DC Velocity - August 2014

inbound

Here’s our monthly roundup of some recent donations and charitable work by companies in the logistics and material handling fields:

b Averitt Express associates presented a check for $425,000 from the Averitt Cares for Kids charity to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and held an arts-and-crafts session with patients. Since 1986, Averitt Express associates have raised more than $4.4 million for St. Jude’s, including an endowment to help fund construction of the Averitt Express Leukemia and Lymphoma Clinic at the hospital.

b Five Inmar engineers and their middle school student coach built a Lego Mindstorms robot and piloted it to a first-place finish in the Robot Fun Run held at the Wake Forest Innovation Quarter in Winston-Salem, N.C. The event was part of Winston-Salem’s robotics program, which promotes middle school students’ interest in science and technology while teaching them employment and life skills.

b DHL delivered a 20- by 30-foot U.S. flag signed by the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs at no charge to the Craig Joint Theater Hospital at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.

b YRC Freight and Holland have joined the U.S. Chamber Foundation’s Hiring Our Heroes program. The motor carriers will use technology developed by Fastport to connect veterans with careers in trucking.

b InfinityQS International Inc., a provider of quality and manufacturing intelligence software, has fulfilled its 10-year, $1 million pledge to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, which treats childhood cancer and other deadly diseases, in just five years.

b BigRentz has made a $150,000 gift-in-kind donation by contributing rental equipment, such as aerial lifts and material handling equipment, for use by Habitat for Humanity affiliates during Habitat’s annual Home Builders Blitz.

Good deeds

A new study suggests that many global retailers aren’t prepared for the challenges of the omnichannel world. Eighty-three percent of retail chief executive officers (CEOs) participating in a survey commissioned by JDA Software said their supply chains currently are “not optimal” for meeting omnichannel’s demands. The consulting firm PwC contacted 409 CEOs at retail enterprises worldwide on behalf of the software company earlier this year. The survey’s findings are detailed in a report titled CEO Viewpoint: The Strategic Role of Supply Chain in an All-Channel World.

Omnichannel commerce does not seem to be top of mind for many of the CEOs. Just over one-third ( 34 percent) consider the rise of omnichannel shopping to be a potential threat, and a mere 22 percent believe it will affect their organizations. They appear instead to be focusing on traditional growth areas. For example, 65 percent of respondents from the largest 250 retail organizations by revenue said their top revenue-growth priority in the next 12 months was expansion into new markets. Only one-third of the respondents cited enhancing distribution capacity and supply chain management as a key driver of profitable growth.

The report and commentaries on the findings are available at http://now.jda.com/PWC-Forbes-2014.html.

Study: Most retailers not ready for
omnichannel commerce

Kevin Gue, one of the nation’s leading industrial engineering scholars, has joined DC VELOCITY’S growing list of bloggers.

In his monthly blog, Gue, the Tim Cook Associate Professor of Industrial Engineering at Alabama’s Auburn University, discusses emerging technologies and research that may have a bearing on the material handling and logistics industries. Topics addressed to date include the use of “augmented reality,” such as Google Glass, in the warehouse and whether “crowdsourced” transportation services like Uber might have applications in logistics.

Gue graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and received his Ph.D. from the School of Industrial & Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech. He later served on the faculty of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., and joined Auburn University in 2004.

Gue’s research focuses on the design and control of logistics systems, with an emphasis on distribution, warehousing, and material handling. He is co-inventor of such warehouse aisle designs as the “Flying-V,” “Fishbone,” and “Chevron,” among others.