4 DC VELOCITY MARCH 2015 www.dcvelocity.com
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More women are joining the ranks of professional truck drivers, and industry analysts expect the number of women behind the wheel will continue to
grow. But Class 8 highway trucks are designed for the men who have long
dominated this most peripatetic of professions, leaving typically shorter
women drivers to work in what can be uncomfortable conditions.
Ryder System Inc. hopes to alleviate that problem by offering leasing customers what it calls a “female-friendly vehicle package,” which Ryder says is
the first of its kind in the industry. Ryder worked with various OEMs and
the nonprofit Women in Trucking Association (WIT) to develop a custom
vehicle design they believe will better meet the needs of female drivers.
The cab design includes such ergonomic features as adjustable seatbelt
shoulder straps, improved placement of dashboard gauges, adjusted height
and placement of grab handles, and better access to oil and coolant checks
and fill ports, Ryder says. The company also offers other features on request
for certain vehicle models. Examples include a hood lift/closure assistance
mechanism, fifth-wheel configurations with lower pull pressures to open
the locking mechanism, automatic landing-gear operators for trailers, and a
special security system for sleeper cabs. These same ergonomic specifications
will also benefit many male drivers, Ryder says.
Making things easier for women
behind the wheel
It happens every year: In the
weeks leading up to Valentine’s
Day, demand for fresh flowers blossoms, if you’ll pardon
the pun, and imports of flowers
soar. This year was no exception. U.S. Customs and Border
Protection (CBP) says that from
Jan. 1 to Feb. 14, its agents
processed 801 million cut flower stems at aircargo hubs and
along the U.S.-Mexico border.
About 90 percent of imported
flowers enter the U.S. through
Miami International Airport,
according to Flagler Global
Logistics, whose South Florida Logistics Center alone handled more than
100 million roses, carnations, and tulips for the Valentine’s Day season. The
facility, located adjacent to the airport, was selected by Elite Flower to process its Valentine’s Day shipments—enough flowers to fill four B-767 cargo
aircraft every day around the holiday.
For more statistics on Valentine’s Day flower shipment volumes, ports of
entry, originating countries, and the most popular species, go to http://www.
cbp.gov/newsroom/spotlights/2015-01-23-000000/cut-flower-imports.
Could “augmented reality” play a
meaningful role in logistics? Or is it
just a gimmick or techno-fad?
The results of a pilot project
conducted in the Netherlands sug-
gest that the concept of augment-
ed reality—defined by Merriam-
Webster as an enhanced view of
reality created by overlaying dig-
ital information on an image of
an object being viewed through a
device—may indeed prove useful,
at least in a warehouse setting.
The third-party logistics arm of
DHL, together with its custom-
er Ricoh and Ubimax GmbH, a
developer of wearable computing
solutions, tested smart glasses and
augmented reality to implement
“vision picking” in warehousing
operations.
For three weeks, 10 order pickers
wore head-mounted displays such
as Google Glass and VuzixM100,
DHL says. Graphics displayed on
the smart glass showed task-re-
lated information, including aisle,
product location, and quantity.
Workers who used the equipment
picked more than 20,000 items and
fulfilled some 9,000 orders. As for
their performance, DHL reports
that they were 25-percent more
efficient than other order pickers
and completed their tasks with no
errors. DHL and Ricoh say they are
evaluating whether to formally roll
out an augmented reality solution.
In a June 2014 report called
“Augmented Reality in Logistics”
( www.dhl.com/augmentedreality),
DHL’s Trend Research team said
that in addition to vision pick-
ing in warehousing operations, the
technology could prove useful in
transportation, last-mile delivery,
and value-added services.
Augmented reality
shows big promise
for the warehouse
Flower shipments blossom before
Valentine’s Day
