The company is donating 600 RPCs to Meals on Wheels that will allow volunteers to pack and deliver nearly 8,000 meals daily to homebound seniors throughout the greater Portland-Vancouver metro area. The donation comes as the Covid-19 pandemic has pushed Meals on Wheels’ daily meal production to jump from its usual level of 5,000 meals daily, even as the group has slashed its delivery schedule from five days per week to just one day per week.
IFCO’s RPCs are used to package, ship, store, and transport a wide variety of fresh foods, including produce, baked goods, and eggs and meat products from production facilities to retail or residential locations. Every RPC is collected by IFCO after each use and cleaned, washed, and sanitized before being used again.
“As a vital part of the global food supply chain, IFCO has a strong commitment to fighting hunger and food insecurity in the U.S. and around the world,” Dan Martin, president of IFCO North America, said in a release. “Now, more than ever, we want to step up and help our friends at Meals on Wheels People get more food to more people during this terrible crisis.”
And in other examples of the logistics industry dedicating its assets to the coronavirus fight:
Freight forwarder Damco has helped deliver over 120 parcels containing gifts and personal items to U.S. Antarctic Program personnel who are stuck at a remote polar research station during the Covid-19 pandemic. Damco delivered chocolate bars, DVDs, contact lenses, and gifts from family by adding that freight to a chartered A319 aircraft loaded with a consignment of scientific equipment destined for the the National Science Foundation-managed McMurdo Station. The company’s Australia team compiled the goods by retrieving packages from multiple post offices and even personally shopping for hard-to-find items on the Antarctic team’s wish lists. “In a time with a lot of negatives it was great to see our team members work together and rise to the occasion when we received this special request from the McMurdo team,” Alex Paton, Damco’s district head of Air Freight ANZ, said in a release. “We have been transporting samples and equipment for the station for a number of years, but this is the first time we have helped deliver personal items.”
Temperature-controlled warehouse operator Americold Realty Trust has donated $100,000 to the childhood hunger nonprofit Feed the Children in order to support Covid-19 relief for families in crisis. The donation will help deliver more food, water, and daily essentials for living (like shampoo, laundry detergent, and toothpaste) directly to families, and will facilitate drop-and-go operations for children without food during school closures. In addition, Americold is providing free temperature-controlled transportation services to deliver cold food to those who need it most. Earlier this month, Americold trucked more than 84,000 pounds of donated milk and dairy products from Texas to one of Feed the Children's community partners in Leola, Pennsylvania.
The Port of Los Angeles and Logistics Victory Los Angeles (LoVLA) have received a donation of more than 11,000 pieces of personal protective equipment (PPE) from Harbor Freight Tools, a long-time customer at the Port of Los Angeles. As a city program created to identify available medical supplies in the private sector, and then allocate them to the appropriate medical facility, LoVLA will distribute the equipment to health groups throughout the city in the fight against Covid-19. The Harbor Freight Tools donation includes 1,500 nitrile gloves, 500 N95 respirator masks, nearly 9,300 deluxe face shields, and 60 five-gallon spray bottles. “We know how acute the need is for personal protective equipment, especially for the heroic healthcare workers on the front lines caring for COVID-19 patients,” Eric Smidt, owner and founder of Harbor Freight Tools, said in a release. “We’re grateful for their work and dedication and proud to partner with the Port of L.A. to deliver our PPE donations to hospitals in our hometown.”
Forklift vendor Hyster-Yale Materials Handling Corp. has made its lift truck operator training video content free for supply chains adapting to the effects of Covid-19, saying the giveaway is meant to help businesses adhere to health and safety protocols as they onboard the necessary labor to keep operations moving as the economy reopens. The videos are available at no cost for a limited time through the company’s Yale and Hyster brands, covering characteristics of class I-V lift trucks, operating environment considerations, requirements of OSHA 1910.178, and safe operating practices. "Essential supply chains need to get new lift truck operators up and running fast, while adhering to both OSHA training mandates and social distancing protocols,” Evelyn Velasquez-Cuevas, product sales and technical training manager, said in a release. “Our goal is to provide access to training resources for safe, productive lift truck operation and help businesses respond to the effects of Covid-19.”
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.