Forklift vendor Combilift is stepping up to help fill the void in sufficient medical equipment for treating Covid-19 patients by developing a splitter device that turns one ventilator into multiple ventilation stations. Monaghan, Ireland-based Combilift used its resources in engineering and software design to pivot from the material handling sector and create the “Combi-Ventilate,” saying the unit will address the requirements of medical professionals in the pandemic emergency.
The Combi-Ventilate uses standard pipes and fittings for easy assembly, offers individual patient filters that prevent cross contamination, and supports dedicated computer screens for each patient’s vital information. The device is designed as an attachment which can be added to any brand of ventilator, installed easily into a hospital’s intensive care unit (ICU), and purchased for a fraction the cost of a standard ventilator, the firm said.
“Certain countries and cities are struggling to get enough ventilators and many governments and health authorities are encouraging manufacturers to come up with a solution, as did the HSE in Ireland. Instead of actually developing ventilators we analysed what is really required, as we do in our usual business models,” Martin McVicar, CEO and co-founder of Combilift, said in a release. “We have undertaken this non-profit endeavor in order to meet and facilitate the demands of the global crisis for health services around the world, namely the lack or shortage of ventilators. The medical device sector is not our core business but making critical equipment which keeps people safe and alive has always been our focus.”
And in other examples of the logistics industry dedicating its assets to the coronavirus fight:
Supply chain service provider Seko Logistics has teamed with its medical client Alexandra to donate personal protective equipment (PPE) including protective gloves, face masks, and aprons, for frontline staff in the Covid-19 fight working in a British care home group. The two companies have joined together to fund and deliver 380,000 items of protective equipment to The Orders of St John Care Trust, a UK not-for-profit care organization that provides care for older people at 69 locations, employing 4,800 staff. Nursing homes in many countries have become hot-spots for coronavirus infection, and the UK government has confirmed coronavirus outbreaks at more than 2,000 facilities in the country so far. “St John Care Trust approached Alexandra for support with PPE and we wanted to respond to this too with both a financial donation as well as logistical expertise to ensure equipment reached the Trust’s care homes as quickly as possible,” Graham Ward, group forwarding director at Seko Logistics, said in a release.
Plastic packaging manufacturer HLP Klearfold has repurposed a “significant portion” of its manufacturing capabilities to produce three simple, low-cost, and effective disposable face shields for coronavirus healthcare workers, saying two of them from its own designs. Made using the same raw materials, technology, and equipment used to manufacture the company’s plastic folding cartons, the single-use face shields are designed as personal protective equipment (PPE) for healthcare professionals, food service workers, and other essential services workers. “HLP Klearfold leadership in the clear plastic packaging market has made us uniquely qualified to produce face shields. Our production facility is the largest facility of its kind in the world,” HLP Klearfold President Steve Frazier said in a release. “We have the capacity to make approximately 1 million printed plastic folding cartons per day but, in light of the need for more PPE, we’ve dedicated much of our focus and manufacturing resources to producing face shields, and we are able to manufacture nearly 600,000 per day.”
Minnesota-based electronic components distributor Digi-Key Electronics has invented technology to combat the spread of Covid-19 by disinfecting the thousands of totes that carry product through their warehouse, and is working with other distributors on the Electronic Components Industry Association (ECIA) distribution council to share that “ultraviolet sanitization tunnel” and other best practices. According to the company, nearly 8,000 plastic totes travel throughout its million-square-foot DC daily, transporting products through the picking, shipping, and receiving departments. Digi-Key’s distribution center employees interact with those totes multiple times per day, so the company created a tunnel that uses ultraviolet (UV) light to kill 99.99% of the organisms on the totes—including coronavirus.
Freight forwarder Damco has applied its business resilience program to keep cargo moving through Covid-19 supply chain disruption. Developed over the last 18 months, Damco’s program prepares its staff for over 47 different scenarios which could disrupt the supply chain, including a pandemic. According to the company, its local and global teams are now using the program’s “Business Resilience App” to communicate in real time, while the app stores information on procedure, supports an Instant Messaging feature, and provides incident reporting, management functions, and links to relevant contacts. “In early January 2020, our Business Resilience Team responded to reports about the impact of Covid-19 from Damco offices in China and were able to give global updates and advice using the App so that we were well prepared,” Zera Zheng, head of Damco’s business resilience and security team, said in a release. “The Program means we can be agile and find flexible solutions to keep freight moving; it also means we can put established procedures in place to keep our staff safe.”
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.