Category Archives: Logistics

Gartner 2016 Supply Chain Top 25

Posted on May 21, 2016 by | Leave a comment

It’s a stellar list, some old and some new.  The measures are based on Peer and Gartner opinions (50%), and Return on Assets (ROA), Inventory Turns, and three-year weighted Revenue growth (WRG3), which are 40%. There’s also a corporate responsibility measure, not a very discriminating one.

Again it is biased toward capital intensive firms, manufacturers and a very few distributors (Amazon, Schneider). Perhaps that’s how it should be, but the advances are coming faster elsewhere.  Notable absence: Caterpillar, which has graced the list in past years. Their revenue is down.  Interesting that 8 of the firms had negative 3 year WRG3.  Amazon topped the list with 20% WRG3.

Gartner, Inc. has released the findings from its annual Supply Chain Top 25, identifying supply chain leaders and highlighting their best practices.

Source: Gartner Announces Its Rankings of the 2016 Supply Chain Top 25 – Supply Chain 24/7

Here’s The Gartner Top 25 page. Most of the information can be reviewed free by registering with your email.

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Posted in Logistics, Supply Chains

Truckers can be Self-Driving Freight Haulers

Posted on May 19, 2016 by | Leave a comment

Retrofitting automobiles has always been a cost effective way to modify your vehicle.  This new firm (very well funded, however!) plans to make add-on self-driving kits for Class 8 trucks.   I think this is a very realistic thing to do, since semis have very long lifetimes in service.

Former employees of Google, Apple, Tesla, Cruise Automation, and others – 40 people in total – have formed a new San Francisco-based company called Otto with the goal of turning commercial trucks into self-driving freight haulers.

Source: Turning Truckers into Self-Driving Freight Haulers – Supply Chain 24/7

We have plenty of evidence of long truck lifetimes from the Clean Trucks program at the Ports of Los Angeles/ Long Beach.  Emissions retrofit kits were required since so many drayage truckers were driving vehicles earlier than 2007, and had no means of affording a later model one with a less polluting engine.  Failure to understand this gave rise to a prolonged dispute between the San Pedro Bay ports and truckers, leading to a Supreme Court case.  The fight was not over pollution control; everyone wanted that.  It was about whether the ports could compel drivers to be employees of large firms who would be more likely to afford the newer trucks.  Most drayage drivers in the US are independent owner-operators who own their own truck; they work on piece rates and are usually cheaper than the mostly unionized larger drayage firms.

It is a classic example of unintended consequences of regulations and attempts to comply with them.  It wasn’t the CARB (California Air Resources Board) rule on pollution that was the culprit.  It was the details of the port’s reaction.

Some other posts from the same source about self-driving vehicles (the first has a report download):

The question is no longer “if” but rather “when” autonomous vehicles will appear on our streets and highways and DHL is ready to take a front seat on this journey.

Source: Self-Driving Vehicles in Logistics – Supply Chain 24/7 Paper

The Nikola Motor Company has emerged from a state of being unknown to unveiling plans for the first-ever 2000 horsepower (HP) electric class 8 semi-truck, called the Nikola One (named after Nikola Tesla).

Source: Nikola Motor Company Wants To Be the Tesla of the ‘Big Rig’ Trucking Industry – Supply Chain 24/7

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Posted in Labor Economics, Logistics, Supply Chains, Trucking

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DOT-117 tank car rule debuts 

Posted on May 16, 2016 by | Leave a comment

A very nice chart of the modifications needed to make tank cars more explosion proof.  The picture is from the article below.  There’s a new DOT-117 (TC-117 in Canada) design, and a long list of modifications that must be made to older cars.  These can be expensive to upgrade and have a variety of expiration dates when they no longer can be used without retrofit.  It’s a nightmare for the very active leasing business, and for companies who must sublease cars they control  when they face a downturn of demand.  The kind of complexity financial businesses such as leasing dote on.

TankCarRetrofitChart

 

Railway Age Logo

Source: DOT-117 tank car rule debuts with controversy | Railway Age

 

Here’s what a DOT-117 rail car looks like, from the article:

DOT-117 tank car rule debuts with controversy

This blog says that only 225 cars were upgraded the first year.

Desmog Logo

A year ago, when Federal regulators announced new rules for “high hazard” trains moving crude oil and ethanol, the oil industry protested that the rules were too strict.

Source: Rail Safety Report Card: Only 225 Of Over 100,000 Unsafe Tank Cars Were Retrofitted in First Year | DeSmogBlog

Finally, we have this cheery note:

Tacoma Weekly Logo

A stack of 24 tanker cars partially derailed on the Tacoma Tideflats about 9:15 a.m. on April 22. There were no injuries. The tankers were empty so no spill following the incident but the otherwise busy intersection of Lincoln Avenue and Taylor Way was closed for 12 hours to allow crews time to lift the tankers back onto their chassis and for investigators to gather information. The accident happened at a curve in the track and occurred when the weather was slightly rainy, although track conditions apparently didn’t play into the cause of the derailment. Damage estimates to the cars hover around the $250,000 mark.

Source: Tacoma Weekly | Empty tanker cars jump tracks on tideflats

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Posted in Logistics, Rail, Strategy, Supply Chains, Sustainability

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