John Johnson joined the DC Velocity team in March 2004. A veteran business journalist, John has over a dozen years of experience covering the supply chain field, including time as chief editor of Warehousing Management. In addition, he has covered the venture capital community and previously was a sports reporter covering professional and collegiate sports in the Boston area. John served as senior editor and chief editor of DC Velocity until April 2008.
You're in the middle of what's already a pretty stressful day at the distribution center when your pager goes off—the executives meeting in the boardroom want you to join them ASAP. The unscheduled request could mean any number of things: Maybe the board is fed up with the charge-backs you keep getting hit with from that big retail customer. Perhaps they finally approved the long overdue expansion plans for your DC. Or maybe—just maybe—they've signed off on that gainsharing program you've been touting.
Not even close. On this day, word comes down that the big guns want to implement RFID technology throughout the DC. To make things worse, there's a deadline looming: It turns out that your biggest customer is demanding that you be RFID-ready within the next nine months ... or else.
After postponing the planned family vacation and reaching for the Advil, you start drawing up a list of equipment you'll need—tags, readers, software ... But when you go to identify potential vendors, you realize you're in uncharted waters. This isn't going to be like buying, say, conveyors or forklifts, where you have plenty of well-established suppliers to choose from. In an emerging field like RFID, the first challenge is figuring out whom to call and where to start. Do you pick your software or middleware first and then go from there? Or should you begin by selecting your tags and/or readers? And in a turbulent market like this, what assurances do you have that the vendors you choose will be around for the long term?
It takes two (maybe three) to tango
If these concerns are keeping you up at night, you're not alone. When respondents to a recent survey conducted by AMR Research were asked what class of vendor was their primary RFID provider, the answers were all over the map. The majority response—the answer selected by almost one-third of the respondents: "Not sure at this time."
That indecision is reflected in the results of the AMR study, which confirms that despite a great deal of activity in the field, no one vendor now dominates the RFID market. As for why RFID technology providers are finding it so difficult to establish leadership, the report's authors point to the broad and diverse nature of the market. RFID, as a technology, ranges from tags and readers to middleware and applications. Because no single supplier can meet all their needs, some early adopters have picked multiple partners across all of these categories as their primary vendors. But that could change. As standards mature, "ecosystems" are likely to develop and selection will get easier for users.
When asked which vendors they would likely consider for RFID deployments, the survey respondents tended to go with companies they knew, putting Symbol and Intermec, both longtime vendors of automatic ID and data collection equipment, at the top of the list. The authors of the AMR report warn, however, that this does not make them the market leaders. The market is still very fragmented, they caution, with the list of the top 20 vendors being rounded out by a variety of suppliers (companies providing tags, readers, infrastructure and applications).
"The market is up for grabs, in our opinion, [waiting] for a leader to …emerge," says Marianne D'Aquila, a research analyst with AMR Research. "What end users are looking for is a clear path to a return on investment and hardware and integration capabilities. You want to have somebody that can integrate all of this ..."
D'Aquila says that the vendors that ultimately prevail in this market will be those that can convince prospective customers that they're more than technical experts, that they're also sensitive to their clients' practical and financial concerns. When asked what key attributes an RFID partner should possess, survey respondents cited the need for deep technical expertise with sound implementation strategies at the lowest total cost of ownership. That would appear to favor larger vendors that can support large implementations and global deployments.
"So much of figuring out RFID is getting the right partners—from the right consulting partners to the right middleware partners to the right application partners," says Eric Peters, chief executive officer of software startup True Demand. "People are really looking for solutions, like how RFID can reduce out-of-stocks or reduce inventory. At the end of the day it's usually not one company, but a collection of companies that make this happen."
The great RFID shakeout
If the situation weren't confusing enough already, it appears that the industry is poised for a shakeout. Oyster Bay, N.Y.-based ABI Research expects a rash of acquisitions and consolidation in the next nine months as consumer demand shifts beyond RFID readers and tags toward more robust and complicated back-office applications.
