newsworthy
accolades
Crowned in Ohio. Crown Equipment Co. has
earned the Ohio Governor’s Award for Outstanding
Achievement in Environmental Stewardship. The
New Bremen, Ohio-based lift truck maker was recognized for its efforts to reduce waste at its manufacturing plants, including the installation of an efficient
powder coat paint system. Crown was one of nine
companies and organizations to receive the award
from Ohio Governor Ted Strickland and the Ohio EPA.
In the PINC. PINC Solutions, a developer of real-time visibility solutions, has been named one of the
Red Herring Top 100 Global Companies. Red
Herring, a media company that specializes in technology and innovation, chose its top 100 from a
pool of 1,800 eligible companies that were evaluated on financial performance, innovation, management, global strategy, and ecosystem integration.
I’ll take Manhattan. Fortna has been named one
of Manhattan Associates’ top partners for 2008. The
recognition is based on significant joint sales and
successful implementation projects with Manhattan
Associates during the course of last year. Fortna was
one of only five companies to earn that distinction.
Tops on the truck. Terrence Alexander is the winner of OHL’s most recent Top Gun Competition, an
annual event that pits forklift drivers against their
peers from OHL sites throughout the United States.
Alexander, who has worked for nine years at the
third-party logistics company’s McDonough, Ga.,
facility, beat out 17 other drivers in a final competition. The finals consisted of a written test, a forklift
inspection, and a test that required him to maneuver a table set with china and champagne glasses
through an obstacle course.
Get your motors running. Yamaha Motor Corp.
has named Southeastern Freight Lines as its
Regional LTL Carrier of the Year. This is the first year
that Yamaha has given out the award.
More power to ya. Emerson, a power, process
management, industrial automation, and appliance
company, has given APL Logistics its Marquee
Supplier award. The award program, now in its second year, recognizes suppliers that provide superior service and quality in aligning with the power
company’s strategic initiatives.
looking for freight to thaw?
Keep looking
Waiting for the 30-month U.S. freight recession to end? If
projections by a noted transportation analyst are on target,
you may have to wait a while longer.
Jon A. Langenfeld, analyst for Robert W. Baird & Co., told
the SMC annual winter meeting in Atlanta in late January
3
that he doesn’t see a meaningful pickup in freight activity
until late 2010 or possibly early 2011. An upturn of any type
will not begin until the middle of next year, he said.
Langenfeld focused most of his comments on the U.S.
trucking market, which he said is enduring its worst quarter
since trucking was deregulated in 1980. Pricing remains
weak, with rate-cutting rampant and shippers flooding the
market with bids in search of rock-bottom rates, especially
in the beleaguered less-than-truckload category. The truckload segment is in better shape than LTL due to significant
capacity reductions made over the past 18 months. In fact,
truckload capacity is so taut, Langenfeld said, that rates
could soar about 16 percent from current levels once freight
demand accelerates.
For many months, observers have pointed to a decline in
existing inventories as a harbinger of an economic and
freight recovery, the idea being that businesses will soon
reach bare-bones inventory levels and then must begin to
replenish their stock. The problem is that sales continue to
fall at a faster clip than inventories can be liquidated. As a
result, inventory levels have reversed course and stocks are
now piling up.
After declining for a year, U.S. inventories rose by $6.2 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008, according to U.S.
Commerce Department data. Commerce reported that the
November 2008 inventory-to-sales ratio spiked to 1. 41—
meaning it would take, on average, 1. 41 months to clear
shelves of inventory at that specific monthly sales rate. That
is the highest ratio since 2001, according to Commerce data.
Don Ratajczak, emeritus professor of economics at
Georgia State University’s J. Mack Robinson College of
Business, told the group that production must begin falling
at a faster pace than sales for a recovery to take hold. He said
in late January that this had yet to happen, but that he
expected the pattern to emerge by the end of the second
quarter.
Ratajczak said the decline is rapidly accelerating and the
bottom should be reached “fairly soon.” Using the auto
industry to illustrate his point, Ratajczak said that 2009 car
and light truck sales in the United States could be as low as
10. 5 million units—a level few expect to plumb—to as high
as 13 million. Meanwhile, the number of units needed just
to replace aging clunkers is about 16 million, he said.
