Jersey, PSS brings experience across industries including food, grocery, retail, food service, direct store distribution (DSD), and e-commerce. The company is known for its state-of-the-art facilities and food-grade warehousing options.
“This acquisition marks a significant milestone in Partners Warehouse’s expansion strategy,” Nick Antoine, Co-Founder, Co-CEO, and Managing Partner of Red Arts Capital, said in a release. “The addition of PSS enables us to grow our capacity and broaden our service offerings, delivering greater value to our clients at a time when demand for warehousing space continues to rise.”
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