In Person Interview: Vincent Halma of SSI Schaefer
In our continuing series of discussions with top supply-chain company executives, Vincent Halma of SSI Schaefer discusses the effects of Covid-19 on the market and how automation will shape the future of facility design.
David Maloney has been a journalist for more than 35 years and is currently the group editorial director for DC Velocity and Supply Chain Quarterly magazines. In this role, he is responsible for the editorial content of both brands of Agile Business Media. Dave joined DC Velocity in April of 2004. Prior to that, he was a senior editor for Modern Materials Handling magazine. Dave also has extensive experience as a broadcast journalist. Before writing for supply chain publications, he was a journalist, television producer and director in Pittsburgh. Dave combines a background of reporting on logistics with his video production experience to bring new opportunities to DC Velocity readers, including web videos highlighting top distribution and logistics facilities, webcasts and other cross-media projects. He continues to live and work in the Pittsburgh area.
Vincent Halma brings an impressive résumé as a material handling executive to his new job at SSI Schaefer, where he was named senior vice president and head of the North America region on July 1. SSI Schaefer is an international material handling equipment supplier with headquarters in Germany and U.S. offices in Charlotte, North Carolina. The company has 70 operative subsidiaries and 10 global production facilities.
Prior to joining SSI Schaefer, Halma was the North American president and CEO of the Kion Group. All together, he has more than 20 years of experience working in the industry. In his new role, he is focusing on growth, delivering on customer commitments, enabling innovation, and creating a team culture that fosters leading digital transformation within the material handling industry.
Halma holds a bachelor’s degree in finance and a master’s degree in business arts with a focus on marketing, both from the Ohio State University. He speaks four languages, including English and German. Halma has three sons and currently resides in Charlotte with his wife, Jennifer.
Q: How do you view the current state of the material handling market?
A: The effects of the Covid-19 pandemic will have lasting impacts on customer behavior and supply chains in general. We are all looking for the best possible ways to deal with the peaks in consumer demand created by the pandemic. We believe that this will trigger an even higher demand for automation and integration of current systems within e-commerce. Continued new software integration of mechanical subsystems will help many other industries expand or start to fulfill their automation ambitions.
SSI Schaefer covers many industries with many solutions and products, so the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic vary depending on the customer. Many of our industrial and retail customers have been hit by shutdowns or slowdowns, while other customers are experiencing an unprecedented boom. Both situations require immediate optimization, and SSI Schaefer has supported customers around the globe to help with these needs. Our market-driven approach gives customers an advantage when it comes to these shifts.
Q: Has the pandemic changed the way customers are designing their facilities? For instance, are they incorporating more social distancing into their operations?
A: We see an even higher interest in automation. This may change the degree of automation customers adopt—for example, they may look for more process-driven automation to help lessen the engagement with labor. Of course, software can easily determine the pick-aisle in a manual setting, but more automation seems to be the theme now. This is also affecting the order profile of distribution centers, so flexibility is important in the design.
The warehouse of the future is highly automated. As hardware and software continue to integrate more seamlessly into the warehouse, more automated processes can be added economically. It’s much easier now to determine what utopia would look like in this scenario.
The team here at SSI Schaefer plans a scaled business approach. We work with our clients to design a path of steady progression toward a “lights out” operation, although for most businesses, this is still a few years away. We also have a large number of legacy facilities that were designed and operated around different principles and metrics, so this presents an opportunity to adapt this methodology and retrofit those facilities as well.
Q: You have worked in both the European and North American markets. How are they the same and how are they different?
A: Europe and North America are two different continents with big differences in material handling history and supply chain networks. Although our customers on both continents are facing similar challenges, they need different solutions. The drive for efficiency through automation and consumer behavior trends for e-commerce growth are similar, but legislation, local standards, and availability of space can lead to very different solutions for the customer.
Q: In what ways do you foster a team culture, and why is that important in leading your business?
A: SSI Schaefer is a family-owned company with great values. I believe in building a clock instead of telling time when it comes to team culture. Teams with open communication and empowered members are a lot more effective. In the global business of automation, a strong team culture is an absolute must. This is the philosophy that I’m pushing forward.
Q: What do you think is the most important thing that companies should focus on now in their supply chains?
A: Always look for new and different solutions and ask for advice from global experts, especially now. The team at SSI Schaefer has decades of experience when it comes to solving complex fulfillment hurdles. There are many efficiency solutions today that didn’t even exist five years ago. Even a simple software upgrade can improve throughput rates. We see supply chain and logistics solutions providing a big competitive advantage to our customers, which helps them gain market share and drive profits.
The German forklift vendor Kion Group plans to lay off an unspecified number of workers as part of an “efficiency program” it is launching to strengthen the company’s resilience and maintain headroom for future investments, the company said today.
The new structural measures are intended to optimize Kion’s efficiency, executives said in their fourth quarter earnings report.
“While internal programs to continuously improve product, production, and services costs were already up and running throughout 2024 and will continue, further structural measures will address a more efficient setup for Kion in Europe. This is expected to have an impact on personnel requirements subject to consultations with the respective employee representative bodies as required by local laws,” the report said.
“The efficiency program is addressing developments in the macroeconomic environment. European economies are struggling to gain momentum – this affects key customer industries in the Industrial Trucks & Services segment, where Chinese competitors have been improving their market position in the aftermaths of the recent pandemics,” Kion said.
The move comes as Kion reported that it finished its 2024 financial year with slightly improved revenue of $11.9 billion (over $11.8 billion in 2023), and profitability (measured as earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT)) that significantly increased to $951 million (over $820 million in 2023).
