Australian businesses insulated supply
chain operations from wildfires
The wildfires that tore through Australia in January, torching an estimated
18 million acres and killing dozens of residents and thousands of livestock,
prompted an outpouring of support from around the world—to the point
where local authorities issued a plea for donors to stop sending unsolicited
goods that were overwhelming their
limited warehouse and transportation
resources.
But as charity centers struggled with
the flood of donations, the country’s
bigger businesses—including major
supermarket chains like Woolworths
Group—were able to maintain their
logistics operations, thanks to a coordinated approach they deployed since the
first “bushfires,” as wildfires are known
in Australia, started before Christmas, local authorities said.
Those businesses activated “pre-planned resilience-led approaches” that
enabled them to continue working closely with local store managers and
to instantly understand stock levels in each of the locations, according to
Renae Hanvin, founder and director of Corporate 2 Community (C2C), an
Australian firm that works to create collaborative solutions for disaster recovery by coordinating the efforts of business, government, and communities.
Those processes also enabled them to monitor the storage of critical foods
and to ensure that food-safety standards such as refrigeration requirements
were being met on all shipments trucked into the affected areas, she said.
“When the bushfires escalated, these large corporates worked very closely
with regional emergency-services leaders to coordinate the priority move-
ments of the trucks—including police escorts of key critical-needs product
delivery,” Hanvin said in an email. “For example, there would be a convoy
of corporate organizations delivering these needs, across varying corporates,
escorted by emergency-services personnel together.”
Corporate donors have also linked their efforts closely with local relief
center coordinators to ensure that deliveries of other essential items are han-
dled properly for processing and storage, she said. “Woolworths and other
major retailers have not seen any serious impact to their logistics at present,”
Hanvin said. “Given the everyday scale of Australia, it’s been relatively busi-
ness as usual—aside from road closures.” n
—Ben Ames
GO FIGURE …
9,337,632
The number of 20-foot-equivalent units (TEUs) moved through the Port
of Los Angeles in 2019, falling just short of its second-best year ever
despite “lagging exports due to international trade tensions and tariff
uncertainties.”
SOURCE: THE POR T OF LOS ANGELES
Delivery drivers for Amazon.com
Inc. may soon be using the company’s “Alexa” voice assistant to
obtain information on routes and
deliveries—at least if they’re driving
one of the e-tail giant’s new electric
vehicles.
In early January, electric car maker
Rivian announced that it would
incorporate the Alexa technology
into the delivery vans it’s now building for Amazon, allowing drivers to
use the artificial intelligence (
AI)-enabled device without an app or
smartphone.
Amazon has contracted with
Plymouth, Michigan-based Rivian
to build a whopping 100,000 elec-tric-powered delivery vans for
delivery between 2021 and 2030.
Amazon is also an investor in the
firm, which landed a $1.3 billion
round of funding in December.
In addition to the delivery van,
Rivian plans to launch a $69,000
R1T pickup truck and a $72,500 R1S
sport utility vehicle (SUV) outside
the U.S. starting in 2021. Rivian
recently said it will build Amazon’s
Alexa digital assistant into all of its
new vehicles.
By integrating Alexa into the
vehicles’ onboard computers,
Rivian will allow drivers to verbally control vehicle features such as
heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC); windows; and the
front-mounted cargo trunk, known
as a “frunk.” Rivian’s connected
car system will also allow users to
access their vehicle’s onboard cameras remotely, using screen-based
devices like Echo Show and Fire TV.
In addition, drivers will have access
to standard Alexa features, such
as playing music, placing calls, and
navigation. n
Amazon drivers to get
Alexa digital assistants
in parcel delivery vans
