U.S. logistics industry to
post 1. 1 million jobs by
2016, report says
The U.S. logistics industry will have
nearly 1. 1 million job openings
between 2013 and 2016 just to keep
pace with projected industry growth
during that period, according to a
study issued Oct. 30 by a state advocacy group.
However, the report, published by
the Savannah-based Georgia Center
of Innovation for Logistics, found that
only 75,000 logistics workers are
being trained, degreed, or certified
each year to fill what will be more
than 270,000 annual job openings
through 2016.
Unless the trends change, the
nation would be short about 800,000
qualified logistics workers by the end
of 2016, meaning that nearly 70 percent of available jobs would go beg-ging, according to the report.
The report based its findings on
data from the U.S. Department of
Labor.
According to the report, the warehousing and distribution industry will
have more than 125,000 job openings
per year over the four-year period.
That is followed by trucking, with
more than 115,000 job openings;
logistics operations and management,
with 12,660 openings; industrial engineering at 12,110; and freight rail,
with 4,530 positions.
The Georgia center, whose primary
mission is to highlight the state’s
strengths as a logistics hub, said that
federal and state lawmakers need to
separate logistics from other business
functions and make it an “indepen-
dent industry sector.”
The report also called on educators
to expose students to the industry ear-
lier in the educational process and to
provide better coordination and sup-
port for technical colleges so they
could expand logistics instruction. ;
go figure …
56,253
The number of typewriters (yes, typewriters) handled by 3PL Saddle
Creek Logistics Services over a 12-month period ending in September.
SOURCE: COMPAN Y DATA
New software benchmarks lift truck
fleet performance against peers
Shippers have long had the ability to compare their freight rates with
those of other shippers on similar lanes. To get the data, they rely on
freight payment services that aggregate and analyze invoices for thousands of customers and produce reports on the average rates being paid
for various lanes, commodities, and types of service.
Now, a similar benchmarking opportunity is available for the performance of industrial truck fleets.
I.D. Systems Inc.’s I.D. Systems Analytics product allows users to benchmark industrial truck performance against all of the lift truck fleets
tracked by the Woodcliff Lake, N.J.-based provider of wireless vehicle
management systems.
The benchmarks are derived from the company’s database of asset activity,
which encompasses more than 250,000 industrial vehicles, 50 million man-days of operations, and more than 1,000 manufacturing and distribution sites
in a wide range of industries. According to the company, this is the first time
such information has been made available in a formal product offering.
I.D. Systems Analytics builds on the company’s vehicle management
system for lift trucks, pallet jacks, tow tractors, and other material handling equipment. Vehicle management systems track and measure lift
trucks’ and drivers’ activities. They then produce reports on safety, vehicle
utilization, and vehicle and driver productivity.
Many users analyze that information separately for each warehouse or
DC, and some also create reports comparing performance at multiple
facilities. But the Analytics package goes beyond that, the vendor says, by
quantifying best-practice benchmarks for vehicle utilization and safety;
identifying and measuring variations and inefficiencies across sites and
geographic regions; and providing comparisons to benchmarks by industry, facility type, or vehicle type.
Users can view such measures as paid time, actual operator log-in time,
equipment utilization, overtime, and vehicle impacts per motion hour, to
name just a few. The measures are available in real time and for multiple
sites in a graphic format.
Technology has only recently progressed to the point where it could
aggregate and analyze this kind of benchmark data, according to Ken
Ehrman, I.D. Systems’ president. “We are leveraging off of a lot of inno-this all can now be done cost-effectively.” ;
