DC Velocity - February 2016

inbound

Truck drivers are often squeezed between the business need to deliver a load to its destination quickly and the federal safety regulation that requires them to pull over and rest after reaching their hours-of-service limit.

One of the top challenges with fulfilling these mandatory rest periods is that parking an 18-wheeler takes far more planning and navigation than it does for passenger cars. As they near the maximum limit of 11 hours per day behind the wheel, professional drivers can easily spend 30 minutes searching for a safe place to park their tractor-trailer, where its large size, running lights, and idling engine won’t pose a safety risk to passing cars.

Now, a consortium of eight Midwestern states may have found a way to ease the challenge, deploying a network of automated sensors that monitor dedicated truck parking spots to count open slots and display that number on digital highway signs.

Under a $25 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation, the states of Kansas, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin will install the sensors on regional interstates.

Like a motel “vacancy” sign for freight carriers, the “Truck Parking Information and Management System” will share parking data with passing truck drivers on platforms such as smartphone applications, dynamic road signage, and websites.

Sensors find parking spots for tired truckers

Training programs are one of the most powerful tools a manager has for building skills, improving safety and efficiency, and retaining valuable workers. But ocean shipping giant Maersk faces a challenge in that regard—it’s tough to send an employee to a trade show, corporate retreat, or skill-build-ing workshop if the worker’s job requires him or her to be on a ship at sea.

The company announced a potential solution last month, unveiling a partnership with Cornerstone OnDemand, a Santa Monica, Calif.-based provider of cloud-based talent-management software solutions.

Maersk will use “Cornerstone Learning,” a learning management system, and “Cornerstone Connect,” a social collaboration application, to manage its training and compliance programs. Together, the two software tools will give Maersk employees access to training courses and enable them to collaborate with their peers through mobile, offline, and collaborative platforms. That flexibility is critical for a company with 89,000 employees scattered across 130 countries.

Maersk expects to use the platform to host blended-learning courses, award certifications, and ensure regulatory compliance via instructor-led training, e-learning, and virtual learning. The system can also facilitate knowledge sharing, as employees submit their own content, learn about best practices, and teach each other through instructional videos.

Maersk builds virtual
classrooms for far-
flung workforce

DC VELOCITY is pleased to announce that logistics industry veteran Gary Allen will join the magazine’s ranks of bloggers. Allen is vice president of supply chain excellence for Ryder System Inc., the Miami-based commercial fleet management, dedicated transportation, and supply chain solutions company, and oversees the company’s supply chain solutions engineering team.

With a focus on supply chain innovation, Allen will contribute essays based on his 24 years of experience in the business. Prior to joining Ryder, he led Ernst & Young LLP’s logistics consulting practice. He also spent seven years with Exel (now called DHL Supply Chain) and 10 years with FedEx Corp. in a variety of leadership roles.

Allen also helped launch and co-author the “Annual Third Party Logistics Study” with Dr. John Langley of Penn State University. He holds a B.A. in materials and logistics management from Michigan State University.