DC Velocity - March 2013

newsmakers

Andersen Material Handling and ISD (Integrated Systems Design) has appointed Ed Romaine chief marketing officer–vice president of marketing. … Joe Carlier has been promoted to senior vice president of global sales for Penske Logistics. Penske has also hired Jeffery A. Bullard as senior vice president of operations in the company’s central region. … Allie Brandenburger has joined the Retail Industry Leaders Association as director of communications. … Flow-Rite Controls has hired Sara McMurray as central regional manager, and Tanya Jones as quality manager. … The Material Handling Equipment Distributors Association has selected the following people to serve on its board of directors: Daryle Ogburn, president of Advanced Equipment Co.; Mike Vaughan, CFO of Liftech Equipment Companies Inc.; and Chris Wetle, president of Papé Material Handling. Doug Bouquard, vice presi-dent/general manager of motive power sales at East Penn Manufacturing, has been elected to serve on the organization’s Manufacturers Board of Advisors. … Wynright Corp., a provider of intelligent material handling systems, has appointed Joe Hutter president, engineering and integration, for its Elk Grove, Ill., division. … Southeastern Freight Lines, a provider of regional less-than-truckload service, has promoted Jeff Sittnick to service center manager in Montgomery, Ala., and Matt Hughes to service center manager in Jackson, Tenn. … Ceva Logistics has appointed Jaap Bruining as its new head of operations for China. … Railinc President and CEO Allen West has been elected 2013 chair of the North Carolina Technology Association, the statewide membership association for the technology sector.

McMURRAY

JONES

newsworthy
USPS, OnTrac to launch “last-mile”
delivery service

Western regional parcel carrier OnTrac will launch a delivery service later this year in conjunction with the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), a move that will give retailers a fourth major package delivery option in a territory of 60 million buyers.

The service, which hasn’t been formally named, is slated to begin in late August or early to mid-September, according to Mark Magill, director of business development for Phoenix-based On Trac. The company has hired Andy Webber—who had been vice president of operations for DHL Global Mail—to head operations for the new venture.

OnTrac has been granted authority by USPS to begin the service and will spend the next few months putting the necessary equipment and systems in place, according to Magill.

On Trac currently serves seven Western states, and its network goes as far east as Colorado. An eighth state, Idaho, was set to come online March 4. OnTrac has a major presence in California, where it serves every ZIP code. On Trac serves the major metro areas in the other states.

The OnTrac-USPS service will be patterned after the relationships USPS has developed over the past few years with the three major parcel carriers: FedEx Corp., UPS Inc., and, to a lesser extent, DHL Express. Under the service, known within USPS as “Parcel Select,” the carriers pick up and aggregate large volumes of parcels from retailers and e-tailers, induct the parcels deep into the USPS distribution network, and have the post office make the “last-mile” deliveries, mostly to residential destinations. By law, USPS must deliver to every address in the United States.

For the past four years, On Trac has partnered with USPS on a last-mile offering but has only made the service available to parcel consolidators, firms that aggregate shipments for retailers and rely on On Trac’s intrare-gional distribution network because they don’t have their own. The new service signals a major change because OnTrac can now pursue large retailers for their traffic and, in many cases, bypass the consolidators.

“We want to play in the big leagues,” Magill told DC VELOCITY in an early February interview.

In mid-October, the company opened a 400,000-square-foot distribution center in Commerce, Calif., just east of Los Angeles. The opening of the DC essentially served as the catalyst for the new service because On Trac can now offer larger retailers shipping across the West an integrated pickup, distribution, and delivery solution in concert with USPS, according to Magill.

DOING WHAT OTHERS CAN’T … OR WON’T

OnTrac’s relatively limited coverage area enables it to make next-day ground deliveries at distances of up to 500 miles, something the larger carriers cannot or will not do. Yet the company’s network, which stretch-es from Washington state in the northwest to Arizona in the southwest, is expansive enough to provide next-day deliveries that encompass a NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement)-like geography.

By leveraging its territorial advantage, On Trac will be able to undercut the big carriers on both price and time-in-transit with the new service, according to Magill. ;