In our continuing series of discussions with top supply-chain company executives, Derek Lester of Intralox discusses the conveyor market and how e-commerce is impacting supply chains.
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.
Derek Lester is vice president and manager of the Logistics and Material Handling (LMH) business unit at Intralox, a company that manufactures conveying systems that feature modular plastic belting for use in the food, tire, beverage, container, and other industries. In that capacity, he is responsible for overseeing the development of new programs and equipment to support customers in the e-commerce and parcel sectors.
Lester has been with Intralox since 2007, serving in various product and operations management roles and as an international sales leader. His experience has included overseeing European sales as well as working with Intralox’s teams in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) and Latin American regions.
Q:A lot of your automation equipment is used in the e-commerce and parcel industries. How has that market changed with the pandemic?
A: The market is certainly in growth mode, primarily driven by e-commerce. The pandemic has accelerated the shift from brick and mortar to online as well as the change in parcel shipping profiles (less B2B and more B2C). This means that our customers have been experiencing unprecedented volumes since the outbreak of the pandemic.
This is driving the need for additional automation (sortation, singulation, and bulk handling) as customers look to expand their capacity. They also are looking for increased reliability and uptime with their systems. The increased volumes mean that the amount of downtime, planned or unplanned, our customers can tolerate is reduced. This has our customers implementing proven and reliable technology that is backed by a robust support infrastructure.
Q: You have worked at Intralox for nearly 13 years. What has kept you at one company for so long?
A: It’s a great, fulfilling place to work with great people, and it starts with the culture: We believe in doing the right things daily and treating customers, suppliers, and employees with honesty, fairness, and respect. We focus on developing long-term relationships by creating significant value for our customers, and in these times of accelerated growth, our customers rely on Intralox to meet our commitments. We are committed to providing excellent customer experience and execution—our long-term thinking means we meet our delivery dates and the promised performance metrics.
Another thing that has kept me here is the constant innovation. Intralox was founded on innovation. Our founder, J.M. Lapeyre, earned 191 patents, including patents for the dot-matrix printer, a digital compass, a shrimp peeler, and the first modular plastic conveyor belt. We have continued that level of innovation ever since by focusing on what we call gaps in the market. And what we mean by that is we start with understanding where there are problems faced by various industries today, and then we boil those down and only focus on those that we can [address] uniquely well and completely. And by completely, we mean not only creating unique technology that solves these problems, but also making sure that pre-sales, execution, commissioning, and post-sales service is world-class for that particular innovation.
Q:What are some of the major innovations you have seen in automated solutions over the past few years?
A: With the continued shift away from physical store traffic to e-commerce, both before and after the pandemic, the industry has seen a dramatic increase in demand for small parcel automation, which becomes particularly difficult for soft-packed items in polybags and bubble mailers. Traditional parcel automation technology providers have seen the need for rapid innovation to keep up with this trend.
We’ve seen tremendously innovative solutions in the technologies and integrated solutions focused on this area. This spans a wide range of applications, including bulk sortation, singulation, and identifying, gapping, and sorting small parcels at very high rates with minimal to no human intervention.
We’ve also seen opportunities for partnered innovation between end-customers and technology providers—where solutions can be tailored to fit the dynamic needs of both new systems and system additions to meet the shifting mix toward more small items.
Q:What do you think is the most important thing companies should focus on now in their supply chains?
A: For our own supply chain experience, we’ve seen success staying close to our customers’ capital expenditure plans while improving our forecasting methods. I also believe it’s important to communicate early and often with our suppliers and partner with them as much as possible. Just as we do with our customers, we strive to [create] long-term value with our suppliers, so it’s a win/win relationship. Expectations are important here as well. We’re up front about our capacity and don’t overcommit, and the same goes for the quality of our product and delivery expectations.
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.