DC Velocity - February 2016

4 DC VELOCITY FEBRUARY 2016 www.dcvelocity.com inbound

Candy executives at The Hershey Co. are hot under the collar about a logistics problem that’s causing some of their profits to melt away. While the love of chocolate knows no season, the delivery of e-commerce orders can be tricky during the steamy summer months. In particular, Hershey has found that the confections tend to melt in the back of overheated delivery trucks.

To solve this sticky problem, Hershey has launched a technology contest, asking the public to submit innovative ideas for a lightweight, affordable shipping system that will keep chocolate close to the temperature at which it was packed for at least 48 hours. The ultimate goal is to develop a system that is inexpensive enough to use year-round as part of the standard packaging for consumers’ chocolate shipments.

The contest winner will receive $25,000 in development funds and the opportunity to collaborate with Hershey to further develop proposed solutions. The company hopes the contest will generate sweet new systems or materials that allow chocolate to be shipped during summer months or in warm climates without the need for expensive gel packs.

Designers can submit their ideas for the “cool ship contest,” which is being administered by technology and design firm NineSigma, on the Hersey website until Feb. 15.

Hershey seeks cool way to ship
chocolate Here’s our monthly roundup of some of the charitable works and donations by companies in the material han-
dling and logistics space:

; Jacksonville, Fla.-based logistics and trucking firm The Grimes Cos. is offering two $750 scholarships for college students who are enrolled in a supply chain man-agement-related degree program, such as logistics, industrial engineering, or manufacturing. Application essays are due June 15. For information on how to apply, go to www.grimescompanies.com/scholarships.

; Lexington, S.C.-based less-than-truckload (LTL) transportation services firm Southeastern Freight Lines says its employees logged

2,590 total hours of community service in 2015 as part of its “Southeastern Serves” program. A total of 840 participants assisted the needy by volunteering at food drives and soup kitchens, and donating yard work, school supplies, and Christmas gifts in communities across the company’s service region.

; Coyote Logistics LLC founders Jeff and Marianne Silver have donated $2.5 million to the Center for Transportation and Logistics (CTL) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). After earning his master’s of engineering in logistics degree from the school, Silver and his wife founded the Chicago-based freight brokerage firm, which they sold to UPS in 2015. The money is intended to provide fellowships for in-need supply chain graduate students and to endow a chair for the CTL executive director.

; Third-party transportation broker The Allen Lund Co. (ALC) of La Cañada, Calif., continued its partnership with Children’s Hospital Los Angeles this past holiday season by helping with Holidays From the Heart, a program that provides toys, clothing, and shoes for needy families of patients. ALC also donated trucking services for a sea container destined for Hands Together in Haiti, helping deliver musical instruments, woodworking equipment, shoes, shirts, and medical supplies.

; Cincinnati-based freight brokerage Total Quality Logistics donated $1,000 through its Moves That Matter program to the Corbin Hill Food Project, an initiative to deliver local produce from small- and midsized family farms in upstate New York to nutritionally underserved urban neighborhoods, including Harlem, Washington Heights, and the Bronx.

Logistics gives back

Keeping track of property at a bustling cargo port can seem like an impossible task when everything not nailed down is being swiftly loaded onto (or off of) swarms of ships and trucks.

Officials at Port Tampa Bay in Florida think the answer may be to launch airborne drones to act as their eyes in the sky. The Tampa Port Authority’s board of commissioners voted in December to request paperwork from the attorney general allowing it to petition the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration for permission to launch the small robotic aircraft, according to The Tampa Tribune.

Winning federal permission could take as long as 12 months, but if the request is approved, the port staff plans to add the drones and their supporting equipment to the port’s fiscal 2017 budget. Officials say the initiative could save as much as $180,000 annually and eliminate countless hours of labor.