What can we do to prevent a replay of the East Palestine derailment? To answer that question, we must rise above political rhetoric and let the NTSB investigation play out.
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.
On the evening of Feb. 3, an eastbound Norfolk Southern freight train passing through East Palestine, Ohio, derailed, igniting a fire and causing the release of vinyl chloride. East Palestine is some 50 miles from my home. Needless to say, there’s been a lot of coverage of the accident by the regional media.
Quite understandably, the residents of East Palestine are fearful of the long-term effects of exposure to the hazardous chemicals. Those living within two miles of the accident site were evacuated while a controlled burn was performed on the affected tank cars. These same residents remain distrustful of rail and government officials—and, of course, politics has now entered the picture.
Thankfully, we have a neutral government agency that looks only at the facts—the National Transportation Safety Board. Shortly after the accident, NTSB investigators arrived onsite to begin a painstaking review of what happened and how we can prevent another such event in the future.
As NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said at a press conference, “We call things ‘accidents.’ There are no accidents. Every single event we investigate is preventable.”
Nonetheless, she was careful not to assign fault. A thorough investigation must yet take place, including investigative hearings. Sadly, derailments occur more often than we’d like. Homendy cited 2021 figures that showed U.S. Class 1 freight railroads had been involved in 868 derailments and 68 collisions that year.
The NTSB’s preliminary report focuses on an overheated wheel bearing on the 23rd railcar that likely caused 38 of the train’s 149 cars to derail. Technology was in place to alert the crew of an overheating problem, but it didn’t alert the crew soon enough. The train passed “hot bearing detectors” some 30 and 20 miles before the accident, which showed increasingly elevated bearing temperatures. But it wasn’t until the train passed another detector that recorded a temperature 253 degrees above ambient that the system sent an alarm telling the crew to stop the train. The derailment occurred while the train was slowing. The crew acted according to current Norfolk Southern procedures.
While many railroads have been trying to reduce crew size to a single operator, having three crew members on this train provided immediate eyes on the ground to report the accident, and decouple and move the locomotives to safety. Thankfully, no one was injured on the train or on the ground.
The investigation will proceed. In the meantime, it’s important to remember that rail is still the safest way to transport chemicals, much safer than moving them on highways, where 100 trucks might be needed to transport the volume handled by a single train.
While new safety legislation has been proposed and may be needed, let’s learn from the NTSB findings and take the proper corrective actions. Let’s not allow politics to dictate safety. As Homendy put it, “We need action on what would prevent that from happening again.”
Most retail, wholesale, and manufacturing businesses are focused on fundamentally restructuring their supply chains to stay ahead of economic uncertainty. That’s according to results of the second annual State of Supply Chain report from supply chain solutions platform provider Relex Solutions, released Tuesday.
Relex surveyed nearly 600 professionals from retail, consumer packaged goods (CPG), and wholesale businesses across seven countries and found that 60% said they are overhauling their supply chains due to tariff uncertainty and market volatility.
Respondents said they are grappling with unpredictable consumer demand, escalating trade tensions, and unreliable supplier networks. More than half (52%) said demand volatility is their biggest challenge, forcing them to rethink inventory strategies in real time as shifting spending habits disrupt supply chains. In addition, 47% of businesses pointed to global trade disruptions and rising tariffs as a growing threat—with tariff volatility fueling concerns over higher costs and sourcing bottlenecks—and43% said they struggle with a lack of real-time data and visibility, making it harder to adapt to sudden shifts in demand, labor shortages, and transportation delays.
To counter those challenges, companies said they are making “bold operational shifts,” according to the study. Many are expanding their supplier networks, moving sourcing closer to home, and accelerating automation investments. Among retailers, 62% said they are addressing cost pressures through a combination of efficiency improvements and price adjustments, while 50% said they are actively broadening supplier bases to safeguard against economic and geopolitical instability.
“Supply chains are in a pressure cooker—between tariffs, demand shifts, and unpredictable disruptions, the outdated and traditional way of operating isn’t sustainable,” Dr. Madhav Durbha, Relex Solutions’ group vice president of CPG & Manufacturing, said in a statement announcing the findings. “Companies that lean into AI, automation, and supplier diversification will not only weather this volatility but emerge stronger. The ones that don’t risk falling behind.”
