Co-Loading Getting a Fresh Look

Posted on August 18, 2013 by | 2 comments

Co-Loading Getting a Fresh Look | Go By Truck Global News.

What will it take to get the information systems and cooperation necessary to make co-loading a reality as it is in Europe.

2 Comments

Posted in Logistics, Supply Chains

Belgian website computes intermodal costs and CO2 burden

Posted on August 18, 2013 by | Leave a comment

A simulator from Belgium to compute the price and CO2 differences for export and import of containers from ports to a variety of inland locations. The basic plan is to show in terms of cost and co2 emissions how much savings can be achieved by using intermodal transport over one-mode transport. It is based on simple layers of standard GIS models.  Home – Vaart in je vracht / Voort op het spoor.

Unfortunately for me the site is in Dutch, so I don’t understand much.  but there are several papers in English about the system. Here’s one.

Cathy Macharis, Lieselot Vanhaverbeke, Tom van Lier, Ethem Pekin, Dries Meers.   Bringing intermodal transport to the potential customers: An interactive modal shift website tool. Research in Transportation Business & Management 5 (2012) 67–77.

Leave a comment

Posted in Supply Chains

4 Trends That Could Redefine Distribution in the US

Posted on August 14, 2013 by | 1 comment

You might not have seen this thought piece from Chris Caplice of MIT.  It seems we are betting big money on the import-from-china model, but there are some serious trends that will change things.

Decentralization of production will be good for the Chicago area, where there is already a capable manufacturing workforce. It may make sense to set up here in existing facilities than to build giant factories here. It might even be cheaper than the South.

Making products denser through design means they are cheaper to ship, and makes big factories built for economies of scale but requiring long distance hauls to some markets less practical.  Digitization of products— the shift away from physical product to knowledge based products supports this trend. It makes designs easier to distribute; and it makes products customizable, updatable, and configurable so that you do not need to throw away the hardware.

And now that online buying has taken off, retailers are combining their distribution for all channels, including online and walk in, so that inventory is being pushed closer to the customer.

 

4 Trends That Could Redefine Distribution in the US | Supply Chain @ MIT.

1 Comment

Posted in Logistics, Strategy, Supply Chains