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NOTED: The Supply Chain In Brief

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Good Works

    • Sunset Transportation volunteers worked with the Greater St. Louis Area Boy Scouts, scout leaders, and parents to execute Scouting for Food, the largest one-day food drive in the United States. The 2021 event was the most successful since 2016, collecting 653,026 pounds of donated food in one day.
    • SEKO Logistics is partnering with retail services client Buyer Connected to launch a new logistics training program to create employment opportunities for previously incarcerated men and women in Atlanta, Georgia, as part of the not-for-profit City of Refuge initiative. The two-week program helps recently released, non-violent offenders re-enter the workplace and begin successful careers.
    • Realterm’s Europe Logistics Fund facilitated the donation of 86 decommissioned solar panels to Paam Laafi Hospital in West Africa, which houses 120 beds for patient care. Local power is expensive and unreliable, occasionally going out for more than 24 hours. Given the sun-drenched terrain, solar energy is an efficient and stable way to provide power to the hospital.


  • Lineage Logistics launched the Lineage Foundation for Good, an independent nonprofit aimed at reducing food waste and fighting food insecurity. About 30% of temperature-controlled food products in the United States travel through the Lineage warehouse network, allowing the company to identify and facilitate donations of items that may have gone to waste.
  • When many Afghan refugees were taken to the Dulles Expo Center in Virginia for quarantine and processing, area residents dropped off donations of clothing, diapers, and other essentials. The American Trucking Associations helped deliver the donations where they were needed as the refugees relocated to U.S. military bases.
  • Along with other landmarks around the globe, a ZIM Qingdao container ship displayed purple lights while docked in the Port of Haifa, Israel, to help create global awareness for the International Day for Persons with Disabilities.

Recognition

  • Logistics company ArcBest and its chief executive officer Judy R. McReynolds have been recognized by brand reputation platform Comparably. ArcBest received the Best Company for Women award, which is chosen based on feedback from female employees, and McReynolds earned the Best CEO award.
  • Arlin Keck, an engineer at Steel King Industries, a manufacturer of storage rack and materials handling products, has received the Material Handling Education Foundation’s Exceptional Contribution Award. The award honors Keck’s extraordinary contributions to engineering standards for storage materials across the industry.
  • The Containerization & Intermodal Institute presented the 2021 Connie Award to Eugene D. Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, for leading the port’s response to the pandemic and keeping cargo flowing as an essential service.
  • Global logistics company Ascent was named a top-performing supplier at Ford’s World Excellence Awards in the Create Must-Have Products category for providing excellent just-in-time services during 2021’s disruption.

Sealed Deals

  • Athletic performance brand Under Armour is rolling out Nedap’s iD Cloud inventory visibility platform throughout 400 of its owned and operated stores across the globe. The goal is to achieve accurate stock visibility in its retail stores, optimizing item availability and enhancing real-time inventory visibility.
  • Beauty retailer Sephora selected same-day delivery platform Delivery Solutions to enable on-demand fulfillment for online shoppers in the United States and Canada. The platform provides access to a network of same-day delivery providers, including independent contractors and major parcel delivery services. It also provides e-commerce delivery intelligence while consumers browse, post-purchase tracking, and communication.
  • E2open and automotive manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover expanded their multi-year partnership to help address supply chain issues in the automotive industry. In addition to E2open’s multi-enterprise inventory optimization, Jaguar Land Rover will benefit from its unified platform to optimize safety stocks and improve collaboration, supply chain performance, and stability for suppliers.
  • Vestas’ wind farms across the United States and Canada will be managed by Hellmann Worldwide Logistics, operating from a new 130,000-square-foot warehouse in Houston, Texas. Hellmann will manage the time-critical supply of spare parts and components, including inventory management, kitting, and load consolidation as well as pick, pack, and ship operations.
  • Master Electronics, a global distributor of electronics components, will deploy Swisslog’s warehouse automation solution to streamline fulfillment in its existing warehouse. The system brings together AutoStore and picking stations, optimized by Swisslog’s SynQ software. Its bins are electrostatic discharge compliant to protect Master’s sensitive inventory from static electric discharge.
  • Healthcare company Roche Pharma France selected Arvato Supply Chain Solutions as its logistics service provider. Arvato will handle warehousing and fulfillment as well as the distribution of pharmaceutical products throughout France, including the French overseas territories. Its solution covers all pharmaceutical logistics requirements in both ambient and cold temperature ranges.

