IN BRIEF: New Services and Solutions
ArcBest’s new Vaux Smart Autonomy offering combines autonomous mobile robot (AMR) forklifts and reach trucks, software, and remote teleoperation capabilities to autonomously handle materials movement within warehouses, distribution centers, and manufacturing facilities. The materials handling technology is flexible out of the box to handle variability in facilities, processes, and product characteristics.
Technology
↓ Dexory’s autonomous robotics and AI-powered analysis solution, DexoryView, lets businesses understand what happens in their warehousing operations in real time. The system combines analytics capabilities with autonomous robots that capture image and sensor data from across a warehouse and a digital platform that connects warehouses across the global supply chain.
• Dock management solution myQ Enterprise from Chamberlain Group, the company behind the LiftMaster brand, is a connected hardware and software solution that streamlines driver scheduling, simplifies check in, and provides real-time communication. Facilities can automate loading dock assignments and processes with the solution.
• QAD’s new Industrial Transformation Platform helps manufacturers, suppliers, and supply chain participants address challenges by solving root causes. Also called the O3 Platform, the solution lets enterprises synchronize processes, systems, and people with artificial intelligence, accelerated implementations, frontline worker coaching, manufacturing and supply chain solutions, connected workforce capabilities, and process intelligence.
• PalletTrader, an online marketplace for buying and selling pallets, introduced new features to streamline the process. PalletTrader now offers buyers direct access to pallets for sale on the marketplace from its homepage without having to log into the platform. It also added a guest buying role.
• End-to-end supply chain planning software solution provider John Galt Solutions expanded its partnership with PlanetTogether to enhance supply chain planning and scheduling solutions and add new capabilities to the Atlas Planning Platform. Companies can streamline manufacturing processes, adapt to changes in production sequence, and unlock business value throughout the supply chain.
• AI-driven optimization software provider INFORM offers SYNCROSUPPLY, a truck and time slot solution that automates the scheduling of truck appointments at manufacturing facilities. The solution supports the yard management staff and provides visibility more than four days out to reduce vehicle congestion and improve dock door utilization.
Products
• Retailers can lower the environmental impact of their packaging with middle-mile logistics platform Fillogic’s new offering: 100% recyclable, reusable mono-material polypropylene packaging. Provided by Renegade Plastics and made by reusable packaging provider Returnity, the reusable shipping box replaces standard corrugated cardboard, holds more than 50 pounds, and lasts 40 – 50 shipping cycles.
• Toshiba America Business Solutions’ new BV400T thermal transfer printers quickly (7 inches per second) and vividly (up to 300 dots per inch) produce shipping and shelving labels, radio frequency identification (RFID) asset management tags, and other labels. Capable of making approximately 1,000 labels a day, Toshiba’s 4-inch desktop printers are designed to meet industrial labeling and receipt needs.
← ORBIS added a new pallet, top cap, and reusable sleevepack system to its OpteBulk collapsible plastic bulk solutions. Maximizing truckload space, the new OpteBulk 48×45 series offers a total of 28 positions per 53-foot trailer, two more positions than other 48×45 sleevepacks in the market.
Services
→ Florida’s Port Canaveral welcomed a second mobile harbor crane, expanding its ability to handle a diverse cargo portfolio. Manufactured by the Liebherr Group in Germany, the LHM 600 evo 6 has a lift capability of up to 154 tons and a jib length of 200 feet. Its 20-container reach allows for containers to be stacked nine high on deck.
• Ryder System expanded its cross-border U.S.-Mexico operations by opening a logistics facility in Laredo, Texas, as well as extending its drayage yard in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. Its new 228,000-square-foot warehouse and cross dock in Laredo is located 3 miles from the World Trade Bridge on the U.S.-Mexico border with interstate access in both directions.
• Americold Realty Trust plans to begin construction in the first half of 2024 on its first facility through a strategic collaboration with Canadian Pacific Kansas City to co-locate Americold warehouse facilities on the CPKC network. Americold is investing $127 million in the 335,000-square-foot facility in Kansas City, Missouri. The new facility will support CPKC’s single-line rail service for refrigerated shippers between the U.S. Midwest markets and Mexico.
• DHL eCommerce, a division of DHL Group, relocated from its Elkridge, Maryland, distribution center to a 138,500-square-foot location in Manassas, Virginia. Double the size of the previous location with 41 dock doors, the new distribution center enables DHL eCommerce to process more B2C domestic volume.
• Corporate Storage activated its Foreign Trade Zone designation at its Gainesville, Georgia, warehouse to save customers thousands of dollars through deferred duties, taxes, and processing fees. With the FTZ designation, Corporate Storage is positioned to serve customers whose products come through the nearby Blue Ridge Connector, Northeast Georgia’s inland port, which is scheduled to be completed in 2026.
Transportation
• Enstructure, a U.S. marine terminal and logistics company, and Dole Food Company expanded Dole’s shipping services to Port Wilmington in Delaware. The addition of a second weekly service increases the capacity for tropical fresh fruits, including Dole branded fruits, and general cargo being imported to the Mid-Atlantic region from Colombia, Honduras, and Guatemala.