The full report, Relex State of Supply Chain 2025: Retail and CPG Dynamics, is slated for release in March. The report was conducted by market research firm Researchscape in January 2025.
Ask 10 warehousing experts about the optimal level of inventory visibility, and you'll get a dozen different responses.
Sure, most would agree on the importance of accurate inventory counts—knowing exactly how many items are in every carton, crate, and pallet stored in the facility. But depending on what type of goods the warehouse handles, opinions will vary widely on how much accuracy is good enough and what's the best technique for counting.
Fortunately, we live in an age when there have never been so many tools available to take those counts. Workers can perform cycle counts with paper and clipboards, as they've done for decades. Or a facility can deploy internet of things (IoT) sensors at dock doors, computer-vision cameras mounted on conveyors, handheld RFID (radio-frequency identification) scanners, wearable devices like ring scanners or voice-picking headsets, autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), or even indoor flying drones.
In fact, many companies are now using those devices to obtain snapshots of the inventory held in various locations throughout their DCs. But assembling those snapshots into a full panoramic view remains an almost mythical pursuit, according to John Santagate, vice president, robotics at Körber Supply Chain Software. "Visibility remains the unicorn in warehouse operations," Santagate says. "No matter how much automation and RFID you have, you need to tie it all together. Visibility for visibility's sake is somewhat useless."
In other words, simply collecting data isn't enough these days. To master the inventory visibility game, a company must be able to analyze the information it collects; compare the results to the records in, say, its warehouse management system (WMS) or order management system (OMS); and quickly act on any discrepancies. Done right, these steps can lead to a number of follow-on benefits, including the ability to track and trace on demand, determine optimal restocking rates, and build the supply chain resilience needed to weather the inevitable supply disruptions.
However, few companies have reached that goal, Santagate says. "You need to know what's in the entire network, where it is, and how to capitalize on it. Most folks are still chasing that and making [only] incremental improvements."
CLOSING THE GAP
Santagate's assessment is backed up by a study conducted last August among 1,000 U.S. supply chain managers by Impinj, a developer of RFID solutions and software. In its "Supply Chain Integrity Outlook 2025" research report, the firm found that the majority (91%) of supply chain managers believe they are equipped to drive accurate supply chain visibility, but only a third (33%) can consistently obtain accurate, real-time inventory data.
According to Impinj's chief revenue officer, Jeff Dossett, that data accuracy gap leaves many struggling to attain the level of insights, visibility, and accuracy required to drive confidence in their supply chain and respond quickly to market changes. "Supply chain managers continue to face data blind spots that prevent them from ensuring secure, reliable, and adaptable supply chains," Dossett said in a release announcing the study's findings. "It's essential that organizations address the data accuracy gap by putting technology in place to surface accurate data that fuels the real-time, actionable insights and visibility needed to ensure supply chain resilience."
HOW SHARP IS YOUR VISION?
That raises a couple of questions for DC managers seeking to bridge that visibility gap: How much detail is good enough, and how can they make the optimal use of the data they collect?
Those are tricky questions to answer, because many warehouse managers probably don't realize what they're missing, says Chris Coote, head of product at Dexory, a London-based company that makes inventory-counting robots.
In fact, enhanced visibility sometimes brings to light underlying problems that managers didn't realize they had. "Visibility reveals what people don't know about their warehouse," Coote says. For example, he says, there could be a corner of the warehouse that's particularly prone to mispicks, but the managers are not aware there's a problem and don't scan for that. "Or the [problem] could be something they do scan for but don't realize they could be [addressing more effectively]."
Most people think their system of record is pretty good, but in reality, those systems can almost always be improved, according to Coote. In many cases, those improvements would bring real benefits, like freeing human workers from the drudgery of case counting so they can take on higher-level tasks, he says.
Dexory's view aligns closely with Körber's perspective on inventory visibility—so closely, in fact, that the two companies last month launched a partnership to integrate the DexoryView advanced visibility platform with Körber's warehouse management software (WMS). The partnership will enable users to swiftly uncover and address issues in the warehouse through data-driven decision-making based on Dexory's daily scans of the facility, the companies said.
Based on these and other market developments, it looks like the warehouse visibility sector is getting its moment in the sun. It's also clear that the technology used for inventory counting is getting "smarter" and faster by the day. Together, those trends could combine to shine a bright light on the darkest corners of the warehouse, illuminating every pallet, case, and carton so DCs can get a sharper view of all the inventory inside.
