Eric Joiner's Freightdawg.com - The Logistics and Supply Chain Blog!

Green Packing Materials

Packing materials used in both freight and express parcel movement are both expensive to produce and eat lots of petro resources.  Not exactly green materials.   

ZDNet has a great video on some new developments in creating biodegradable packaging for ecommerce uses as well as some interesting information on how bio materials are making their way into plastics used in everyday items up to and including automobiles.

Check this link out to the ZDNet site.

CSCMP Releases 2010 State of Logistics Report

Sponsored by Penske Logistics, the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionsl (CSMP) released their 2010 state of the logistics industry.

Check out this video with Rosalyn Wilson, author of the report.

Discover Simple, Private Sharing at Drop.io

The 21^st Annual “State of Logistics Report^®,” released by the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) and presented by Penske Logistics, reveals that, continuing the decline reported in 2008, business logistics costs fell to 7.7 percent of U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2009, as compared to 9.3 percent the previous year.  Total U.S. logistics costs dropped again last year showing a significant decrease from 2008.  Interest rates remained historically low, and this, combined with lower inventory levels, pushed the interest paid on inventories down over 89 percent from 2008 levels. 

 The report, authored by Rosalyn Wilson, a transportation consultant for Delcan Corporation, was presented today at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. A panel of senior supply chain executives and academics from BNSF Railway, Covidien, Delcan Corporation, Jones Lang LaSalle, Miami University (Ohio), Penske Logistics, Staples, and Sustainable SC Consulting discussed the implications of the report’s findings on their companies, the logistics industry, and on the economy as it recovers.

via state-of-logistics.presslift.com

ABS Capital Partners invests in INTTRA

Capital infusion to fund development of e-commerce portal

INTTRA, the carrier-owned portal for ocean-freight bookings, is getting a fresh capital infusion that will enable it to develop new electronic commerce services for new markets.

ABS Capital Partners, a capital fund that specializes in later-stage growth companies, has invested $30 million in INTTRA and is taking a majority stake in it.

INTTRA will use these funds to further develop its platform for electronic invoicing and to roll out a new product that will enable shippers to make bookings and instructions with non-vessel-operating common carriers.

“ABS Capital’s investment will give us the financial strength to accelerate our business plans and operations,” said INTTRA CEO Ken Bloom.

He said INTTRA’s search for new investment was started by its board more than two years ago before the onset of recession.

via www.joc.com

The INTTRA ocean portal is one of two major carrier neutral portals for booking, documentation and tracking of ocean freight.

Originally backed by European ocean carriers such as Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd, the portal has grown in sophistication and breadth of membership.

A number of leading NVOCC's including DHL Global Forwarding, Panalpina and UTi, also belong to the portal as a way to provide a common user interface to ocean customers who want a one stop shop for eCommerce.

The ABS investment is interesting because (as far as I know), this is the first VC investment into the portal. Given that the portal is backed by several of the worlds largest ocean carriers, the investment must be viewed as relatively safe. However for cash strapped ocean carriers, this has to be seen as a major win in divesting the majority stake in a non-core business whilst still keeping the portal and its inherent economic benefits intact. 

Venture Capitalists are not known for their long term views nor holdings, so it will be interesting to see how a VC dominant position on the INTTRA board changes the direction of the company over time.  As a late stage investor, ABS may intend to hold the investment for a longer period, but one wonders what the eventual exit strategy of a VC would be in an ocean portal? 

Eric

C&W comments on Commercial Property Trends

Cushman & Wakefield are global commercial real estate brokers specializing in commercial real estate space.  Their interests in both commercial office space and warehouses are substantial.  As a result, C&W have produced an interesting white paper that documents trends in commercial warehouse space in both the Americas and globally.  