Recent events bear out ABI's predictions. In July, for example, RFID Ltd. announced that it had acquired Packaged RFID Inc., an integrator of RFID technology for the retail and defense sectors. The combined company will form a new group that will be able to offer RFID integration for small to medium-sized suppliers to Wal-Mart, Target and the Department of Defense.
Erik Michielsen, ABI's director of RFID and ubiquitous networks, believes that the software segment of RFID will also see fast and furious consolidation, as larger players move into areas traditionally dominated by smaller companies. That will force the smaller players to either partner with larger players or come up with new service offerings. For example, Michielsen notes, "SAP [with its Auto ID Infrastructure, which is part of NetWeaver] is pushing down from the enterprise application space and picking up functions traditionally done by OATSystems, Acsis, ConnecTerra, Sun and GlobeRanger."
But these smaller companies are beginning to fight back, Michielsen notes. As the big players begin to encroach on their turf, some have responded by broadening their focus beyond RFID middleware and into data analytics, business intelligence and automation networking, he says. "OAT is pushing up and becoming competitive with some NetWeaver functionality," he reports, "and it's joined in the business intelligence space by T3Ci."
talking 'bout my generation
With the much vaunted second generation of RFID technology about to hit the market, few companies seem much inclined to invest in the earlier versions. But waiting for the new technology to become commercially available (later this year or in early 2006) could be a big mistake. Although they encourage companies of all stages of RFID-readiness to consider Gen 2 technology in their long-range planning, the experts urge suppliers facing their first RFID mandates to get started immediately by experimenting with the technology currently available.
"I'm sure Gen 2 technology is confusing to people," says Ed Matthews, director of information systems at Pacific Cycle. "Gen 2 always seems to be just around the corner—and continues to this day to be around the corner—so it's definitely muddying the waters. I don't think we'll see any decent volume for another six months, so that's part of the problem as some companies are waiting until Gen 2 comes around." (As DC VELOCITY went to press, semiconductor company Impinj announced that it had entered volume production and would fulfill orders exceeding 50 million units for Gen 2 RFID tags by the end of the year.)
Rather than wait, Matthews strongly recommends buying some Class 1 or Class 0 equipment right now. "I don't want to suggest that anybody spend a ton of money on it," he says, "but the biggest thing is just to get some equipment. Go out and buy a reader, a roll of tags and a printer so you can begin to understand the physics around RFID. It's definitely a different world than bar-code scanning."
Most retailers as well as the Department of Defense (DOD) are aware that their suppliers have purchased large quantities of Class 1 or Class 0 tags (Gen 1), and they realize that it will take some time for those tags to work their way through the supply chain. Wal-Mart, for example, has not yet announced a deadline for its suppliers to convert to Gen 2 tags. And although the DOD has confirmed that it will eventually require its suppliers to switch over, it has gone on record stating that it will have a "long phase-out period," possibly lasting as long as two years.
Congestion on U.S. highways is costing the trucking industry big, according to research from the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI), released today.
The group found that traffic congestion on U.S. highways added $108.8 billion in costs to the trucking industry in 2022, a record high. The information comes from ATRI’s Cost of Congestion study, which is part of the organization’s ongoing highway performance measurement research.
Total hours of congestion fell slightly compared to 2021 due to softening freight market conditions, but the cost of operating a truck increased at a much higher rate, according to the research. As a result, the overall cost of congestion increased by 15% year-over-year—a level equivalent to more than 430,000 commercial truck drivers sitting idle for one work year and an average cost of $7,588 for every registered combination truck.
The analysis also identified metropolitan delays and related impacts, showing that the top 10 most-congested states each experienced added costs of more than $8 billion. That list was led by Texas, at $9.17 billion in added costs; California, at $8.77 billion; and Florida, $8.44 billion. Rounding out the top 10 list were New York, Georgia, New Jersey, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, and Tennessee. Combined, the top 10 states account for more than half of the trucking industry’s congestion costs nationwide—52%, according to the research.
The metro areas with the highest congestion costs include New York City, $6.68 billion; Miami, $3.2 billion; and Chicago, $3.14 billion.
ATRI’s analysis also found that the trucking industry wasted more than 6.4 billion gallons of diesel fuel in 2022 due to congestion, resulting in additional fuel costs of $32.1 billion.