When a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in 2010, a fledgling humanitarian group knew its day had come—after months of planning, it would finally be able to take its model live and see how well it worked. Formed a year earlier to support humanitarian relief efforts, that group, Airlink, had established a network of airline partners it could call on to provide free or discounted airlift in times of crisis. As it turned out, the model held up in testing. In the weeks following the earthquake, Airlink successfully coordinated the movement of more than 2,000 doctors and nurses and more than 40 shipments of aid totaling more than 500,000 pounds into the disaster zone.
Fifteen years later, the group is still carrying out that mission—but on a much larger scale. Airlink's network today includes over 200 aid organizations and over 50 commercial and charter airlines. Since its inception, the group has flown 13,500 relief workers and transported 18 million pounds of humanitarian cargo, directly helping 60 million people impacted by natural and man-made disasters.
Airlink plans to celebrate the milestone year through PR campaigns and a web series titled "15 Years in 15 Minutes." An episode will be released on the 15th of each month; all 12 episodes will feature Airlink President and CEO Steve Smith sitting down with an industry partner to discuss innovation in logistical strategy and meeting the demands of an evolving landscape in humanitarian relief. The videos will be available on YouTube.
In a statement marking the group's 15th anniversary, Smith attributed the group's success to corporate partnerships and "established, trusting relationships" with NGOs (nongovernmental organizations); airlines, including United Airlines, American Airlines, and Qatar Airways; and foundations, including the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, GE Aerospace Foundation, Paul Allen Foundation, Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation, UPS Foundation, and Flexport.org Fund.
When planning routes for their delivery trucks, fleet managers—or more likely, their route planning software systems—consider factors like mileage, road height and weight restrictions, traffic conditions, and weather. They can now add another variable to the mix, thanks to a new tool that calculates the chances that a load might be stolen along the way.
Developed by New Jersey-based risk assessment firm Verisk Analytics, CargoNet RouteScore API generates a cargo theft "risk score" that provides a relative measure of probability that crime and loss will occur along any given route in the U.S. and Canada. Using a proprietary algorithm, the tool rates routes on a scale from 1 to 100—with 1 representing the lowest likelihood of theft—based on risk factors such as cargo type, value, length of haul, origin, destination, day of the week, and the theft history of specific truck stops.
Companies can also use the tool to protect their cargo proactively, Verisk says. For example, before sending a truck out on a high-risk route, a carrier could implement additional security measures like tracking devices, driver teams, and escorts or even secure parking spots in advance.
Verisk adds that the tool's API format allows for easy integration with both proprietary systems and the third-party transportation management systems (TMS) that many companies use to manage their trucking operations.
Drivers typically choose a specific blend of gasoline based on their car's engine, picking high-octane fuel for a sports car and regular gas for the family sedan. Now a company has launched a similar range of products for diesel fuel, saying the offerings are calibrated for vehicles like commercial trucks.
That company, Nevada-based Advanced Refining Concepts LLC (ARC), will launch two new products, GDiesel Lightning and GDiesel Thunder, by mid-year, the company said in January.
According to the firm, GDiesel Lightning is a lighter, faster-igniting diesel fuel than the classic mix and is designed specifically for urban start-stop operations—think delivery vehicles, light trucks, city buses, and passenger vehicles. GDiesel Thunder is a heavier, higher energy-content fuel made for steadier and more continuous engine operating modes, making it suitable for long-haul trucking or rail and marine applications.
According to the company, choosing the right fuel for a particular application can reduce visible smoke and other regulated emissions, maximize efficiency, and minimize engine wear. And both fuels meet current diesel regulatory standards, it says, obviating the need for modifications to engines, fueling infrastructures, or warranties.
The new fuels' potential is not just limited to petroleum diesel. ARC says the process to make GDiesel Lightning and GDiesel Thunder has been successfully applied to renewable diesel, and both petroleum and bio-based versions of these fuels can be used as next-generation blend stock or to vastly increase biodiesel blend ratios and efficiency.
"Engine manufacturers are at their limits trying to improve efficiency and emissions from standard diesel. It is long past due time to redesign the fuel side," ARC Managing Partner Peter Gunnerman said in a release. "It has never made sense to assume that one diesel fuel option can be efficient for all diesel engine types and operating cycles."