From an enhanced ocean route between Turkey and the U.S. East Coast to the latest dunnage for auto parts, here are some notable supply chain services and solutions that recently hit the market.
Transportation
- Alaska Air Cargo is adding two Boeing 737-800 aircraft to its dedicated freighter fleet serving Alaska. The two converted aircraft come from Alaska Airlines' passenger fleet. The planes will be converted from their passenger configuration to all-freight aircraft and are expected to re-enter service as freighters in 2023, nearly doubling Alaska Air Cargo's total freighter lift capacity.
- The transatlantic ZIM Container Turkey service (ZCT) from ZIM Integrated Shipping Services became a weekly service starting in mid-May, providing an enhanced connection between Turkey and the U.S. East Coast. Now with a weekly fixed-day frequency, the ZCT calls on Mersin, Yarimca, Aliaga, Tangier, New York, Norfolk, and Savannah.
- The new OTTO Lifter from OTTO Motors can pick up and drop off pallets autonomously. Equipped with safety sensors, the autonomous forklift works alongside people, vehicles, and existing infrastructure in dynamic environments, improving safety in warehouses and facilities.
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Services
- Dayton Freight Lines, a provider of regional less-than-truckload (LTL) transportation services, moved its South Bend location to a new facility in Elkhart, Indiana. Located four miles north of the old service center, the new build sits on 30 acres with 88 doors and an 80-foot-wide dock. It offers 12,000 square feet of warehouse space with a 24-foot-high clearance.
- DHL Supply Chain now offers on-demand packaging solutions to make shipments more cost-effective and environmentally friendly. The AI solution OptiCarton helps optimize the filling volume of boxes from an existing, pre-configured set of cartons and can suggest the splitting of an order into several consignments to make individual shipments more cost-effective or reduce their carbon footprint.
- Penske Truck Leasing constructed a new facility in Fontana, California, to better serve its customer base in the area, as well as provide capacity for new customers. At this location, Penske offers truck rental, full-service truck leasing, and contract truck fleet maintenance.
Products
- ORBIShield protective dunnage from ORBIS is designed to protect unique vehicle parts during transit, assembly, and storage using a variety of foam, rigid, and fabric materials. The PolySilk nonwoven center fabric (pictured) is ideal for soft divider sets, hanging bags used for lightweight parts, and protection for extra-delicate Class-A components, chrome, and painted parts.
- Motorized roller (MDR) conveyors from Ultimation Industries operate with 24-volt DC power and use motorized rollers within the conveyor frames to move products. They use zero pressure accumulation, which means loads continue moving along the MDR conveyor until they get close to (but do not touch) the product unit in front, ensuring there are no gaps in the assembly line.
- NexSys iON lithium-ion batteries from EnerSys for lift truck fleets are manufactured with high-performance cells to provide high energy capacity in a smaller footprint. With their modular construction, they can be customized to power and fleet demands and can reduce carbon dioxide emissions and water consumption.
- Siemens Logistics introduced a space-saving version of its Visicon singulator, which processes large volumes of parcels in various shapes for sorting operations. Utilizing an AI-based vision system, the Visicon Compact system performs package singulation in small spaces. It singulates up to 7,000 consignments per hour, preparing them for the sorting process.
Technology
- Supply chain risk management software provider Avetta launched a subcontractor management solution within the Avetta One platform. The solution gives users visibility into their connected suppliers' subcontractors that may pose hidden risks.
- Supply chain visibility platform project44 introduced Yard Solutions, a set of dock, yard, and asset management capabilities designed to automate yard operations from a single platform. project44's Yard Solutions suite includes slot booking, yard visibility, and yard management.
- Descartes Systems Group integrated its ShipRush multi-carrier parcel and LTL shipping solution with its suite of e-commerce warehouse management systems. This integration allows customers to improve their warehouse and shipping performance through a unified solution.
- FourKites, provider of a real-time supply chain visibility platform, unveiled Sustainability Hub, a suite of analytics tools to provide better visibility into resource consumption and waste generation. Through the platform, companies can input their sustainability goals and track saved emissions; benchmark progress against industry averages; and drill down into load-level details to pinpoint opportunities for optimization.
- Retailers can now use the Freight Intel analytics dashboard to view and analyze data such as shipping trends, damage percentages, net losses, and average transit times. Part of Freight Club, an end-to-end freight shipping platform from Cymax Group Technologies, the dashboard provides real-time assessment of carrier performance.
- Magaya launched Quote Automation by Magaya, an AI-powered inland freight quote automation solution, which automates the process of receiving quote requests, gathering rates from multiple carriers, and preparing, formatting, and sending quotes. Quote Automation by Magaya can save an estimated 15 minutes on average per quote.
- CEVA Logistics opened a contract logistics warehouse in Jundiai, Brazil. The facility features 37 docks and a storage capacity of 38,000 pallets. The company's LATAM contract logistics management team is now located on-site.
- The In-Sight 2800 series vision system from Cognex can be trained to perform classification and sorting tasks with no programming required. In-Sight's EasyBuilder interface guides users through the application development process to set up jobs. Tools can be used individually for simple jobs or chained together for more complex logic sequences.
