DC Velocity - April 2014

4 DC VELOCITY APRIL 2014 www.dcvelocity.com inbound

Just how big is the world’s largest cargo ship? Big enough to make a human being feel very, very small, according to National Public Radio (NPR) reporter Jackie Northam. Northam recently hitched a ride on the Maersk McKinney Møller from Gdansk, Poland, to Aarhus, Denmark, and reported on her experience.

A recurring theme in Northam’s report is the stupendous size of the vessel, the first of Maersk’s 18,000- TEU Triple E Class ships; Northam noted that it is a quarter-mile long and as tall as a 20-story building. She also mentioned the issue of limited port access for such enormous ships and noted that the ship departed more than 12 hours behind schedule because it took the Gdansk stevedores longer than expected to load and unload the many containers.

The report touched off a lengthy and rather nitpicky debate among shipping geeks about vessel measurements, the Panama Canal, and port access. Both their comments and a transcript of Northam’s report can be found on NPR’s website at www.npr. org/blogs/parallels/2014/03/13/289073488/hitching-a-ride-on- the-worlds-biggest-cargo-ship.

Maersk megaship awes NPR reporter

We tried, but we couldn’t do it. With some 800 exhibitors at Modex 2014, MHI’s material handling and supply chain show in Atlanta, and the co-located Supply Chain & Transportation USA event, it was impossible to see every new product on display in the cavernous Hall B of the Georgia World Congress Center. (We tried speed walking, to no avail.) But we did manage to find some unusual, interesting products that help solve some longstanding problems for equipment users. Here’s just a taste of the kind of creativity on display at the show:

; WCS on your wrist. The Shiraz warehouse control system (WCS) from W&H Systems now works on a “smartwatch.” Users can monitor key performance indicators and receive e-mails, voice mails, text messages, and notifications about their distribution operations. (No need to leave your meeting!)

; Voice system that phones home. Lucas Systems will make its Jennifer VoicePlus applications available on smartphones, starting with the Samsung Galaxy S4. Initial deployment will be on the Android platform, but plans are also on tap for an iOS version.

; Foam cushions for the little guy. Sealed Air Corp.’s Instapak Simple, a scaled-down version of its foam-cushion system, is a fraction of the size—and cost—of its standard offering. It’s even small enough to load on a cart and whisk to other packaging stations.

; Petite plastic pallets. At 42 by 30 inches, the Small-Format HP Pallet from Orbis Corp. can slip right through a standard retail store door and is easy to maneuver through a small-format store’s narrow aisles.

; AGV remote-control app. Smartphones were everywhere at Modex. Daifuku Webb’s Wynright division, for instance, is developing a smartphone app for controlling the movement of automated guided vehicles (AGVs) and carts (AGCs). The app was invented by an enterprising college intern at the company.

; A printer that speaks your language. Sato designed its CL4NX industrial label printer for use anywhere in the world. Icons on the printer’s LCD screen are understandable worldwide, the printer’s instructional videos are wordless, and the device can print in 47 languages.

Creativity on display at

Modex 2014 It’s safe to say that Modex 2014, the material handling and supply chain show put on by MHI last month, was a success. For one thing, all available booth space sold out, and MHI reportedly expects the 2016 show to spill over into a second hall at the Georgia World Congress Center. For another, the event, which was co-located with the Georgia Logistics Summit, the Supply Chain & Transportation USA Exhibition and Conference, and a host of educational partner programs, drew a much larger crowd than its inaugural outing two years ago. On the first two days, in fact, the show floor looked something like the Tokyo subway at rush hour. Exhibitors we spoke to said they were more than pleased with the turnout.

There was no shortage of news at the show. Our intrepid team of editors was constantly on the go, meeting with exhibitors, attending press conferences, and cranking out 50-plus news items for our daily e-newsletter. Those stories included reports on the results of a new annual study conducted by MHI and Deloitte; conference sessions featuring logistics and supply chain executives from Home Depot, Merck, and Toto; and business expansion plans for Intelligrated, Interroll, and more. You can read them all at www.dcvelocity.com/conference_reports/modex2014/.