Interesting findings include:

• Global industrial rents declined by an average of 5.5% in 2009
• While the Asia Pacific region saw the largest decline in rents (-6.4%), it is also the first to show signs of stabilizing due to an up tick in exports and rise in production
• Ottawa now replaces San Francisco as the most expensive city for industrial space in the Americas
• In the US, an increase in consolidation has caused a trickle down effect including an increase in supply of space and a downward pressure on rental rates
• Upturn in domestic consumption and regional trade will be the determining factors in the strength of recovery in occupational demand

The global info in the C&W white paper didn't surprise me.  However, some of the trends in the Americas were of interest. In particular the expense of commercial property in Canada and Mexico.  Both are growing markets, but the cost of commercial buildings surprised me given the downturn in the global economy.

Download the white paper here.

Eric

Add Freightdawg.com to your social bookmarks!

Supply Chain Strategy: Developed by Market.

Cranfield University in the UK is a leading supply chain educational institution. Richard Wilding, PhD is an expert on supply chain strategy by market. He is a professor of Supply Chain Risk Management at Cranfield. Dr. Wilding is a well respected expert in Europe on Supply Chain Strategy.

Corporate marketing teams make the case relative to product value in individual markets. Logistics teams however are the ones who fulfill the delivery of the promise made by marketing.

Eric

Add Freightdawg.com to your social bookmarks!

Tesco Direct Chooses Manhattan

Tesco is a major convenience retailer in the UK and more recently in Southern California.   Tescodirect.com is a website operated by Tesco that allows ordering of products for home delivery in the UK.    To enable the Tescodirect.com ordering capabilities,  Tesco chose Manhattan Associates warehouse management systems to facilitate the unique order picking requirements of direct purchasing, such as picking single items.   This is not something ordinarily done in a distribution center that supports retail stores.    The video below shows how Tesco are using Manhattans tools as a case study.

The video below is embedded from www.yourtechtv.com.  I recommend signing up for this site because they have a complete supply chain management category for video.  I'm a believer in online video as an interesting and instructive communication tool.  You'll see more of these vids on Freightdawg.com in due course.   

(Note: Some corporate proxy servers ban video from some sites such as youtube.com.  If you see white space below...you may be on such a network.  Please revisit from home or a connection that does not go through your company VPN.)

 

 

Eric

Add Freightdawg.com to your social bookmarks!

XBox 360 Supply Chain

Microsoft's Xbox 360 game system is one of the most popular console gaming systems in the world. Distribution of those systems to satisfy hungry customers is a challenge.   The video below illustrates some other Microsoft technologies that the MS Xbox manufacturing team used to enable efficient distribution of the game systems.  Biztalk is a Microsoft variant of XML.    It differs somewhat from public Rosetta.net XML standards.    However MS is free to use whatever protocol it wants to in a closed loop environment.   The key message is that MS used an XML based visibility system to enable their manufacturing and distribution of the Xbox 360 game system. In this case MS used MS BizTalk Server applications to integrate a variety of data streams from vendors and 3PL's using XML.

Microsoft's problems in seeing their supply chains are not unique.  MS just has a number of proprietary ways to attack problems including internal solutions development.  Even more unique is that MS markets its solutions to solving its own problems.

I am convinced the bald guy in this video is
a Borg alien from Star Trek.

(Note: Some corporate proxy servers ban video from youtube.com.  If you see white space below...you may be on such a network.  Please revisit from home or a connection that does not go through your company VPN.)

Add Freightdawg.com to your social bookmarks!

RFID: No Problem for Metro

Earlier RFID related posts here at Freightdawg.com have illustrated European retailer Metro Groups vision of how RFID should work in their stores.  Now Metro is deploying RFID and being successful in getting accurate reads in operational retail environments.

Metro is getting good RFID read rates at the pallet level, and rates that are almost as good at the case level.  Surely Tesco, the UK early adopter of RFID, will be watching closely to see how Metro's deployment will impact their operations.   

