Ben Ames has spent 20 years as a journalist since starting out as a daily newspaper reporter in Pennsylvania in 1995. From 1999 forward, he has focused on business and technology reporting for a number of trade journals, beginning when he joined Design News and Modern Materials Handling magazines. Ames is author of the trail guide "Hiking Massachusetts" and is a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism.
Dock workers at several west coast ports held work stoppages yesterday for nearly nine minutes to honor the life of George Floyd, the black man who died two weeks ago after being held in an extended choke-hold by Minneapolis police officers.
The May 25 death of Floyd, a 46-year-old man who was suspected of using a counterfeit $20 bill to buy cigarettes at a convenience store, has led to nationwide protests against policy brutality. Floyd’s family held his funeral yesterday in Houston, Texas, calling for a change in police practices that have led to a spate of deaths of unarmed black citizens in recent weeks, such as Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia and Breonna Taylor in Kentucky. Residents of cities around the country have held nightly vigils supporting similar goals.
Those waves of protest are now echoing through the logistics industry as well, as workers with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) paused in their work at several California ports for eight minutes and 46 seconds, representing the amount of time Floyd was held on the ground while an officer knelt on his neck. “Today we’re joining millions of people who are demanding justice and fundamental change,” ILWU International President Willie Adams said in a release. “The union calls on all elected officials in local, state, and the federal government to open their eyes and hearts, to initiate real change in our current system, and root-out institutionalized racism and police brutality that have plagued our country and our citizens for far too long.”
At the Port of Los Angeles, the port’s executive director, Gene Seroka, and Los Angeles Port Police Chief Tom Gazsi addressed the recent events in Minneapolis through a recent video statement of their remarks to the Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners. “I begin my remarks this morning with deep sadness and a very heavy heart. On Memorial Day last week, we witnessed the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, with seemingly three other officers standing by with no recourse to assist. This senseless tragedy once again reminds us that racism exists in our country after all these years,” Seroka said in the June 4 statement.
“In America, we reserve the right through the First Amendment to speak what’s on our minds; to demonstrate, to protest, to march, to sing, laugh, pray, or cry as we wish,” Seroka said. “And I think over the last 10 days, many of us have done all of the above or at least some. But we at some point, and this cuts very deep, we need to unify. We need unity in this country, in our great land, to aspire to be the America that we all want, and all need desperately.”
The protests over Floyd’s death also reached beyond the wharfs into the offices of BPE Global, a San Francisco-based global trade compliance consulting firm. In a statement today, BPE President Beth Pride said the company had made financial contributions to social justice charity groups such as Black Lives Matter Global Network, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Campaign Zero, and the Bail Project. “BPE Global stands with our Black community,” Pride said in the release. “We recognize that America is not right, and it will not be right until Black Lives Matter. We acknowledge the pain and suffering that Black Americans have endured for hundreds of years. It is intolerable and we commit to fighting racism. We believe a different future is possible if all of us stand up and lean in.”
Also yesterday, workers with the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) and the United State Maritime Alliance (USMX) held peaceful protests for an hour at ports from Maine to Texas. “Our nation needs to heal, and we want to demonstrate a powerful unity among our ILA and USMX family to a grieving nation that is crying for change,” ILA International President Harold J. Daggett said in a release. “Together we will shut down our cranes and computers; power off our equipment to pause and reflect on how we can find a way to be better as individuals and a country where all citizens should be guaranteed the same respect, freedoms and liberties.”
The Teamsters union also asked its members to to kneel or stand in silence for the same period of time on June 9, saying “This will join all of us together against racism, injustice, and pay respect to George Floyd.”
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.