The company now plans to pay $249 to $269 million in financial year 2025 to implement the cost saving measures. Following that one-time charge, it expects to achieve sustainable cost savings of $145 million to $166 million per year, beginning in 2026.
“In order to maintain headroom for investments ensuring our future, to further strengthen our competitiveness and our resilience, we must manage our cost base. This requires structural and sustainable measures,” Christian Harm, CFO of Kion, said in a release.
By the numbers, fourth quarter shipment volume was down 4.7% compared to the prior quarter, while spending dropped 2.2%.
Geographically, fourth-quarter shipment volume was low across all regions. The Northeast had the smallest decline at 1.2% with the West just behind with a contraction of 2.1%. And the Southeast saw shipments drop 6.7%, the most of all regions, as hurricanes impacted freight activity.
“While this quarter’s Index revealed spending overall on truck freight continues to decline, we did see some signs that spending per truck is increasing,” said Bobby Holland, U.S. Bank director of freight business analytics. “Shipments falling more than spending – even with lower fuel surcharges – suggests tighter capacity.”
The U.S. Bank Freight Payment Index measures quantitative changes in freight shipments and spend activity based on data from transactions processed through U.S. Bank Freight Payment, which processes more than $43 billion in freight payments annually for shippers and carriers across the U.S.
“It’s clear there are both cyclical and structural challenges remaining as we look for a truck freight market reboot,” Bob Costello, senior vice president and chief economist at the American Trucking Associations (ATA) said in a release on the results. “For instance, factory output softness – which has a disproportionate impact on truck freight volumes – is currently weighing heavily on our industry.”
Volvo Autonomous Solutions will form a strategic partnership with autonomous driving technology and generative AI provider Waabi to jointly develop and deploy autonomous trucks, with testing scheduled to begin later this year.
The announcement came two weeks after autonomous truck developer Kodiak Robotics said it had become the first company in the industry to launch commercial driverless trucking operations. That milestone came as oil company Atlas Energy Solutions Inc. used two RoboTrucks—which are semi-trucks equipped with the Kodiak Driver self-driving system—to deliver 100 loads of fracking material on routes in the Permian Basin in West Texas and Eastern New Mexico.
Atlas now intends to scale up its RoboTruck deployment “considerably” over the course of 2025, with multiple RoboTruck deployments expected throughout the year. In support of that, Kodiak has established a 12-person office in Odessa, Texas, that is projected to grow to approximately 20 people by the end of Q1 2025.
Businesses dependent on ocean freight are facing shipping delays due to volatile conditions, as the global average trip for ocean shipments climbed to 68 days in the fourth quarter compared to 60 days for that same quarter a year ago, counting time elapsed from initial booking to clearing the gate at the final port, according to E2open.
Those extended transit times and booking delays are the ripple effects of ongoing turmoil at key ports that is being caused by geopolitical tensions, labor shortages, and port congestion, Dallas-based E2open said in its quarterly “Ocean Shipping Index” report.
The most significant contributor to the year-over-year (YoY) increase is actual transit time, alongside extraordinary volatility that has created a complex landscape for businesses dependent on ocean freight, the report found.
"Economic headwinds, geopolitical turbulence and uncertain trade routes are creating unprecedented disruptions within the ocean shipping industry. From continued Red Sea diversions to port congestion and labor unrest, businesses face a complex landscape of obstacles, all while grappling with possibility of new U.S. tariffs," Pawan Joshi, chief strategy officer (CSO) at e2open, said in a release. "We can expect these ongoing issues will be exacerbated by the Lunar New Year holiday, as businesses relying on Asian suppliers often rush to place orders, adding strain to their supply chains.”
Lunar New Year this year runs from January 29 to February 8, and often leads to supply chain disruptions as massive worker travel patterns across Asia leads to closed factories and reduced port capacity.
Women are significantly underrepresented in the global transport sector workforce, comprising only 12% of transportation and storage workers worldwide as they face hurdles such as unfavorable workplace policies and significant gender gaps in operational, technical and leadership roles, a study from the World Bank Group shows.
This underrepresentation limits diverse perspectives in service design and decision-making, negatively affects businesses and undermines economic growth, according to the report, “Addressing Barriers to Women’s Participation in Transport.” The paper—which covers global trends and provides in-depth analysis of the women’s role in the transport sector in Europe and Central Asia (ECA) and Middle East and North Africa (MENA)—was prepared jointly by the World Bank Group, the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), the European Investment Bank (EIB), and the International Transport Forum (ITF).
The slim proportion of women in the sector comes at a cost, since increasing female participation and leadership can drive innovation, enhance team performance, and improve service delivery for diverse users, while boosting GDP and addressing critical labor shortages, researchers said.
To drive solutions, the researchers today unveiled the Women in Transport (WiT) Network, which is designed to bring together transport stakeholders dedicated to empowering women across all facets and levels of the transport sector, and to serve as a forum for networking, recruitment, information exchange, training, and mentorship opportunities for women.
Initially, the WiT network will cover only the Europe and Central Asia and the Middle East and North Africa regions, but it is expected to gradually expand into a global initiative.
“When transport services are inclusive, economies thrive. Yet, as this joint report and our work at the EIB reveal, few transport companies fully leverage policies to better attract, retain and promote women,” Laura Piovesan, the European Investment Bank (EIB)’s Director General of the Projects Directorate, said in a release. “The Women in Transport Network enables us to unite efforts and scale impactful solutions - benefiting women, employers, communities and the climate.”