The article below is clipped and digested from eweek.com

clipped from www.eweek.com A senior executive at the $81 billion European retail giant Metro Group says the efficiencies the chain saw in RFID trials were so compelling they just had to deploy. The chain, based in Germany, has informed all of its suppliers that they need to ship all RFID pallets to Metro fully RFID tagged by Oct. 1, said Gerd Wolfram, an IT managing director for the chain. The initial phase of the full rollout will impact about 180 locations, Wolfram said, including about 60 Cash & Carry stores, nine distribution centers, some wholesale locations and 100 Real stores. One of the key hurdles to full-scale RFID deployments with U.S. retailers has been low-read accuracy rates, but Wolfram said that wasn't what his people found in European testing. "It's not a problem at all on the pallet level," he said, adding that pallet-level read rates were "about 100 percent." It's only slightly weaker on the case level, Wolfram said, describing read-rate accuracy "at around 95 percent to 100 percent." The Metro move is likely to be a key domino in global retail RFID support, with Wolfram predicting that his United Kingdom neighbor will be next. "Tesco will follow with an even bigger rollout," he said. "There is now movement in the market and it will go forward." In the U.S., Wolfram says Wal-Mart will be joined by more aggressive efforts from Best Buy and Target. "In Japan, they do a lot of things with item level, but they don't talk a lot about it in public." But mere support of RFID will not deliver most of its benefits and this technologically change needs to be accompanied by a business process change, he said. "This is basic innovation in retail. This is the next step forward. But the real innovation is that we must change the process," Wolfram said, adding that many of the dire predictions for RFID have been based on a lack of comprehension. "People have minor understanding [of] what RFID really means in a retail environment," Wolfram said. "Even the IT management does not have the knowledge, they don't see the potential. Therefore, they answer very pessimistically about RFID." What about unenthusiastic suppliers that seem to be doing the bare minimum to be RFID-compliant? "We also have these kinds of suppliers. We have to educate them and we have to push them harder," Wolfram said, adding that there are going to be strict requirements for things such as advanced ship notices. "We will punish those in the future" who do not cooperate. Metro will be using Intermec RFID starter packs along with Reva Systems' Tag Acquisition Processor products.

Add Freightdawg.com to your social bookmarks!

Very Cool: RFID Checkout at the Grocery Store

This is a "Best of" Freightdawg.com article!

Back in February, I wrote an article highlighting an excellent video done by the Metro Group on how RFID works. The video below, which is actually an IBM commercial I snagged from youtube.com, is a clever piece showing what appears to be shoplifting, but is actually one of the key features of an RFID enabled store.

The "shopper" in this case picks up whatever he wants and when the customer passes through an RFID reader at the check out, the products, which are in his pockets, are automatically scanned and charged to his credit card.

Those who have read some of my other articles know I despise check out lines, especially self check outs.  I can never make them work.    The scenario below is a dream to somebody like me.  It speeds me through the store and out to do my other errands.    Since the tag reader knows what I bought, it can also be tied to replenishment ordering to resupply the store with the goods I just bought.

Wal*Mart has mandated that their top 100 vendors tag products with RFID tags.   One day it will be great if all products are similarly tagged.   Just think how convenient holiday shopping will be if you don't have to wait in long check out lines!    I might actually venture back into a shopping mall again.

(Note: Some corporate proxy servers ban video from youtube.com.  If you see white space below...you may be on such a network.  Please revisit from home or a connection that does not go through your company VPN.)

Eric

Add Freightdawg.com to your social bookmarks!

Retail Video on RFID

This is a "Best of Freightdawg.com article!

This is an outstanding video demonstration and explanation of RFID.   Radio Frequency Identification. It was produced by the Metro Group in Germany.  Retailers such as Wal*Mart and Target in the  US require this technology from their vendors for application at the pallet level.  European Retailers such as Metro and Tesco are also making use of Radio tagging.    DHL is a major partner with Metro in enabling RFID in Germany.

There are a number of people who think RFID is a conspiracy to track individuals and an insidious threat to personal freedom.  I prefer to think of it as a high potential supply chain tool whose cost must come down to be widespread in reality.

Eric

This was clipped from www.youtube.com using Clipmarks 2.0.   (Note that some proxy servers prevent viewing youtube videos.  If so...check the article from home!)

Add Freightdawg.com to your social bookmarks!