Supply Chain Movers and Do-Gooders: Companies Step Up in Response to the Pandemic

Companies in the logistics space are responding to the crisis by providing free goods and services:

• Pierbridge offers a free one-year subscription to Transtream Home Office, its cloud-based multicarrier management solution, to help companies equip employees with enterprise-level shipping capabilities from their home offices.
• Scandit created a contactless proof of delivery web app using its mobile computer vision and barcode-scanning technology that is quick for retailers and delivery companies to implement and has made it available free for six months.
• GoShip.com is donating 100% of its profits from April and May to the CDC Foundation’s Emergency Response Fund, which provides support to emerging response needs related to COVID-19.
• McDonald’s is keeping locations open and offering curbside pickup via its mobile app to assist truck drivers, who cannot maneuver rigs through drive-thru lanes or walk up to the drive-thru for safety reasons.
• DHL Express partnered with the Girl Scouts of Nassau County to ship more than 100,000 Girl Scout Cookies for the organization’s Hometown Heroes Program, which serves healthcare workers, retail workers, restaurant employees, and city and county employees.
• Regal Logistics donated 35,000 N95 respirator masks and personal protective equipment to the CHI Franciscan hospital system in Washington state.
• Pilot Freight Services created clean rooms in its New Jersey facility so medical technicians can inspect patient-monitoring equipment, and delivered critical medical supplies to hospitals in New York City.
• The Global Cold Chain Alliance and the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States launched an online portal to assist distillers pivoting to produce hand sanitizer to help ease the national shortage.
• Dachser Mexico provided free air transportation to deliver more than 3 million surgical and respiratory masks to healthcare workers in Germany.
• HP is ramping up its 3D printing capacity to design and produce parts for hospital operators, including face masks, face shields, mask adjusters, nasal swabs, hands-free door openers, and respirator parts. In addition, the company is making the 3D design files for many parts available to download for free so they can be produced anywhere in the world.
• Desktop 3D printer maker BCN3D now offers its 3D printing technology to hospitals and medical and scientific centers to manufacture respiratory equipment parts to care for patients affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
• SaaS-based logistics platform Bringoz is offering retailers its platform free of charge to help them fulfill spiking demand for groceries and e-commerce orders for at-risk individuals. 
Grocers, pharmacies, and liquor stores are seeing the biggest spikes in demand for home delivery. The Bringoz platform helps companies manage their automated delivery operations, optimizing routes, batching deliveries, automating dispatching, and providing real-time visibility.




• Software provider ClearMetal now provides its Continuous Delivery Experience (CDX) platform free of charge to suppliers of healthcare products for the duration of the COVID-19 crisis. ClearMetal will quickly onboard companies that qualify based on shipment volume.
• FarEye, a machine learning-based predictive logistics platform, now offers its solution FarEye SERVE free of cost to organizations making home deliveries of essential items such as groceries, food, and medicines until June 30. The solution is available at no cost to organizations making deliveries to hospital sites and supplying food and medicines for non-government organizations that are responding to the COVID-19 crisis until September 30, 2020.
• Flowspace, a tech platform that enables organizations of all sizes to store and deliver products using a nationwide network of fulfillment centers, is offering its services for one month at no cost to organizations responding to the COVID-19 crisis. The free support includes transporting and storing up to 50 standard-size pallets in any of its warehouses nationwide.
• California-based tool and equipment retailer Harbor Freight donated its entire supply of personal protective equipment items, consisting of N95 masks, face shields, and 5- and 7-mil nitrile gloves to hospitals with 24-hour emergency rooms in the communities served by its stores.
• Temperature-controlled logistics provider Lineage Logistics Holdings committed to a $5-million donation and launched its Share A Meal campaign to help provide 100 million meals to people in need in response to COVID-19. To kick off the campaign, Lineage donated $1 million to the Feeding America COVID-19 Response Fund and will donate up to $500,000 more to match contributions made to the fundraiser run by Stephen and Ayesha Curry’s Eat. Learn. Play. Foundation.
• Route optimization platform Route4Me now offers its services free of charge to government agencies at the federal, city, and municipality level around the world to help them optimize routes for deliveries. Route4Me can be deployed in almost every country because it is powered by Google Maps.
• To thank truck drivers for keeping supply chains moving, Ruan Transportation provided them with free meals on the road. Ruan President and COO Dan Van Alstine and Dedicated Operations Leader Blake Grolmus handed out lunches to truck drivers on I-80 with the Iowa Motor Truck Association on March 25.
• SpotSee, a maker of supply chain temperature indicators used to monitor test specimens in the SARS and H1N1 virus outbreaks, donated 20,000 temperature indicators to state health departments nationwide to assist with transporting COVID-19 test specimens.
• Stratasys mobilized its 3D printing resources and expertise to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, providing thousands of disposable face shields for use by medical personnel, at no cost. This includes both a 3D-printed frame and a clear plastic shield that covers the entire face. Any 3D printing shop in the United States can fill out an online form to be invited to join the effort. The company also posted the full face shield printing and assembly instructions on its COVID-19 response page.
• Trucker Tools, which provides real-time shipment visibility, trip planning, freight-matching and automated booking tools for freight brokers and truckload carriers, launched two initiatives to help brokers and truckers meet the challenges of sourcing, securing, and managing transportation operations during the COVID-19 pandemic. It waived overage fees for users of its digital freight tracking service, providing unlimited use for 60 days. Trucker Tools also added a COVID-19 section to its mobile driver app to help truckers manage during the crisis.