DC Velocity - March 2016

inbound

Organizing a Super Bowl game for the National Football League (NFL) demands a flurry of behind-the-scenes logistics moves, all aimed at making sure that hundreds of moving pieces come together in time for the opening kickoff.

Of course, supply chain professionals in many corners of the industry face equally complex jobs every day as they load giant containerships with freight or dispatch thousands of individual orders to consumers’ Super Bowl is broadcast on live TV, so millions of viewers witness any mistakes.

That’s why the pressure was on FedEx Corp. when the Denver Broncos beat the Carolina Panthers in the championship game last month and stepped up to claim their trophy. The NFL had called FedEx’s number to carry the iconic Vince Lombardi Trophy from league headquarters in New York City to the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

To ensure that the sterling silver Tiffany & Co.-crafted trophy traveled safely across the country, FedEx monitored its progress with SenseAware, a track-and-trace platform that constantly monitors temperature, humidity, and light. The monitoring helps assure that a parcel is not affected by extreme environmental conditions or opened before its arrival.

FedEx rushes trophy to Super Bowl site

Truck drivers are clutch players in the logistics sector and help keep the nation’s economy moving, but these working-class heroes also serve a second purpose—inspiring pop-culture paeans from song lyrics to movie scenes.

In that spirit, the North Hollywood, Calif.-based magazine Pacific Standard has launched a series of stories—interspersed with photos, sound clips, and videos— to illustrate the past, present, and future of the multifaceted U.S. truck-driving industry.

The “Keep on Truckin’” series covers business issues such as diversity, discrimination, and environmental concerns, as well as social influences ranging from the mythology of the cowboy trucker to American trucking’s influence on the Japanese art of dekoto-ra—the intricate decorations and modifications made to working vehicles.

Many of the stories examine the personal life of professional truckers, with colorful infographics illustrating statistics such as the percentage of surveyed drivers who spend four to six nights per week on the road ( 27), the percentage of drivers who smoke cigarettes ( 54), and the percentage who get regular exercise ( 8). Other articles in the series examine issues like long-haul trucking’s billion-dollar cargo theft problem, the health effects of road vibration, and some of the most notorious long-haul mishaps in history.

To check out this multimedia project, visit www.psmag.com/ series/keep-on-truckin.

Truckers inspire pop
songs, industrial art

Lift truck maintenance and repair is one of those job skills that are best learned by doing, not by reading a manual or viewing PowerPoint slides.

To that end, Crown Equipment Corp. has announced that it will be providing material handling equipment to be used as training aids for students at the Universal Technical Institute Inc. UTI provides post-sec-ondary education for students seeking careers as professional automotive, diesel, collision repair, motorcycle, and marine technicians.

Under the agreement, New Bremen, Ohio-based Crown will provide forklifts, work assist vehicles, and pallet trucks to all 12 UTI campuses across the country.

Many UTI graduates have landed jobs as service technicians at Crown over the years, and the new collaboration will enhance that link by providing students with the latest training aids and material handling equipment, said Chuck Barresi, UTI’s senior vice president of customer solutions.