Mark Boyer has been promoted to director of operations for Con-way Expedite and Brokerage. He will be responsible for all operations, customer service, intermodal moves and post tender dispatch and service. Con-way Expedite and Brokerage provides time-critical shipment expediting and truckload freight brokerage services as part of Con-way Transportation (a subsidiary of Con-way Inc.).
Another division of Con-way, Con-way Freight, has also announced some appointments to its management team. Dana Boles is the new director-linehaul for Con-Way Freight- Southern. He joined the less-than-truckload carrier in 1990 as a dockworker. And Greg Pawelski was promoted to director of human resources for the Ann Arbor, Mich.-based lessthan-truckload carrier Con-Way Freight-Central.
Voxware Inc., a company that provides voice-based supply chain solutions, has been added to the NASDAQ Capital Market listings. The publicly traded company will conduct business under the symbol VOXW. Last year, the company converted all of its preferred stock into common stock and accomplished a reverse stock split.
Menlo Worldwide has launched a new business entity to provide logistics services to customers in Kuala Lampur and Penang, Malaysia. Operating as Menlo Worldwide (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., the company now offers services such as local and global freight transportation management, distribution and fulfillment, warehousing, and inventory management and control.
CAPS Acquisition Group has purchased the CAPS Division of Kingway Material Handling. CAPS Acquisition Group has also announced that it will merge the Distribution Systems Group (DSG) of Manchester, N.H., into the CAPS organization, which is based in nearby Exeter, N.H. CAPS produces order fulfillment technology, such as pick-to-light systems, while DSG provides warehouse control software and handles warehouse systems installation and project management.
James Childress, president and general manager of LXE Inc., has been elected chairman of the board of directors of AIM Global. AIM Global is a trade association for automatic identification and mobility technologies. Childress succeeds Tom Miller of Intermec in that post.
Daniel Klenkar has joined distribution consulting firm Sedlak as director of business development. In his new role, Klenkar will work to develop new business with existing clients, expand the company's client base in new markets and represent Sedlak at industry events.
Members of the Conveyor Equipment Manufacturers Association (CEMA) have elected Thomas Easterhouse of Lubriquip as the organization's new president. Fred Thimmel of Bryant Products was elected vice president, Daniel Fannin of Emerson Power Transmission was named secretary, and R. Todd Swinderman of Martin Engineering was chosen as the group's new treasurer.
RedPrairie has named Henrik Bloch as this year's "Provider Pro to Know." Bloch is the director of product development for RedPrairie's build-to-order business unit. RedPrairie has also appointed David Mott product marketing leader for its Workforce Performance Management business unit. Mott has been with the company since 1993.
Toyota Material Handling, USA, Inc. has named Kosaku Yamada managing director for Toyota Industries Corp. Yamada, the former chief engineer behind the Toyota Camry, will now oversee the design and production of Toyota lift trucks.
TNT Logistics North America has promoted two of its own to management positions. Allen Melton, previously the project manager serving the BMW account in Greer, S.C., has been appointed division manager. Also promoted to division manager is Jeff Morgan, who most recently served as district manager in Southfield, Mich.
James Ryan, group president of W.W. Grainger Inc., has been selected as the Illinois Institute of Technology's "Outstanding Leader in Industry" for 2006. IIT presents this annual award to recognize companies and individuals who make significant contributions to industry in the Chicago area.
Aires International Inc., a freight forwarding and international transportation company, has changed its name to Aires Global Logistics Inc. The company says its new name better reflects its broad-based capabilities.
NACCO Materials Handling Group, which manufactures lift trucks under the Hyster and Yale brands, has announced that Reginald Eklund, president and CEO, will retire at the end of this month. During his tenure, the company has grown to be one of the world's largest lift truck producers. Michael Brogan, currently executive vice president operations, has been named as Eklund's successor. DHL has named Charles Brewer executive vice president of U.S. Air Products and Services. Prior to this appointment, Brewer managed DHL's country operations in Malaysia.
The New York-based industrial artificial intelligence (AI) provider Augury has raised $75 million for its process optimization tools for manufacturers, in a deal that values the company at more than $1 billion, the firm said today.
According to Augury, its goal is deliver a new generation of AI solutions that provide the accuracy and reliability manufacturers need to make AI a trusted partner in every phase of the manufacturing process.
The “series F” venture capital round was led by Lightrock, with participation from several of Augury’s existing investors; Insight Partners, Eclipse, and Qumra Capital as well as Schneider Electric Ventures and Qualcomm Ventures. In addition to securing the new funding, Augury also said it has added Elan Greenberg as Chief Operating Officer.
