DC Velocity - August 2011

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DHL expands LCL services: DHL is now offering direct less-than-container load (LCL) service from New York to Durban, South Africa, as well as from Shanghai to Seattle.

The first service, which has sailings every Thursday from New York City, will serve as a gateway for U.S. customers interested in breaking into the African market. As the largest container terminal in the Southern Hemisphere, Durban serves as a strategic location for the transportation of goods to and from 18 destinations on the southern part of the African continent. This service will allow U.S. exporters and Southern African importers to ship cargo to and from New York City directly, rather than routing through Europe. As a result, this weekly service will reduce transit times, freight costs, and carbon footprint.

The Shanghai-to-Seattle service is intended to ensure the secure and faster arrival of the main commodities being transported from China, among them grain, seeds, fruit, machinery, fish, and seafood. The new direct weekly LCL service, operated by Danmar Lines, will cover freight moving from Mainland China to Seattle and Portland on the U.S. West Coast. The service reduces the overall transit time between China and the United States by four days compared with other West Coast ports of entry. With cargo shipped directly from Shanghai to Seattle, customers can expect their shipments to arrive in the United States within 12 days. (DHL Global Forwarding-Americas, www.dhl.com)

Eco-Performance lift truck designs: To help warehouses and DCs achieve higher performance and more sustainable operations, The Raymond Corp. has introduced Eco-Performance, an approach to designing and engineering lift truck solutions for maximum economic and ecological benefits.

Independent testing by the United States Auto Club showed that several Raymond lift trucks required less energy than competitive models to complete a set number of store-and-retrieve cycles. For instance, the Raymond Swing-Reach truck was found to use up to 40 percent less energy, the Raymond Reach-Fork truck used up to 21 percent less energy, and the Raymond Model 4250 stand-up counterbalanced truck used up to 17 percent less energy.

These results suggest that Raymond lift trucks require less battery charging, have a longer equipment uptime, reduce carbon dioxide emissions, and have faster cycle times that allow for more pallet moves. When lift trucks can work harder and use less energy, they further enable warehouses and DCs to meet both sustainability and material handling goals, says Raymond. (The Raymond Corp., www.raymondcorp.com)

Vigillo IQLab: Vigillo LLC, which develops data-mining software products to aggregate and organize fleet safety information, has created a new division within the company known as IQLab. IQLab’s dedicated personnel will provide custom reporting and data analytics.

The new service can provide everything from simple reports— such as lists of drivers with “red flag” violations—to more complex “what if” analyses. The customer provides the data or the source for Vigillo to pull the data from. Vigillo then charges an hourly rate for custom work or a fixed rate for templates in the IQLab catalog. (Vigillo, www.vigillo.com)