FreightWaves LIVE: An Events Podcast

Refrigerated shippers and their carrier partners have been under increasing pressure in recent years due to new regulations centered on ensuring safe and sanitary delivery of temperature-controlled products. On Tuesday, SkyBitz announced a partnership with Coretex, which provides sensor-based refrigerated solutions. The sensors, combined with Coretex’s cloud-based platform, will work in conjunctio...

Sam Saad, head of operations for Gatik, an autonomous vehicle startup, explained during a fireside chat Friday as part of FreightWaves’ Cold Chain Summit, that the company could have driverless vehicles on roadways by next summer. Speaking with Kevin Hill, director of research and editorial for FreightWaves, Saad said that fully autonomous vehicles might be on the road “before summer rolls around...

The instability of early-stage COVID-19 vaccines will push the limits of supply chain capabilities worldwide, but as more traditional medicines enter the market, distribution will become easier for many logistics companies and regions of the world, a key figure in DHL’s preparations for the blockbuster shipping event said. At least 10 billion doses of coronavirus vaccine will likely be required to...

As e-commerce sales are projected to hit over $709 billion in the U.S. in 2020 in large part because of the COVID-19 pandemic, logistics companies are focused on last-mile delivery and improving customers’ experience. JT Engstrom, chief strategy officer of FreightWaves, and Lakshmanan Chidambaram, president of the Americas for Tech Mahindra, discussed the evolution of e-commerce over the next two...

Responding to pressure to be more transparent about their service performance following the major railroad mergers of the 1990s, the freight railroads began providing shippers and regulators weekly data on metrics such as rail car velocity and terminal dwell times. But one measure that they haven’t been providing, asserts an executive at one of the country’s largest agribusiness companies, is how...

Purchase returns and the reverse logistics portion of last-mile delivery have become a focal point as more consumers settle into the lifestyles and purchasing habits that have become the new norm in a COVID world. Consumers’ acceptance of a digital retail channel has provided salvation to many retailers that have seen pandemic-related shutdowns choke off traditional in-store buying. At the Freight...

To put the U.S. last-mile trucking market in broader perspective, look at non-U.S. markets. Things are really different over there across the border. In a fireside chat during the FreightWaves Last Mile Logistics Summit, Liftit co-founder and CEO Brian York outlined how his company is growing its last-mile operations in Latin America, which now span Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Ecuador. Wit...

There is nothing simple about providing a reverse logistics service, especially for large replacement or return items that do not fit neatly into a small package. However, more U.S. third-party logistics service providers (3PLs) and trucking companies in recent years have found this to be the type of niche service where their expertise can shine. “We have found this especially important to our app...

Grocery stores in Canada need to invest in robust e-commerce capabilities to prevent a repeat of stock-outs and long delivery delays that disappointed large numbers of customers who opted for virtual shopping at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a food industry expert at the FreightWaves Last Mile Logistics Summit. Canadians are hungry to shop online for food and staples, but the...

The U.S. Postal Service faces a set of conditions that no other business in the U.S. confronts on a daily basis, and it isn’t helping that its potential and actual competitors get a seat at the table in determining its fate. That was the view of Gordon Glazer, a senior consultant with Shipware LLC and a specialist on the Postal Service. Glazer was interviewed by FreightWaves senior writer Mark Sol...

The head of J.B. Hunt Transportation Services Inc.’s (NASDAQ:JBHT) final-mile operation said Thursday that significant investments must be made in the home delivery of big and bulky items because it is fast becoming the most critical part of the supply chain. Nick Hobbs, who runs the Lowell, Arkansas-based company’s Dedicated Contract Services (DCS) and Final Mile Services operations, said during...

As e-commerce continues to take market share from brick-and-mortar retail, the heavy bulky last-mile market is seeing rapid growth, with reverse logistics as a particularly strong revenue driver. That was one of the takeaways from a fireside chat between Kirby Fine, principal, ATL Partners, and Gordon Branov, CEO of Pilot Freight Services, during the FreightWaves Last Mile Logistics Summit on Thur...

