DC Velocity - October 2019

inbound

Here’s our monthly roundup of
some of the charitable works and
donations by companies in the
material handling and logistics
space.
b For the fourth consecutive
year, third-party logistics service
provider RK Logistics teamed
up with the Boys & Girls Club
of North San Mateo County
in California to help fund the
club’s summer scholarship pro-
gram for underserved local youth.
RK’s $5,000 donation was used to
underwrite enrichment programs,
educational field trips, and other
activities for club members and
their families.
b Greenwich, Connecticut-based
XPO Logistics Inc. has donated
$10,000 to Operation Backpack,
a community-service project run
by Volunteers of America–Greater
New York. The donation will help
provide backpacks filled with
school supplies to any child liv-
ing in a New York City homeless
or domestic-violence shelter who
needs one.
b Third-party logistics service
provider TMC, a division of C.H.
Robinson, hosted its 15th annual
charitable kickball tournament in
Chicago in July, raising more than
$105,000 for the Greater Chicago
Food Depository. Since its incep-
tion, the Kicks for Community
event has raised more than $2
million for charitable causes.
b The Crosby Group LLC, a sup-
plier of lifting, rigging, and mate-
rial handling hardware, has con-
tributed $25,000 to the Children
of Fallen Patriots Foundation.
The funds were raised via sales of
the company’s popular wire rope
clips. The foundation provides
college scholarships and educa-
tional counseling to military chil-
dren who have lost a parent in the
line of duty.
Logistics gives back
To stock or not to stock?

One of the promises of three-dimensional (3D) printing technology is that it would allow warehouses to store inventory as digital files instead of physical items. The strategy could save valuable shelf space and enable companies to deliver goods at the near-instantaneous speed of email, instead of waiting for trucks and airplanes to transport the goods.

But exactly which parts should you store in physical form, and which as digital blueprints? Even 3D printing takes time, so creating an item on demand might not be fast enough to meet an emergency need.

Jeannette Song, an operations professor at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, has now created a mathematical model to help companies balance the cost of storing spare parts with the need to have them instantly available, the school said. Song’s model, which helps users determine which parts to keep on hand and which to print, is described in the paper “Stock or Print? Impact of 3D Printing on Spare Parts Logistics,” recently published in the journal Management Science.

The paper concludes that a hybrid approach is optimal for most companies, allowing them to avoid the risk of abandoning all their spare-parts inventory, while still saving money by printing certain parts on demand. “The big decision is how you rationalize all these parts, which ones to stock and which ones to print,” Song said in a release. “In most cases, we find a 3D printer would not be used very much at all, but the firm saves a massive amount of inventory.” If your local UPS delivery drivers are looking a little nattier than usual, it’s not your imagination. They’re probably sporting new, more contemporary-looking clothing from the company’s newly redesigned uniform line.

Last month, the Atlanta-based delivery and logistics services giant announced it was making the first major redesign in decades to the uniforms worn by 125,000 drivers worldwide. While the uniforms will still come in the company’s trademark brown, the redesign marks the most significant change since the company’s drivers began wearing short pants in the early ’90s, a bold move that undoubtedly raised a few eyebrows in UPS’s famously conservative boardroom.

The new uniforms feature breathable fabrics and reflective logos that UPS says will improve driver comfort and safety. For instance, the new lineup includes a pullover polo-style shirt with a three-button collar that’s made from a moisture-wicking micro-piqué fabric that improves breathability and enhances employee comfort in warm temperatures. The shirt comes in a short-sleeved version and, for the first time, includes trendy color-blocking on the sides.

Outfitting UPS’s driver workforce is no small task. It takes nearly 4 million yards of brown cloth and 2 million yards of brown thread for the 375,000 hats, 405,000 shirts, 375,000 pairs of trousers, and 290,000 pairs of shorts issued to UPS drivers, according to the company. That’s enough cloth to stretch the distance of the Mississippi River.