The need for expanded access to food comes as millions of Americans are suddenly unemployed, placing unprecedented demand on U.S. food banks even as a shortage of supplies threatens their ability to restock. Grocery stores have traditionally been major donors to those food banks through contributions of excess inventory, but those stores are now grappling with panic-buying, empty shelves, and extensive sanitizing tasks, Seattle-based Convoy said.
Convoy’s new program creates a partnership with the nonprofit group Feeding America, which has established a network of centralized food banks and localized soup kitchens and pantries. Participating shippers reach out to Convoy with a full truckload donation and are matched with a food bank or soup kitchen, usually within 40 miles or less of their facility. Convoy then finds, books, and pays a truck driver to deliver the goods to that local food bank.
“In this unprecedented time of crisis, finding innovative ways to immediately help our communities feels more important than ever,” Alex Brewin, a transportation procurement executive for Land O’Lakes Inc., said in a release. Land O’Lakes has donated more than 1,300 cases of macaroni and cheese to the South Michigan Food Bank in Battle Creek, Michigan. "We are pleased to join forces with Convoy to share what resources we have with the people who benefit the greatest. We hope others in a similar position are able to take advantage of this opportunity to make a positive difference.”
The move follows Convoy’s earlier move to team with tire vendor Goodyear to provide discounted roadside assistance and online tire purchases for carriers in its nationwide network. Participants like owner/operators and small fleets can now access discounts on all Goodyear Commercial truck tires and quickly address any tire issues they encounter on the road with FleetHQ roadside assistance available 24/7.
And in other examples of the logistics industry dedicating its assets to the coronavirus fight:
Life sciences and healthcare supply chain platform provider TraceLink Inc. announced platform upgrades designed to digitalize the pharmaceutical supply chain during the Covid-19 crisis, saying the move will help companies meet unforeseen supply chain challenges and ensure the safe delivery of critical medicines and supplies to their patients. Available on TraceLink’s Opus platform, the new agile solutions tap into TraceLink’s end-to-end network connectivity, data sharing, and multi-party process orchestration, giving companies the visibility and responsiveness needed for their supply chains to thrive in today’s challenging environment, the firm said.
Supply chain collaboration software provider Inspectorio is offering its facility-level compliance monitoring software Inspectorio Rise for free, including a Covid-19 safe workplace standard that could help retailers, vendors, and factories to enforce social, environmental, and manufacturing standards. According to the Minneapolis-based firm, its platform could facilitate the execution and continuous monitoring of health and safety audits through real time reporting, analytics, and corrective action plans.
The blockchain-based logistics solutions provider ShipChain has donated a petaflop of computing power to helping researchers find a cure for Covid-19. The donation of resources equalling about one quadrillion calculations per second could aid scientists with Folding@Home, a distributed computing project for simulating protein dynamics, including the process of protein folding and the movements of proteins implicated in a variety of diseases, the Los Angeles-based firm said. “Folding@Home is a wonderful decentralized group effort in finding effective treatments for numerous diseases and has recently become even more critical in understanding how we can effectively treat Covid-19, and for that reason we’re proud to contribute to the effort as a technology company,” ShipChain CEO John Monarch said in a release.
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.