Despite the hype surrounding the Tesla Semi truck, the future for electric vehicles in the transportation and logistics industry seems to be coming sooner and on a larger scale for fleets serving the last mile. Case in point: Amazon’s order for 100,000 customized electric delivery vehicles produced by Rivian.  “It just makes so much sense for an electric vehicle with that stop-and-go application a...

The coronavirus pandemic forced many companies to adapt the way they manufactured and packaged their products, as well as how they shipped them to their final destination, according to Karen Tyndall, GlobalTranz Inc.’s director of customer solutions. “What we found was that [customers] were buying online and ultimately making those purchases from their living room,” Tyndall said. “The unique chall...

An XPO Logistics (NYSE: XPO) executive forecast Thursday that XPO might need an additional 25-30% of delivery capacity during this fall’s strong peak season. “We want to go into this peak period and really prove that we’re ready for the Super Bowl and ready to do this,” XPO Last Mile President Erik Caldwell told FreightWaves President George Abernathy during the keynote event, “How Changes in Cons...

Using data collected from innovative technology such as wearables not only supports safety measures and productivity, according to Cormac Gilligan, global vice president of environment, health and safety for PepsiCo Inc. .t can also provide employees with a sense of ownership because of the data’s real-life applications. Gilligan pointed to PepsiCo’s adoption of employees using wearables during ce...

The coronavirus pandemic has solidified the status of e-commerce in the global economy while becoming even more a part of modern life, said Melinda McLaughlin, vice president, global head of research for Prologis. “What happened really was COVID-19 pulled a lot of adoption that would have happened and customers were, frankly, planning for over three, five, to 10 years, but pulled it all into one y...

Changes in technology, labor regulations and emissions, as well as a potential driver shortage and rising insurance costs, are just some of the challenges facing the surface transportation industry, according to  Dave Belter, vice president and general manager of transportation management with Ryder System. Belter told FreightWaves Chief Strategy Officer JT Engstrom during a virtual fireside chat...

As e-commerce sales are projected to hit $709.78 billion in the U.S. in 2020, logistics companies are turning to the virtual world to hire, onboard and train employees. Prologis Inc.the world’s largest developer, owner and operator of logistics warehouses, is partnering with tech startup Strivr, which has developed a virtual reality-based platform, to provide hands-on learning and realistic decisi...

Robotics startups Third Wave Automation and Outrider are taking on forklifts and yard trucks in a way that is advancing automation and zero-emission technology on both sides of the warehouse wall. Participating in a fireside chat during FreightWaves’ Future of Logistics Real Estate Summit on Tuesday, Third Wave Automation CEO and co-founder Arshan Poursohi and Outrider founder and CEO Andrew Smith...

Had Amazon not purchased Kiva Systems for $775 million in 2012 and stopped selling its robots, Locus Robotics might not have become a spinoff of 3PL Quiet Logistics. “The management team at the time had a choice of whether to not use robots, buy a robot or build their own,” Locus Robotics CEO Rick Faulk said during a fireside chat with Tony Palchek, managing director of Zebra Technologies, during...

Dooner and The Dude talk with Matthew Cherewka Director Of Business Development at Vecna Robotics Apple Podcast Spotify More FreightWaves Podcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

 The logistics warehouse of the future will be heavily automated, purpose-built for e-commerce and ready for tenants to “plug in” and go live almost immediately, a top executive for distribution giant Ingram Micro said Tuesday. Keynoting FreightWaves’ daylong webinar on the future of logistics warehousing, Ken Beyer, executive vice president and president of commerce and life cycle services for th...

Roughly a decade ago, in anticipation of changes in the supply chain and logistics sector, investment firm Saybrook Management started buying companies in that space – not so much because they were great opportunities, which they were, but because the firm wanted to understand how the various pieces of the supply chain worked. Then came COVID-19. “There’s nothing that compares to this from a logis...

Transship founder and CEO Amit Hasak’s vision for the future of transporting perishable goods across the world involves fewer phone calls and emails and a lot more automation. The result: potentially knowing that a malfunctioning reefer unit spoiled that shipment of frozen pork long before someone opens that container at a Chinese port.  “We provide that information in real time,” Hasak said durin...