DC Velocity - July 2017

inbound

Are you a music trivia buff? If so, you may have noticed that one headline in each issue of DC VELOCITY alludes to a rock or pop song title. But did you know you could leverage your music trivia chops to win a prize? Spot the allusion to a song lyric in our magazine and you’ll be entered in a drawing for a three-pack of organic java. It comes from Joey Kramer’s Rockin’ & Roastin’ Coffee, a business owned by Aerosmith’s drummer (and located in DCV’s home base of North Attleboro, Mass.).

Paula E. Feldmann, a business analyst for the IT company Leidos, correctly identified the song reference in our May issue: Bob Dylan’s famous anthem “The Times They Are A-Changin’.” That title doubled as the headline of David Maloney’s “BigPicture” column on Page 15.

Think you’ve found the song reference in this issue? E-mail us at dcvrocks@dcvelocity.com with the answer and your mailing address by midnight Pacific time on Aug. 15. We’ll pick a winner from the correct responses. The winner’s name will be announced on social media.

Tip: Turn to the second page of our table of contents for
a hint.

Guess the song title, win a prize

Thanks to consumers’ fascination with e-commerce and the constant flood of stories about Amazon.com in the general press, the public has become aware of the existence of DCs and how they do what they do. That’s been a good thing for us; now when someone asks what we write about, we can say “automated distribution centers like the ones Amazon runs” and get nods and knowing smiles, rather than puzzled frowns.

One more sign that warehouses are becoming part of the cultural landscape: A play set in an e-commerce facility opened off Broadway in New York in June. Ironically titled “Fulfillment Center”—none of the characters’ hopes or plans are fulfilled—the play by Abe Koogler takes place in a giant online retailer’s shipping center in New Mexico. Among the characters are a broke, out-of-shape folk singer who takes a physically demanding job at the DC and a young warehouse manager who has relocated from New York with his girlfriend in hopes of performing well enough to earn a transfer to company headquarters in Seattle.

Several reviews, including one (largely negative) review at Theatermania.com, focus on the play’s missed opportunity to explore “the human cost of our brave new economy of non-union labor and unforgiving metrics,” while the laudatory New York Times review is all about the characters’ personal relationships, hopes and disappointments, and inability to connect with each other.

It might not work for every city struggling with road congestion, but authorities in Belgium have come up with a unique approach to easing traffic on some of their busiest highways: establishing a train dedicated solely to beer.

The new “beer train” made its inaugural run in mid-June, delivering its frothy cargo—Jupiler beer— from the Anheuser-Busch InBev brewery in Jupille, Wallonia (near Liège), to a distribution center run by wholesaler Delhaize in Ninove, East Flanders (just outside Brussels). The service, which will run three times a week, is intended to replace daily trips by trucks between the two sites. Once fully under way, it is expected to take as many as 5,000 trucks off the road each year.

The service, which was set up with the help of the province of East Flanders, is a collaboration between Belgian rail operator Lineas and third-party logistics service specialist Remitrans. In addition to easing pressure on the roads (particularly the crowded ring road around Brussels), the switch to rail will help the supply chain partners meet sustainability goals like cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Giant brewer AB InBev, for instance, has a worldwide goal of cutting its carbon dioxide emissions at least 25 percent by the end of 2017.

Belgian authorities say the new service is part of a concerted effort to promote intermodalism. “The beer train deserves to be copied,” Flemish Minister of Mobility Ben Weyts told RailFreight magazine. “Companies don’t have to stare blindly at traffic jams at their front doors: there are often excellent alternatives … at the back door, like waterways or railways. When partners work together and look at alternatives with an open mind, thousands of lorries can be removed from our roads.”