Trends

Trends—September 2016

Transportation Infrastructure: The Roads to the White House It’s no big secret that American transportation infrastructure is falling apart and sorely underfunded. In 2014, the U.S. Federal Highway Administration (FHA) labeled more than 61,000 U.S. bridges as "structurally deficient." There is currently a $1.4-trillion deficit between transportation funding and spending needs for the next 10 […]

Read More

Trends—August 2016

If It Ain’t Broke…Keep It That Way Manufacturers are seeing big benefits from providing maintenance training. Just 40 hours of maintenance training per employee per year can net as much as a 127-percent return on investment, says a new study from Advanced Technology Services (ATS), a manufacturing maintenance consultancy. The study collected data from 1,189 […]

Read More

Trends—July 2016

2016: Logistics in Transition It’s transition time for the supply chain and logistics sector. New technologies are on the horizon, but aren’t here yet. Old ways of doing things are being slowly phased out as new ways phase in. Decades-old trade barriers are breaking down, opening new markets to the world. The way consumers shop […]

Read More

Trends—June 2016

The Name’s the Same, But It’s a Different Game There’s a new player in the electric vehicle market. By its name, Nikola Motor Company may seem a carbon copy of rival Tesla Motors (both are named after engineer, physicist, and inventor Nikola Tesla), but the vehicles Nikola wants to make are bigger in scope. Literally. […]

Read More

Trends—May 2016

Robots Coming Soon to A Warehouse Near You Even with the rise of the Internet of Things and the advancement of automation technologies, 80 percent of global logistics facilities still operate manually, according to Robotics in Logistics, a report by Deutsche Post DHL. But the time for robots in logistics is upon us. "Robots work […]

Read More

Trends—April 2016

What Will Smart Cities Mean For the Supply Chain? One decade ago, we were still getting used to the idea that our mobile phones were smarter than us. Today, thanks to an Internet of Things that links all our computerized devices, we have smart watches, smart toothbrushes, smart cars, smart factories, and countless other interconnected […]

Read More

Trends—March 2016

Trucking Companies Hit the Brakes on Driver Wages The capacity crunch that has plagued the trucking industry since 2013 appears to be easing as poor economic growth in the fourth quarter of 2015 has trucking companies lowering their freight estimates. Only one-third of carriers expect to have any increase in freight volume in 2016, according […]

Read More

Trends—February 2016

UAV Operators Wait As FAA Guidelines Drone On Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced in 2013 that Amazon Prime Air would use unmanned drones to deliver packages to your door in 30 minutes or less. The online retailer has since claimed that it is only waiting for the government to make drone package delivery legal. Unfortunately, […]

Read More

Trends—January 2016

Of Potholes and Politics Transportation infrastructure became a hot topic at the end of 2014. So hot, in fact, that it was on the short list of items that had Congress prepared to shut down the government again. This was an interesting development for those who depend on our nation’s highways and waterways—especially because there […]

Read More

Trends—December 2015

Data Capture Technology Ripe for Picking Reducing picking errors remains a high priority for distribution center operators, especially as customer expectations, particularly for faster and more accurate delivery, continue to increase, according to a recent Honeywell survey. Distribution centers are currently losing an average of more than $400,000 annually to picking errors, the survey finds. […]

Read More