Battery maker East Penn Manufacturing and distributor
Electric Battery Co. have announced the expansion of
Electric Battery’s service territory into New England with
the opening of a facility in Hopkinton, Massachusetts.
With this expansion, Electric Battery is now the exclu-
sive distributor of East Penn’s Deka batteries for New
England, Northern New Jersey, and the New York City
metro area. … Safety barrier manufacturer A-Safe
Inc. has installed almost a mile of safety barriers at a
new Volvo manufacturing facility in Ridgeville, South
Carolina. As part of the project, A-Safe installed a
full suite of safety products, including traffic strength
barriers, column protection equipment, and pedes-
trian guarding devices. … OneCharge Inc., a provider
of lithium motive batteries for the material handling
industry, and Ecotec, a provider of energy-efficient
battery-charging solutions, have announced that their
Southern California customers are eligible for Southern
California Edison’s “Charge Ready Transport” program.
This five-year program, which covers most or all of the
customer’s costs for electric infrastructure needed up to
the charging station, has authorized up to $30 million
in funding specifically for forklifts. … Transportation
and logistics solutions provider USAT Capacity Solutions
has selected FourKites, a company offering predictive
supply chain visibility solutions, as its exclusive real-time
freight visibility partner. … Logistics Plus Inc., a provider
of transportation, logistics, and supply chain solutions,
has partnered with Restoring Integrity to the Oceans
Inc. (RIO) to support the group’s ocean-cleanup initia-
tives. Under the arrangement, Logistics Plus will help
with the transportation of the plastic debris collected as
well as provide assistance with customs and global trade
regulatory compliance. … Ohio-based industrial robotics
solutions company Robot Worx has formed a partnership
with robot software provider Octopuz Inc. that allows
RobotWorx to expand its service offerings into offline
robot programming. The new capability allows users to
complete robot programming virtually, on a computer,
while the robots are still online and working. … Third-
party service provider Trinity Logistics is piloting freight
marketplace operator DAT Solutions’ truckload rate
forecasting tools and automated “Book Now” option
for select loads on the DAT Load Board network.
ALLIANCES
Logistics pros migrate toward cloud-based software to keep
freight moving during pandemic
Logistics professionals are changing their work habits in
response to the Covid- 19 outbreak, with many working
from home in compliance with shelter-in-place mandates.
Among other effects, that transition to at-home workhas led to a spike in demand forcloud-based supply chain software asopposed to the on-premise platformsthat typically run on a business’s ownservers, technology vendors say.
One example can be seen in thetransportation management software(TMS) arena, according to InMotionGlobal Inc., the Tampa, Florida-baseddeveloper of the cloud-based productAscendTMS. New subscriptions tothe AscendTMS platform are running 133% higher thanin the same period in 2019 as carriers, brokers, third-partylogistics service providers (3PLs), and shippers increasinglytelecommute instead of heading into the office, the firmsaid.
In response to the trend, InMotion Global has dropped
its subscription fee, making Ascend TMS available at no cost
to any company needing help for a 30-day period. In addi-
tion to opening the platform to potential new customers,
the move is intended to encourage the logistics community
to follow social distancing procedures
in order to slow the spread of the
virus.
Another company seeing fast sub-
scription growth is Route4Me, whose
“Dynamic Route Optimization” soft-
ware helps users plan last-mile deliv-
ery routes. In the interest of public
health and safety, the company said
in March it is now offering its services
free of charge to government agencies
at the federal, city, and municipal level around the world.
Likewise, the logistics technology firm Convey Inc. offeredfree access through the end of April to its “PredictiveInsights” software product, part of the company’s “deliveryexperience management” platform for monitoring last-miledeliveries and identifying network transportation issues. n
