NOTED: The Supply Chain in Brief-Aug 2020

Good Works

  • Qatar Airways Cargo is offering free service to charities for transporting medical equipment, humanitarian relief, and essential products through December 2020 to help deliver goods where they are needed most. The airline also donated 2.2 million pounds of freight to select customers to give to charities of their choice.
  • Penske Logistics donated trucking assistance to Baby2Baby, a nonprofit that provides essential items to children living in poverty, which received a $3 million clothing donation from Old Navy. Penske picked up the donations from Old Navy facilities and delivered them directly to members of the Baby2Baby network across the United States.
  • Circle Logistics helped Sandymount Technologies, a Massachusetts-based technology provider for the brewing industry, meet increased demand for hand sanitizer by shifting from transporting beer to moving ethanol. The logistics service provider helped Sandymount reduce costs by 50% and ship more than 1 million bottles of hand sanitizer in three months.
  • Crowley Solutions helped deliver 5 million N95 masks in Maryland to assist in the state’s pandemic response. To ensure the masks reached emergency response and first-responder personnel, the supply chain and technology services provider managed essential logistics services, including sourcing, purchasing, certifying, transporting, customs clearance, and delivery.


Sealed Deals

  • Alcohol logistics company Johnston Logistics UK signed a contract to handle logistics for When in Rome, an environmentally friendly craft wine company that packs wine in bag-in-box packaging made from recycled materials.
  • Soundboks, a Danish manufacturer of Bluetooth-enabled portable speakers, selected RK Logistics as its third-party logistics partner for warehousing, e-commerce order fulfillment, and transportation management. RK will handle Soundboks’ full line of speakers and accessory products for U.S. customers.
  • Transfesa Logistics initiated multimodal food transportation for Kellogg’s. The rail service incorporates direct routes between Spain, Portugal, and Great Britain. Shipments initially include products such as cereal and Pringles potato chips. Four of the connections will be from Great Britain to Spain and six from Spain to Great Britain.
  • Pet Supplies Plus is the first company to implement Manhattan Associates‘ new Manhattan Active Warehouse Management solution. The cloud-native system allows team members to visualize, diagnose, and take action anywhere in their supply chain. It automatically scales to meet demand fluctuations.

Shovel Ready

  • Tesla selected Austin, Texas, to site its new Cybertruck Gigafactory, which will build all-electric vehicles destined for the East Coast. Spanning 4 to 5 million square feet, the factory will be open to the public, with a boardwalk and hiking trails.
  • Port City Logistics is building its new headquarters complex and warehouse facility in Port Wentworth, Georgia. The third-party logistics provider expects the facility to handle an additional 50,400 TEUs through the Port of Savannah each year.

M&A

  • Lineage Logistics, a global provider of temperature-controlled logistics solutions, signed a definitive agreement to acquire cold storage company Ontario Refrigerated Services.
  • Machine learning fulfillment platform Blue Yonder acquired Yantriks, a software-as-a-service provider of commerce and fulfillment microservices.
  • Aptean, a provider of enterprise software solutions, acquired WorkWise, a provider of enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management software.
  • Mark-It Express Logistics, a Midwest intermodal trucking and freight brokerage company, acquired the operating assets of Sava Transportation, based in Maywood, Illinois.

Up the Chain

  • M. Sanjeev was named vice president of Ford’s Global Center of Excellence, overseeing inbound logistics, supply chain, compliance, digitization, and automation at Ford’s International Markets Group. Sanjeev moves to the new role from his position as general manager of supply chain management and supplier manufacturing for Ford’s Asia-Pacific and Africa regions.

Green Seeds

  • GEODIS aims to reduce its carbon emissions by 30% by 2030. The transportation and logistics service provider initiated a program to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, set up partnerships with main subcontractors, and develop low-carbon solutions for customers.
  • Wabash National released the Wabash MSC refrigerated trailer, a thermally efficient, eco-friendly refrigerated haul that uses solar power and all-electric refrigeration technology. This zero-emission solution provides lower operating costs amd maximized payload capacity, and is resistant to corrosion.
  • Consumer and professional goods manufacturer Kimberly-Clark plans to reduce direct and indirect emissions by 50% by 2030. The Texas-based company also plans a 20% cut in its indirect downstream emissions that account for products in use and the end of life for its goods and services.
  • Delta Cargo joined the Sustainable Air Freight Alliance, a collaboration between shippers, freight forwarders, and airlines to track and reduce emissions from air freight and promote responsible transport. The airline committed $1 billion during the next 10 years to mitigate all emissions from its global business.
  • ORBIS released a recyclable plastic material that can be integrated into customers’ products to meet their sustainability goals. Coastline plastic waste is blended with other materials during the manufacturing process to create finished goods. Once the packaging reaches the end of its life cycle, it is recyclable through ORBIS’ recycling program, which recovers and reprocesses obsolete and surplus packaging into new products.

Recognition

  • Bobby Jordan is the winner of the Landstar All-Star Truck Giveaway, receiving a new 2020 Freightliner Cascadia. Jordan was randomly selected from a pool of Landstar’s Safe Drivers and Roadstars, designated based on their high levels of safety, productivity, and excellence in customer service.
  • Combilift received the 2020 Red Dot Design Award for its new Combi-CBE8 electric-powered forklift, which features the first compact counterbalanced design. The international design competition honors smart and innovative product designs from more than 50 countries each year.
  • Werner Enterprises was named the National Shippers Strategic Transportation Council’s Carrier of the Year in the national truckload category. The shipper-selected award recognizes carriers that demonstrate excellence in transportation performance and value.