Up the Chain

  • Beyond Meat hired Doug Ramsey, who oversaw Tyson’s poultry and McDonald’s businesses, as its chief operations officer and Bernie Adcock as its chief supply chain officer. The two 30-year Tyson Foods veterans will help Beyond Meat expand into retail and food service in the United States and abroad.
  • ShipBob hired Harshal Wanjari as its chief technology officer. Harshal brings more than 20 years of experience in product development leadership roles, spending the past nine years at Amazon, including Amazon Grocery and Amazon Middle Mile Logistics.
  • Household appliance e-commerce company Goedeker appointed Mike Barry as its director of home delivery. Barry comes to Goedeker with more than two decades of experience building and managing supply chain, transportation, and distribution operations, holding senior roles at several logistics companies such as Pilot Furniture Direct and Last Mile Home.

Shovel Ready

  • Walmart plans to open its first fulfillment center in Salt Lake City, Utah, to support its growing e-commerce fulfillment network. The 1 million-square-foot facility, set to open in 2022, will fulfill online orders and add more capacity to the retailer’s supply chain.
  • Toyota is opening an automotive battery plant in North Carolina’s Greensboro-Randolph megasite. The manufacturing plant, set to open in 2025, will have four production lines, each capable of delivering enough lithium-ion batteries for 200,000 hybrid and electric vehicles.
  • Elkay, a manufacturer of sinks, faucets, bottle-filling stations, and drinking fountains, is opening a new distribution facility in Lumberton, North Carolina. The 387,302-square-foot custom site will help grow the company’s global manufacturing and distribution network.

M & A

  • Dedicated transportation and fleet management company Ryder System entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Whiplash, a national provider of omnichannel fulfillment and logistics services.
  • 3PL Central, a cloud-based logistics technology company for third-party logistics warehouses and brands, acquired CIO Technologies and its CartRover e-commerce integration tool.
  • The North American Chassis Pool Cooperative acquired the Pratt Industries Intermodal line of business.
  • Knight-Swift acquired trucking company MME and its subsidiaries, which operate under the brand names Midwest Motor Express and Midnite Express.
  • Quantix, a portfolio company of Wind Point Partners, acquired Delaware Express, a provider of dry and liquid bulk transportation services.
  • Global port group PSA International signed an agreement to acquire BDP International, a global provider of logistics and transportation solutions.
  • DispatchTrack, a global last-mile logistics software-as-a-service platform, acquired Beetrack, a Latin American route-planning software company.
  • Transportation and bulk logistics company Groendyke Transport signed an agreement to acquire all the tank truck assets of Georgia Tank Lines.
  • CMA CGM Group agreed to acquire most of Ingram Micro’s commerce and life cycle services, including Shipwire and its logistics businesses in North America, Europe, Latin America, and Asia-Pacific.
  • TFI International, a transportation and logistics company, acquired D&D Sexton, a refrigerated transportation company based in Missouri.

Green Seeds

  • U.S. Steel, Norfolk Southern, and The Greenbrier Companies are creating a sustainable steel gondola railcar, which transports loose bulk material. Using a formula for lighter-weight steel developed by U.S. Steel, each gondola’s weight decreases by up to 15,000 pounds. Norfolk Southern will acquire 800 of the Greenbrier-engineered gondolas.
  • Canadian National Railway (CN) was recognized by global environmental non-profit CDP for its leadership in corporate sustainability, including its actions to cut emissions, mitigate climate risks, and develop the low-carbon economy. CN is one of 200 high-performing companies to make the A list of nearly 12,000 companies.
  • Crowley has committed to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, reducing overall emissions by 4.2 million metric tons of greenhouse gases per year. Crowley and Salesforce co-developed a greenhouse gas emissions monitoring platform that provides benchmarking, transparency, and custom disclosures.
  • The Rhenus Group, a global logistics service provider, will neutralize the carbon emissions of all its less-than-containerload products by 2030. In 2022, cargo shipped with the Rhenus Consolidation Box out of Hilden Gateway will be carbon neutral. The service will gradually roll out through all Rhenus gateways worldwide.
  • Deutsche Post DHL Group introduced a global DHL Green Carrier Certification to reward road transport subcontractors for their efforts to become more sustainable. The company aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to below 29 million tons by 2030 and net-zero by 2050.

Milestones

    • UPS has delivered one billion doses of the COVID-19 vaccine worldwide with a 99.9% on-time rate. The company trains governments of Covax nations on how to safely store and distribute the vaccine and has made millions of in-kind vaccine deliveries to facilitate equitable distribution to remote and rural areas throughout Africa, South America, Asia, North America, and Europe.

Tucker Company Worldwide, family owned and operated since 1961, celebrates its 60th anniversary. Currently owned by third-generation executives Jeff Tucker and Jim Tucker, the Tucker family has built its reputation as one of the leaders in North American freight transportation.

Consolidated Chassis Management’s Denver Consolidated Chassis Pool (DCCP) celebrates 16 years of providing neutral chassis pool management in the region. Launched to bring all chassis in the area together in a cooperative environment, DCCP was one of the first interoperable gray chassis pools in the United States.