4 DC VELOCITY OCTOBER 2013 www.dcvelocity.com
inbound
Richard Sharpe, president of Competitive Insights
(CI), an Atlanta-based consultancy, is DC VELOCITY’S
newest blogger. In his blog, titled “Big Data, Big Deal,”
Sharpe will focus on how companies can harness and
master the overwhelming flow of information to gain
actionable insights from big data and thus build profits and gain a competitive edge.
Sharpe is a founding officer of the American
Logistics Aid Network (ALAN), a nonprofit group that
aids rescue and recovery efforts following natural disasters by connecting relief agencies and individuals in
need of logistics services with companies that can provide the relevant resources and expertise. He has also
been named one of DC VELOCITY’S “Thought Leaders.”
Sharpe’s current focus is to support CI’s mission to
help customers gain sustainable competitive advantage
through integrated business planning (IBP) solutions.
IBP solutions transform large volumes of disparate
data into fact-based operational insights. ;
Richard Sharpe joins DCV as blogger
Who are the fastest-growing logistics and transportation companies in the nation? You can find out from
Inc., the magazine and website devoted to business
entrepreneurship. Each year, its Inc. 5000 list ranks the
5,000 fastest-growing private companies in the United
States, based on percentage revenue growth over a
three-year period.
The 2013 edition included 155 companies in the
logistics and transportation categories. They included
many familiar names, such as Barrett Distribution
Centers, England Logistics, enVista, Estes Forwarding
Worldwide, Florida East Coast Railway, Legacy Supply
Chain Services, Load Delivered Logistics, Mach 1
Global Services, M33 Integrated Solutions, ODW
Logistics & Transportation Services, Saddle Creek
Logistics Services, and Total Quality Logistics, to name
a few. There also were many we’ve never come across,
including some with such intriguing names as Bongo
International (parcel forwarding for e-commerce),
Ecogistics (environmentally responsible transportation
outsourcing and planning), The Logistics Store (a consulting firm), and Zipline Logistics (transportation
brokerage). Associated, a provider of integrated handling, labor management, and engineering solutions,
also made the list but under a different category.
For the entire list, go to www.inc.com/inc5000 and
search by category for “logistics and transportation.” ;
Logistics gets its due in the Inc. 5000
If your warehouse or DC routinely develops a wet spot
that’s so deep employees refer to it as “the lake” and give
it a name, then you have a bad case of “sweating slab.”
That’s a real but extreme example of a phenomenon
that causes cement floors to become wet and slippery,
creating hazards for pedestrians and lift truck operators.
Slab sweat can happen when a thick expanse of concrete is in direct contact with the ground, explains
Christian Taber, senior applications engineer for Big
Ass Fans, a manufacturer of industrial fans. Because it
has a large thermal mass, the slab takes a long time to
heat up, and a lot of heat is required to change its temperature. As a result, the floor temperature tends to
trail the air temperature by about a month. In April,
for example, “the air may be warm and humid, but the
slab is still back in March,” he says.
Another cause of slab sweat is condensation that
forms on the floor when the slab temperature is lower
than the dew-point temperature of the air. “This happens a lot in unconditioned space, especially facilities
that aren’t heated well and those that
aren’t air conditioned,” Taber says.
It’s a problem to be taken seriously.
The combination of forklifts and a wet
floor can lead to tipping or sliding,
potentially causing harm to people,
trucks, racks, and product. Wood pallets and cardboard cartons that come
in contact with slab sweat provide an
environment for fungus, mold, and
mildew—“the odds of something
growing are pretty good,” Taber
says—not to mention the danger of
cardboard boxes falling apart or metal
products rusting.
How can you prevent wet floors? Air conditioning
removes moisture from the air and lowers the dew
point, but it can be expensive to install and operate,
Taber notes. Another method is to raise the surface
temperature of the floor by using a radiant heater or
blowing hot air directly on the problem area so it gets
above the dew point—a “fairly energy-intensive solution,” he says. A third option is using overhead fans to
blow the warmer air near the ceiling down onto the
slab. Fans also keep the air moving, making air temperatures more consistent throughout the facility and
reducing the difference between the dew point of the
air and the temperature of the floor. ;
Don’t sweat it … in your warehouse
