DC Velocity - January 2017

inbound

Supply chain executives from across the retail spectrum will travel to Orlando,
Fla., on Feb 12 to attend the Retail Industry Leaders Association’s (RILA)
Retail Supply Chain Conference 2017. The theme of this year’s event is “The
Customer-Centric Supply Chain.”
The event kicks off with an address by Greg Sandfort, CEO of Tractor Supply
Co. (TSC), on the changing nature of retail and supply chain’s critical role in
serving the customer and exceeding expectations. Attendees can then choose
from general sessions led by retail supply chain leaders, analysts, and industry
experts. Featured speakers include Crystal Hanlon, president of the Northern
division of The Home Depot; Chris Sultemeier, executive vice president of
logistics for Walmart; and Melissa Greenwell, executive vice president and
COO for The Finish Line Inc.

The conference agenda also includes 24 educational sessions organized into five breakout tracks: creating the organization, managing through adversity, understanding the customer, building game-changing capabilities, and coexisting retail networks. For more information and to register, visit www.rila.org.

RILA hosts retail supply chain conference

Idaho-based drone pioneer Empire Unmanned LLC may be a small company, but it has big dreams. Right now, its main business is conducting land surveys for agricultural clients via unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). But founder Steve Edgar has much loftier ambitions. Instead of just flying small drones like the quadcopters, blimps, and hand-launched 1.7- pound senseFly eBee that Empire Unmanned currently uses, he believes it could be operating Boeing 747-sized cargo drones as soon as a decade from now.

As for the facilities to accommodate such an operation, Edgar has some ideas on that too. Empire Unmanned is working with state leaders and economic development officials to explore the idea of building an international unmanned airfreight hub at the Pocatello Regional Airport, he said in a Nov. 18 speech at Idaho State University. The site has the benefits of proximity to a main Union Pacific rail line, access to two interstate highways, its profile as an underused airport surrounded by open space, and access to researchers at nearby universities, Edgar told the group.

The chief impediment to these plans are U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations that currently allow the commercial use of drones only within the pilot’s line of sight and below an altitude of 400 feet. To allow Edgar’s dream to take off, the FAA would have to significantly ease both restrictions.

But will it play in Pocatello?

With 85 percent of domestic freight moving by truck and train, one of the big questions facing transportation planners is how to avert epic gridlock as rising traffic slowly overwhelms the nation’s freight infrastructure. The Department of Transportation (DOT) believes an underutilized channel might provide some relief. To that end, it’s promoting efforts to shift some of the container traffic to “marine highways”—or the nation’s system of coastal and inland waterways.

Last fall, the DOT’s Maritime Administration awarded $4.85 million in grants to projects aimed at expanding the use of navigable waterways. Among the beneficiaries is the Mississippi River, which will receive more than $800,000 to fund initiatives to increase container-on-barge traffic along the storied waterway. The money will be used to boost freight volumes at the Port of St. Louis, Mo., and America’s Central Port in Granite City, Ill.

The additional freight capacity will be needed to keep up with demand in the region, which is expected to swell 45 percent by 2050, said a spokesman for the Mississippi River Cities & Towns Initiative (MRCTI), one partner in the project. “The only way to [handle congestion] is either build a bunch of new roads, a bunch of new bridges, and a bunch of new rail, which there doesn’t seem to be an appetite for at the national level. Or we use something we already have sitting there waiting, which is the nation’s inland waterway system,” MRCTI Executive Director Colin Wellenkamp told St. Louis Public Radio.

Other grants in the package include $1,758,595 for the Port of Baton Rouge and Port of New Orleans shuttle service, $1,632,296 for the New York Harbor and its container- and trailer-on-barge service, $476,748 for the Port of Virginia’s James River Container Expansion Project, and $173,361 for the Northern Virginia Regional Commission’s Potomac River Commuter Ferry Project, which is aimed at giving both commuters and shippers more transportation options.