“Augury is at the forefront of digitalizing equipment maintenance with AI-driven solutions that enhance cost efficiency, sustainability performance, and energy savings,” Ashish (Ash) Puri, Partner at Lightrock, said in a release. “Their predictive maintenance technology, boasting 99.9% failure detection accuracy and a 5-20x ROI when deployed at scale, significantly reduces downtime and energy consumption for its blue-chip clients globally, offering a compelling value proposition.”
The money supports the firm’s approach of "Hybrid Autonomous Mobile Robotics (Hybrid AMRs)," which integrate the intelligence of "Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs)" with the precision and structure of "Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs)."
According to Anscer, it supports the acceleration to Industry 4.0 by ensuring that its autonomous solutions seamlessly integrate with customers’ existing infrastructures to help transform material handling and warehouse automation.
Leading the new U.S. office will be Mark Messina, who was named this week as Anscer’s Managing Director & CEO, Americas. He has been tasked with leading the firm’s expansion by bringing its automation solutions to industries such as manufacturing, logistics, retail, food & beverage, and third-party logistics (3PL).
Supply chains continue to deal with a growing volume of returns following the holiday peak season, and 2024 was no exception. Recent survey data from product information management technology company Akeneo showed that 65% of shoppers made holiday returns this year, with most reporting that their experience played a large role in their reason for doing so.
The survey—which included information from more than 1,000 U.S. consumers gathered in January—provides insight into the main reasons consumers return products, generational differences in return and online shopping behaviors, and the steadily growing influence that sustainability has on consumers.
Among the results, 62% of consumers said that having more accurate product information upfront would reduce their likelihood of making a return, and 59% said they had made a return specifically because the online product description was misleading or inaccurate.
And when it comes to making those returns, 65% of respondents said they would prefer to return in-store, if possible, followed by 22% who said they prefer to ship products back.
“This indicates that consumers are gravitating toward the most sustainable option by reducing additional shipping,” the survey authors said in a statement announcing the findings, adding that 68% of respondents said they are aware of the environmental impact of returns, and 39% said the environmental impact factors into their decision to make a return or exchange.
The authors also said that investing in the product experience and providing reliable product data can help brands reduce returns, increase loyalty, and provide the best customer experience possible alongside profitability.
When asked what products they return the most, 60% of respondents said clothing items. Sizing issues were the number one reason for those returns (58%) followed by conflicting or lack of customer reviews (35%). In addition, 34% cited misleading product images and 29% pointed to inaccurate product information online as reasons for returning items.
More than 60% of respondents said that having more reliable information would reduce the likelihood of making a return.
“Whether customers are shopping directly from a brand website or on the hundreds of e-commerce marketplaces available today [such as Amazon, Walmart, etc.] the product experience must remain consistent, complete and accurate to instill brand trust and loyalty,” the authors said.
When you get the chance to automate your distribution center, take it.
That's exactly what leaders at interior design house
Thibaut Design did when they relocated operations from two New Jersey distribution centers (DCs) into a single facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 2019. Moving to an "empty shell of a building," as Thibaut's Michael Fechter describes it, was the perfect time to switch from a manual picking system to an automated one—in this case, one that would be driven by voice-directed technology.
"We were 100% paper-based picking in New Jersey," Fechter, the company's vice president of distribution and technology, explained in a
case study published by Voxware last year. "We knew there was a need for automation, and when we moved to Charlotte, we wanted to implement that technology."
Fechter cites Voxware's promise of simple and easy integration, configuration, use, and training as some of the key reasons Thibaut's leaders chose the system. Since implementing the voice technology, the company has streamlined its fulfillment process and can onboard and cross-train warehouse employees in a fraction of the time it used to take back in New Jersey.
And the results speak for themselves.
"We've seen incredible gains [from a] productivity standpoint," Fechter reports. "A 50% increase from pre-implementation to today."
THE NEED FOR SPEED
Thibaut was founded in 1886 and is the oldest operating wallpaper company in the United States, according to Fechter. The company works with a global network of designers, shipping samples of wallpaper and fabrics around the world.
For the design house's warehouse associates, picking, packing, and shipping thousands of samples every day was a cumbersome, labor-intensive process—and one that was prone to inaccuracy. With its paper-based picking system, mispicks were common—Fechter cites a 2% to 5% mispick rate—which necessitated stationing an extra associate at each pack station to check that orders were accurate before they left the facility.
All that has changed since implementing Voxware's Voice Management Suite (VMS) at the Charlotte DC. The system automates the workflow and guides associates through the picking process via a headset, using voice commands. The hands-free, eyes-free solution allows workers to focus on locating and selecting the right item, with no paper-based lists to check or written instructions to follow.
