Author Archives: just2bruce

Last-mile electrification – electrification’s best use case

Posted on August 21, 2020 | 1 comment

Amazon has lit on the very best use case for electric vehicles. Last mile delivery generates lots of rips and lots of air pollution. It looks like they are going to invest big in improving their carbon footprint in the last mile delivery.

I believe it makes strategic sense and well as driving long-term cost reduction for Amazon. And it’s a lot more eco-friendly. Fleets like Amazon uses, with traveling-salesman-type routes from a depot or distribution center, are best positioned to mitigate the problems with electric vehicles– shorter distances before fuel-up, and longer time to refuel.

Linda Baker, Senior Environment and Technology Reporter Friday, August 21, 2020

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/in-last-mile-electrification-amazon-sees-another-opportunity-to-dominate

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Posted in Logistics, Supply Chains, Sustainability

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Cathay Pacific strips seats from 777 aircraft for cargo

Posted on August 11, 2020 | 2 comments

I am fascinated by this article. What an innovative solution!

Many years ago my family and I took a trip to Guatemala. One of the highlights of my trip was going to see the Maya ruins at Tikal, which is in the jungle in the central Peten area far east of Guatemala City. There aren’t any roads to get there, so you had to fly.

We got on our plane (a DC-3) at the Guatemala City airport. All seats were occupied with passengers going to the jungle area. The flight was one of those hedgehoppers, only a couple of thousand feet above the ground, right above the trees. We made several stops.

Finally we arrived at the town of Flores, on the shores of Lake Peten Itza. The stewardess (that is what they were, then!) informed us that the stop would be for a while, and we were allowed out on the tarmac in the steaming heat to wait while they refueled the plane.

As we watched, a group of men went into the plane. We wondered what they were doing. In a few minutes they started emerging, each one carrying a plane seat. This went on for a half hour, as many seats in the plane were removed and stacked on the tarmac.

Eric Kulisch Monday, August 10, 2020

Link to Article Continue reading →

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‘Data sharing is nice, but cooperation is key’ to ending congestion

Posted on July 13, 2020 | 1 comment

The speaker, Stefan Pieters of Jan de Rijk, was speaking of the relation between road hauliers and airport stakeholders. I believe most hauliers at ports, warehouses, inland terminals, and any cargo transfer points would be saying the same thing. And so far there has been little effort on this score.

Truckers are the low person on the pole, and are not connected to the facilities they must rely on for service. They have no leverage. So their problems go ignored.

There is a lot of money to be made by coordinating this aspect of the trucking business, if anyone will step up and do it.

And as the interview claims, data takes you only so far. There has to be a willingness to act and change procedures, rather than just send data. Facilities don’t want to recognize that; it requires workers with the power to make decisions on behalf of the cargo owner, and that would erode ‘profits’, meaning costs. You’d have to pay workers more for the ability to make decisions.

It makes a stronger case for end-to-end coordination by the same vendor, such as Amazon or Wal-Mart. But truckers would still often be left out.

By Alex Lennane 13/07/2020

‘Data sharing is nice, but cooperation is key’ to ending congestion, says Jan de Rijk – The Loadstar

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Posted in Logistics, Service Management, Strategy, Supply Chains, Trucking

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