Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

INBOUND

Logistics gives back: Covid-19 relief (May 2020)

Here’s our monthly roundup of some of the charitable works and donations by companies in the material handling and logistics space.

BYD employees with boxes of PPE
  • Battery and electric vehicle manufacturer BYD will donate $1 million in medical supplies, including personal protective equipment and hand sanitizer, to transit agencies and first responders in the U.S. and Canada. (See photo above.)
  • Temperature-controlled logistics company Lineage Logistics Holdings has committed $5 million and launched its “Share A Meal” campaign to provide 100 million meals to people in need during the Covid-19 crisis. To kick off the campaign, Lineage is donating $1 million to the hunger-relief organization Feeding America’s Covid-19 Response Fund.
  • Flowspace, an on-demand warehousing and fulfillment technology company, has offered its service for one month at no cost to organizations responding to the Covid-19 crisis.
  • BoxLock, a specialist in secure, unattended-delivery technology, announced in March that it would provide access to its solution at no cost to at-risk individuals in need of specialty medication for home delivery for the next four months.
  • Global logistics services provider Dachser de México S.A. de C.V. has provided free air transportation of more than 3 million surgical and respiratory masks to Germany to help combat the spread of Covid-19. The fully loaded B787/9 airliner represented Dachser Mexico’s first-ever international charter flight.
  • ShipChain, a provider of blockchain-based logistics solutions, announced that it is donating up to one petaflop of computing power—approximately one quadrillion calculations per second—to assist scientists at the distributed computing project Folding@Home who are attempting to find a cure for Covid-19.
  • Next Trucking employees with box of masksFreight-matching technology provider

    Next Trucking

     donated 3,000 masks to the Port of Long Beach and Port of Los Angeles in late March. The masks will be distributed to local hospitals, police stations, and port workers in the LA area.
  • Rakuten Super Logistics, a company that specializes in e-commerce order fulfillment and freight brokerage, is partnering with beverage company Defy to distribute over 25,000 donated bottles of Defy’s performance drinks to the hunger-relief group Feeding America.
  • Fleet Advantage, a company specializing in truck fleet business analytics and equipment financing, has donated $10,000 to the First Responders Children’s Foundation to support its pandemic-related emergency response efforts.
  • Freight-matching marketplacetruckstop.com gave trucking companies free access to its premium services for the month of April, in a move to help carriers find freight, get home, and connect with the brokerage community during coronavirus travel bans and work closures.

The Latest

More Stories

Jeremy Van Puffelen of Prism Logistics

InPerson interview: Jeremy Van Puffelen of Prism Logistics

Jeremy Van Puffelen grew up in a family-owned contract warehousing business and is now president of that firm, Prism Logistics. As a third-party logistics service provider (3PL), Prism operates a network of more than 2 million square feet of warehouse space in Northern California, serving clients in the consumer packaged goods (CPG), food and beverage, retail, and manufacturing sectors.

During his 21 years working at the family firm, Van Puffelen has taken on many of the jobs that are part of running a warehousing business, including custodial functions, operations, facilities management, business development, customer service, executive leadership, and team building. Since 2021, he has also served on the board of directors of the International Warehouse Logistics Association (IWLA), a trade organization for contract warehousing and logistics service providers.

Keep ReadingShow less

Featured

image of retail worker packing goods in a shopping bag

NRF: Retail sales increased again in September

Retail sales increased again in September as employment grew and inflation and interest rates fell, according to the National Retail Federation (NRF)’s analysisof U.S. Census Bureau data released today.

“While there have been some signs of tightening in consumer spending, September’s numbers show consumers are willing to spend where they see value,” NRF Chief Economist Jack Kleinhenz said in a release. “September sales come amid the recent trend of payroll gains and other positive economic signs. Clearly, consumers continue to carry the economy, and conditions for the retail sector remain favorable as we move into the holiday season.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Logistics services continue to “go green”

Logistics services continue to “go green”

The market for environmentally friendly logistics services is expected to grow by nearly 8% between now and 2033, reaching a value of $2.8 billion, according to research from Custom Market Insights (CMI), released earlier this year.

The “green logistics services market” encompasses environmentally sustainable logistics practices aimed at reducing carbon emissions, minimizing waste, and improving energy efficiency throughout the supply chain, according to CMI. The market involves the use of eco-friendly transportation methods—such as electric and hybrid vehicles—as well as renewable energy-powered warehouses, and advanced technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) for optimizing logistics operations.

Keep ReadingShow less
MIT professor Weill speaks at IFS show

MIT: Businesses thrive more with real-time data flows

Companies that integrate real-time data flows into their operations consistently outperform their competitors, an MIT professor said in a session today at a conference held by IFS, the Swedish enterprise resource planning (ERP) and artificial intelligence (AI) firm.

A real-time business is one that uses trusted, real-time data to enable people and systems to make real-time decisions, Peter Weill, the chairman of MIT’s Center for Information Systems Research (CISR), said at the “IFS Unleashed” show in Orlando.

Keep ReadingShow less
exxon mobile oil drills in texas

Kinaxis to build supply chain planning tools for ExxonMobil

Supply chain orchestration software provider Kinaxis today announced a co-development deal with ExxonMobil to create supply chain technology solutions designed specifically for the energy sector.

“ExxonMobil is uniquely placed to understand the biggest opportunities in improving energy supply chains, from more accurate sales and operations planning, increased agility in field operations, effective management of enormous transportation networks and adapting quickly to complex regulatory environments,” John Sicard, Kinaxis CEO, said in a release.

Keep ReadingShow less