ATRI used a combination of data sources, including its truck GPS database and Operational Costs study benchmarks, to calculate the impacts of trucking delays on major U.S. roadways.
There’s a photo from 1971 that John Kent, professor of supply chain management at the University of Arkansas, likes to show. It’s of a shaggy-haired 18-year-old named Glenn Cowan grinning at three-time world table tennis champion Zhuang Zedong, while holding a silk tapestry Zhuang had just given him. Cowan was a member of the U.S. table tennis team who participated in the 1971 World Table Tennis Championships in Nagoya, Japan. Story has it that one morning, he overslept and missed his bus to the tournament and had to hitch a ride with the Chinese national team and met and connected with Zhuang.
Cowan and Zhuang’s interaction led to an invitation for the U.S. team to visit China. At the time, the two countries were just beginning to emerge from a 20-year period of decidedly frosty relations, strict travel bans, and trade restrictions. The highly publicized trip signaled a willingness on both sides to renew relations and launched the term “pingpong diplomacy.”
Kent, who is a senior fellow at the George H. W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China Relations, believes the photograph is a good reminder that some 50-odd years ago, the economies of the United States and China were not as tightly interwoven as they are today. At the time, the Nixon administration was looking to form closer political and economic ties between the two countries in hopes of reducing chances of future conflict (and to weaken alliances among Communist countries).
The signals coming out of Washington and Beijing are now, of course, much different than they were in the early 1970s. Instead of advocating for better relations, political rhetoric focuses on the need for the U.S. to “decouple” from China. Both Republicans and Democrats have warned that the U.S. economy is too dependent on goods manufactured in China. They see this dependency as a threat to economic strength, American jobs, supply chain resiliency, and national security.
Supply chain professionals, however, know that extricating ourselves from our reliance on Chinese manufacturing is easier said than done. Many pundits push for a “China + 1” strategy, where companies diversify their manufacturing and sourcing options beyond China. But in reality, that “plus one” is often a Chinese company operating in a different country or a non-Chinese manufacturer that is still heavily dependent on material or subcomponents made in China.
This is the problem when supply chain decisions are made on a global scale without input from supply chain professionals. In an article in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Kent argues that, “The discussions on supply chains mainly take place between government officials who typically bring many other competing issues and agendas to the table. Corporate entities—the individuals and companies directly impacted by supply chains—tend to be under-represented in the conversation.”
Kent is a proponent of what he calls “supply chain diplomacy,” where experts from academia and industry from the U.S. and China work collaboratively to create better, more efficient global supply chains. Take, for example, the “Peace Beans” project that Kent is involved with. This project, jointly formed by Zhejiang University and the Bush China Foundation, proposes balancing supply chains by exporting soybeans from Arkansas to tofu producers in China’s Yunnan province, and, in return, importing coffee beans grown in Yunnan to coffee roasters in Arkansas. Kent believes the operation could even use the same transportation equipment.
The benefits of working collaboratively—instead of continuing to build friction in the supply chain through tariffs and adversarial relationships—are numerous, according to Kent and his colleagues. They believe it would be much better if the two major world economies worked together on issues like global inflation, climate change, and artificial intelligence.
And such relations could play a significant role in strengthening world peace, particularly in light of ongoing tensions over Taiwan. Because, as Kent writes, “The 19th-century idea that ‘When goods don’t cross borders, soldiers will’ is as true today as ever. Perhaps more so.”
Hyster-Yale Materials Handling today announced its plans to fulfill the domestic manufacturing requirements of the Build America, Buy America (BABA) Act for certain portions of its lineup of forklift trucks and container handling equipment.
That means the Greenville, North Carolina-based company now plans to expand its existing American manufacturing with a targeted set of high-capacity models, including electric options, that align with the needs of infrastructure projects subject to BABA requirements. The company’s plans include determining the optimal production location in the United States, strategically expanding sourcing agreements to meet local material requirements, and further developing electric power options for high-capacity equipment.
