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.
As parcel carriers throughout the industry wrestle with rising package volumes sparked by the triple-whammy impact of booming e-commerce, pandemic online shoppers, and the winter holiday peak, FedEx Corp. says it sees a solution in new technologies that have been pressed into service much sooner than most of the industry expected.
Under pressure from those market forces, online shopping is expected to reach record levels in the coming weeks, leading to a peak holiday season unlike any other, the Memphis-based firm said. Prior to the pandemic, FedEx had projected that the U.S. domestic economy would hit 100 million packages per day by calendar year 2026, but it now projects the market will hit that mark three years sooner than expected, cresting that level by 2023.
To handle the surge, FedEx says it has invested in advanced technologies and intelligent automation solutions, the company said in an “Innovation Showcase” webcast today. “We’ve been in peak since the beginning of the pandemic, and now we’re going to put peak on top of peak,” Rob Carter, FedEx’ executive vice president and CIO, said in the event.
In response, the company is leaning heavily on solutions like robotic sorting arms, mobile pick-by-light systems, autonomous DC tugs, last-mile delivery bots, and wireless package tags, the company’s executives said.
FedEx is currently using four robotic arms installed in March at its Memphis sorting hub, according to Aaron Prather, senior technical advisor at FedEx Express. Provided by the vendors PlusOne Robotics and Yaskawa Motoman, they currently run eight hours per day, sorting 1,200 to 1,300 packages per hour across a variety of parcels such as letters, small boxes, and “polymorphic” items that change shape as they move through the system.
Warehouse employees have named the arms Sue, Randall, Colin, and Bobby, but they will soon have to come up with additional monikers when FedEx expands the program after this winter’s peak season passes, Prather said.
One challenge in that process is handling e-commerce packages at the smallest and largest ends of the spectrum, so to handle big packages, FedEx deploys autonomous tugs from Vecna Robotics to move big boxes within the building, said Ted Dengel, managing director, operations technology and innovation, FedEx Ground. In the future, the company plans to extend that pattern outside the four walls of the DC and will pilot similar tugs for autonomous operations outdoors in the yard, moving trailers to and from dock doors, he said.
Once packages reach the loading dock, a different kind of technology takes over, according to Katherine King, a senior engineer with FedEx Express. The company’s “cargo recognition and organization system” (COROS), developed with Mercedes Benz, uses a combination of a camera and vision system, pick and put by light, and real time tracking. Mounted inside a FedEx delivery van, the COROS system guides workers on where to place packages inside the vehicle. First it automatically scans barcodes on packages, then identifies each package and determines its destination along a driver’s route, and flashes lights on specific shelves to guide the optimal loading pattern for boxes inside the van.
FedEx plans to expand the system soon as “COROS Scan Gate,” installed at dock locations to provide that same type of hands-free scanning and processing to speed up visibility and “to eliminate individual touchpoints at the extreme ends of the package delivery process,” King said.
At the final end of the delivery process, FedEx is now testing an autonomous last mile delivery vehicle known as “Roxo,” built on an iBot base from Deka Research, according to Brian Philips, president and CEO of FedEx Office. Each unit is a small, rolling bot that navigates city streets, carrying packages to homes and covering not just the last mile but the “last 50 feet,” as it climbs curbs, sidewalks, and front steps. Currently rolling down streets in Memphis and in Manchester, New Hampshire, the Roxo bots cruise a three to five-mile radius carrying up to 100 pounds. They are typically stationed at local spots like retailers, restaurants, and pharmacies, so they can be dispatched faster than a courier or crowdsourced carrier could respond, Philips said.
The company favors the new platform both for its speed of dispatch and for its efficiency, Carter said, commenting that “It makes more sense than using a 3,000-pound car driving around with a person inside of it, just to deliver a three-pound pizza.”
And the final step in FedEx’ application of new technologies during the e-commerce surge is its SenseAware platform, which uses physical tracking tags attached to parcels to create a “smart package” network with enhanced location and visibility for safety and security, Carter said. Each tag makes frequent transmissions using the Bluetooth Low Energy spectrum to communicate with WiFi access points, and the network will eventually connect to a new platform called FedEx Surround, which will emerge from a collaboration between FedEx and Microsoft Corp. announced in May.
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.