Thibaut also uses the tech provider's analytics tool, VoxPilot, to monitor work progress, check orders, and keep track of incoming work—managers can see what orders are open, what's in process, and what's completed for the day, for example. And it uses VoxTempo, the system's natural language voice recognition (NLVR) solution, to streamline training. The intuitive app whittles training time down to minutes and gets associates up and working fast—and Thibaut hitting minimum productivity targets within hours, according to Fechter.
EXPECTED RESULTS REALIZED
Key benefits of the project include a reduction in mispicks—which have dropped to zero—and the elimination of those extra quality-control measures Thibaut needed in the New Jersey DCs.
"We've gotten to the point where we don't even measure mispicks today—because there are none," Fechter said in the case study. "Having an extra person at a pack station to [check] every order before we pack [it]—that's been eliminated. Not only is the pick right the first time, but [the order] also gets packed and shipped faster than ever before."
The system has increased inventory accuracy as well. According to Fechter, it's now "well over 99.9%."
IT projects can be daunting, especially when the project involves upgrading a warehouse management system (WMS) to support an expansive network of warehousing and logistics facilities. Global third-party logistics service provider (3PL) CJ Logistics experienced this first-hand recently, embarking on a WMS selection process that would both upgrade performance and enhance security for its U.S. business network.
The company was operating on three different platforms across more than 35 warehouse facilities and wanted to pare that down to help standardize operations, optimize costs, and make it easier to scale the business, according to CIO Sean Moore.
Moore and his team started the WMS selection process in late 2023, working with supply chain consulting firm Alpine Supply Chain Solutions to identify challenges, needs, and goals, and then to select and implement the new WMS. Roughly a year later, the 3PL was up and running on a system from Körber Supply Chain—and planning for growth.
SECURING A NEW SOLUTION
Leaders from both companies explain that a robust WMS is crucial for a 3PL's success, as it acts as a centralized platform that allows seamless coordination of activities such as inventory management, order fulfillment, and transportation planning. The right solution allows the company to optimize warehouse operations by automating tasks, managing inventory levels, and ensuring efficient space utilization while helping to boost order processing volumes, reduce errors, and cut operational costs.
CJ Logistics had another key criterion: ensuring data security for its wide and varied array of clients, many of whom rely on the 3PL to fill e-commerce orders for consumers. Those clients wanted assurance that consumers' personally identifying information—including names, addresses, and phone numbers—was protected against cybersecurity breeches when flowing through the 3PL's system. For CJ Logistics, that meant finding a WMS provider whose software was certified to the appropriate security standards.
"That's becoming [an assurance] that our customers want to see," Moore explains, adding that many customers wanted to know that CJ Logistics' systems were SOC 2 compliant, meaning they had met a standard developed by the American Institute of CPAs for protecting sensitive customer data from unauthorized access, security incidents, and other vulnerabilities. "Everybody wants that level of security. So you want to make sure the system is secure … and not susceptible to ransomware.
"It was a critical requirement for us."
That security requirement was a key consideration during all phases of the WMS selection process, according to Michael Wohlwend, managing principal at Alpine Supply Chain Solutions.
"It was in the RFP [request for proposal], then in demo, [and] then once we got to the vendor of choice, we had a deep-dive discovery call to understand what [security] they have in place and their plan moving forward," he explains.
Ultimately, CJ Logistics implemented Körber's Warehouse Advantage, a cloud-based system designed for multiclient operations that supports all of the 3PL's needs, including its security requirements.
GOING LIVE
When it came time to implement the software, Moore and his team chose to start with a brand-new cold chain facility that the 3PL was building in Gainesville, Georgia. The 270,000-square-foot facility opened this past November and immediately went live running on the Körber WMS.
Moore and Wohlwend explain that both the nature of the cold chain business and the greenfield construction made the facility the perfect place to launch the new software: CJ Logistics would be adding customers at a staggered rate, expanding its cold storage presence in the Southeast and capitalizing on the location's proximity to major highways and railways. The facility is also adjacent to the future Northeast Georgia Inland Port, which will provide a direct link to the Port of Savannah.
"We signed a 15-year lease for the building," Moore says. "When you sign a long-term lease … you want your future-state software in place. That was one of the key [reasons] we started there.
"Also, this facility was going to bring on one customer after another at a metered rate. So [there was] some risk reduction as well."
Wohlwend adds: "The facility plus risk reduction plus the new business [element]—all made it a good starting point."
The early benefits of the WMS include ease of use and easy onboarding of clients, according to Moore, who says the plan is to convert additional CJ Logistics facilities to the new system in 2025.
"The software is very easy to use … our employees are saying they really like the user interface and that you can find information very easily," Moore says, touting the partnership with Alpine and Körber as key to making the project a success. "We are on deck to add at least four facilities at a minimum [this year]."