As a part of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the BABA Act aims to increase the use of American-made materials in federally funded infrastructure projects across the U.S., Hyster-Yale says. It was enacted as part of a broader effort to boost domestic manufacturing and economic growth, and mandates that federal dollars allocated to infrastructure – such as roads, bridges, ports and public transit systems – must prioritize materials produced in the USA, including critical items like steel, iron and various construction materials.
Hyster-Yale’s footprint in the U.S. is spread across 10 locations, including three manufacturing facilities.
“Our leadership is fully invested in meeting the needs of businesses that require BABA-compliant material handling solutions,” Tony Salgado, Hyster-Yale’s chief operating officer, said in a release. “We are working to partner with our key domestic suppliers, as well as identifying how best to leverage our own American manufacturing footprint to deliver a competitive solution for our customers and stakeholders. But beyond mere compliance, and in line with the many areas of our business where we are evolving to better support our customers, our commitment remains steadfast. We are dedicated to delivering industry-leading standards in design, durability and performance — qualities that have become synonymous with our brands worldwide and that our customers have come to rely on and expect.”
In a separate move, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) also gave its approval for the state to advance its Heavy-Duty Omnibus Rule, which is crafted to significantly reduce smog-forming nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions from new heavy-duty, diesel-powered trucks.
Both rules are intended to deliver health benefits to California citizens affected by vehicle pollution, according to the environmental group Earthjustice. If the state gets federal approval for the final steps to become law, the rules mean that cars on the road in California will largely be zero-emissions a generation from now in the 2050s, accounting for the average vehicle lifespan of vehicles with internal combustion engine (ICE) power sold before that 2035 date.
“This might read like checking a bureaucratic box, but EPA’s approval is a critical step forward in protecting our lungs from pollution and our wallets from the expenses of combustion fuels,” Paul Cort, director of Earthjustice’s Right To Zero campaign, said in a release. “The gradual shift in car sales to zero-emissions models will cut smog and household costs while growing California’s clean energy workforce. Cutting truck pollution will help clear our skies of smog. EPA should now approve the remaining authorization requests from California to allow the state to clean its air and protect its residents.”
However, the truck drivers' industry group Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) pushed back against the federal decision allowing the Omnibus Low-NOx rule to advance. "The Omnibus Low-NOx waiver for California calls into question the policymaking process under the Biden administration's EPA. Purposefully injecting uncertainty into a $588 billion American industry is bad for our economy and makes no meaningful progress towards purported environmental goals," (OOIDA) President Todd Spencer said in a release. "EPA's credibility outside of radical environmental circles would have been better served by working with regulated industries rather than ramming through last-minute special interest favors. We look forward to working with the Trump administration's EPA in good faith towards achievable environmental outcomes.”
Editor's note:This article was revised on December 18 to add reaction from OOIDA.
A Canadian startup that provides AI-powered logistics solutions has gained $5.5 million in seed funding to support its concept of creating a digital platform for global trade, according to Toronto-based Starboard.
The round was led by Eclipse, with participation from previous backers Garuda Ventures and Everywhere Ventures. The firm says it will use its new backing to expand its engineering team in Toronto and accelerate its AI-driven product development to simplify supply chain complexities.
According to Starboard, the logistics industry is under immense pressure to adapt to the growing complexity of global trade, which has hit recent hurdles such as the strike at U.S. east and gulf coast ports. That situation calls for innovative solutions to streamline operations and reduce costs for operators.
As a potential solution, Starboard offers its flagship product, which it defines as an AI-based transportation management system (TMS) and rate management system that helps mid-sized freight forwarders operate more efficiently and win more business. More broadly, Starboard says it is building the virtual infrastructure for global trade, allowing freight companies to leverage AI and machine learning to optimize operations such as processing shipments in real time, reconciling invoices, and following up on payments.
"This investment is a pivotal step in our mission to unlock the power of AI for our customers," said Sumeet Trehan, Co-Founder and CEO of Starboard. "Global trade has long been plagued by inefficiencies that drive up costs and reduce competitiveness. Our platform is designed to empower SMB freight forwarders—the backbone of more than $20 trillion in global trade and $1 trillion in logistics spend—with the tools they need to thrive in this complex ecosystem."