DC Velocity - September 2013

4 DC VELOCITY SEPTEMBER 2013 www.dcvelocity.com inbound

If you live in California, don’t be surprised if sometime later this year you spy a shimmering silver object floating through the sky. No need to hide or call 911, though; it’s not a UFO. What you’re looking at— possibly with your mouth hanging open—is a cargo airship.

Tustin, Calif.-based Aeros is constructing the craft, which CEO Igor Pasternak describes as a “rigid variable buoyancy air vehicle.” The airship, which will measure about 600 feet long and 100 feet wide and can carry up to 250 tons of cargo, relies on compressed helium in super-strong, flexible “envelopes” to govern its buoyancy. It is expected to achieve a cruising speed of 120 miles per hour.

Because it takes off and lands vertically, the airship requires no roads or airports and would be ideal for use in remote locations, Pasternak believes. The U.S. Department of Defense has provided some development funding, and the Danish shipping giant A.P. Möller-Maersk has expressed interest in the concept.

To read more about Aeros’ design and to see video of the airship’s construction and planned deployment, go to aeroscraft.com. ;

That’s no UFO

Both the House and Senate entered their five-week summer recess without taking action on a piece of legislation that has to have one of the oddest acronyms among the hundreds that are devised each year in the nation’s acronym-happy capital: the Transportation Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Act of 2014, otherwise known as “THUD.” Short and sweet—and surprising, considering that the same folks came up with the verbose title of SAFETEA-LU (Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act—A Legacy for Users), which was signed into law in 2005.

Stark differences between the House and Senate versions and the inability of House Republicans to schedule a vote on their offering means a new funding bill is not likely. Before the recess, though, the National Industrial Transportation League (which has on occasion exhibited some sensitivity about its own acronym) urged members of the U.S. House of Representatives to support an amendment to THUD that would prohibit funding for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to administer or enforce the new hours-of-service (HOS) rule in regard to rest periods and the use of the 34- hour restart provision. ; Proposed legislation lands with a “THUD”

For most people, sortation systems are strongly associated with sorting outbound orders for shipping. But they can also be a smart choice for other purposes, according to Bob Babel, vice president and executive consultant for engineering consulting firm and systems integrator Forté.

Take receiving, for example. Companies that are involved in omnichannel fulfillment and just-in-time replenishment often receive cartons and pallets with mixed stock-keeping units (SKUs). These typically are manually broken down and the contents sorted by SKU for putaway. With automation, however, workers can place the items on a conveyor in whatever order they come off the pallet or out of the carton, and the sortation system will sort them by SKU and deliver them for putaway. The items can then be picked off the conveyor and into a cart, or possibly right into the pick face or a “ready reserve” area, Babel said in an interview. Rebuilt pallets with single or multiple SKUs could go into racks for longer-term storage.

This application could make sense for DCs that receive a variety of items from many suppliers, such as automotive after-market parts and office supplies. “Receiving systems can be a bit difficult to justify on labor alone, because you are still touching the product a certain number of times, depending on the industry,” Babel said. “But generally, you get a big improvement on the receiving dock, and you’re getting items into the pick face faster so they’re available for sale sooner.”

Other “soft” benefits of using sortation systems in receiving include ergonomic advantages when breaking down pallets and cartons, and the ability to collect packaging trash and dunnage at a centralized location near receiving rather than at the pick face, Babel said. ; Sortation systems: