inbound
When an equipment manufacturer builds a crane to lift fish, the job
usually involves material handling operations in a temperature-con-trolled warehouse. But American Crane and Equipment Corp. of
Douglassville, Pa., recently completed a job to design and manufacture
a pair of outdoor, five-ton jib cranes to hoist live salmon over a hydroelectric dam near Tacoma, Wash.
Under natural conditions in the wild, young fingerling fish swim
downstream to the ocean every year to feed, returning as mature three-year-old salmon to swim back upstream and spawn in the waters where
they were born. On the Skokomish River, however, their journey was
blocked by the Cushman Dam.
All that changed when dam operator Tacoma Power agreed during
recent relicensing negotiations to restore river access for Lake Cushman’s
native salmon population. That’s when the utility turned to a material
handling equipment provider to help the romantically inclined fish
bypass the 275-foot-high dam.
American Crane delivered equipment that could lift the 9,000-pound
holding tanks and carefully place them on carts and trucks to be driven
around the huge dam. In addition to their capacity for doing the heavy
lifting, the cranes have corrosion-resistant components that allow them
to operate in the aquatic environment.
Dam crane lifts spawning salmon
People who are waiting for an
important package to arrive may
no longer have to sit home listening for the doorbell. DHL Parcel
has joined forces with online retailer Amazon and car manufacturer
Audi to test a program for delivering packages directly to customers’
car trunks … wherever those cars may be parked.
In May, the three companies began testing a service that allows Audi
car owners in Germany to use their vehicles as mobile delivery addresses
for parcels. Scheduled to run for several months in the greater Munich
area, the car-drop delivery project relies on high security standards to
protect both the merchandise and the automobiles.
The process begins when a registered user places an order on the
German e-commerce website Amazon.de, triggering a DHL delivery
agent to use a specially developed smartphone app to locate the customer’s Audi and open its trunk electronically using a one-time digital
access code. After placing the parcel in the car, the agent shuts the trunk
and uses the app to lock the car, confirm delivery to DHL, and notify
the customer.
If the pilot is successful, DHL hopes to roll car-drop delivery out to a
wider audience.
DHL drops junk in your trunk It’s not unusual for third-party logistics
companies (3PLs) and international freight
forwarders to specialize in a particular
industry or type of service. A little sleuthing quickly turns up niche players that
cater to customers in markets like e-commerce, fine art, fresh produce, chemicals,
fashion, and others with specific, often
unique, logistics requirements.
But none may be as specialized or as
unusual as the handful of organizations
that devote themselves to managing logistics in the Arctic and Antarctic.
That’s right: There are hardy, adventurous logistics professionals who are more
likely to deliver freight via airplane, snowmobile, or dog sled than by truck or rail.
Scandinavia seems to be the leader
in this area, although one can also find
polar logistics specialists based in Canada,
South Africa, and elsewhere. Norway,
for instance, hosts a nonprofit called the
Centre for High North Logistics (www.
chnl.no), which is based in the Arctic
port of Kirkenes and has a branch in
Murmansk, in Russian Siberia. CHNL
describes itself as “an international knowledge hub on Arctic transport and logistics
for businesses, research institutions, and
public authorities,” but does not hide the
fact that many of its partners are energy
and mining companies and the shipping
lines that serve them.
Other examples of cold-climate logistics
specialists include South Africa’s Antarctic
Logistics Centre International ( www.alci.
co.za), which offers transportation, warehousing, customs clearance, and freight
forwarding, among other services, and
Canada’s Arctic Kingdom Polar Logistics
( www.polarlogistics.net), which will handle every aspect of planning, outfitting, and
managing Arctic and Antarctic expeditions.
On its website, the company says it “
specializes in getting freight into and eventually out of the most remote polar regions of
the world.” That includes providing staff in
such positions as project leader, operations
manager, freight coordinator, and—wait
for it—polar bear sentry.
Logistics on ice (literally)
