Art van Bodegraven was, among other roles, chief design officer for the DES Leadership Academy. He passed away on June 18, 2017. He will be greatly missed.
There will always be those who see the green movement as more fad than force of change. And the booming business in green conferences, books, webinars, and so forth has only given cynics further reason to sneer.
But the prevailing evidence suggests the green movement is more than a passing fancy and further, that green initiatives can deliver real benefits, including, believe it or not, long-term cost savings. Re-use, recycling, reduction, and renewability will ultimately all pay off some day. Pegging "some day" on the calendar is a bit of a challenge, but looking past tomorrow—or next quarter's earnings imperative—can help develop confidence in the economic, as well as moral, correctness of doing smart green things.
The question of the moment is how much momentum the green movement may have lost as a result of the economic slump. When the economy headed south, businesses began curtailing even essential expenditures—travel, training, inventory investment, hiring, and more. Executives, understandably, haven't had the stomach for initiatives—of any kind—with long payback periods. Any project lengthy enough to warrant talking about net present value or discounted cash flow has had virtually no chance of seeing the light of day.
Guess what—green initiatives tend not to be quick fixes and frequently take years and years to deliver payback. And quantum leaps are in short supply. Take solar power, for example. High cost is admittedly solar power's dark side. Although recent advances in technology have led to the development of a thin-film panel that costs 40 percent less than the popular silicon panels, there's a catch. The thin-film panels generate only half as much energy as their silicon counterparts, so the net gain is not yet exactly a breakthrough and won't change the long-term payback equation by all that much.
Maybe volume and some level of critical mass could change the cost equation a bit more. But it seems to us that the efficiency of panels of any type ought to be a focus area for improvement. The newer thin-film products convert anywhere from 10 to 14 percent of sunlight into electricity; that compares with 19 percent for silicon.
That vision thing
In the short term, however, it appears that when it comes to eco-initiatives, the focus will remain squarely on programs that offer a speedy payback. A 2009 survey of DC Velocity's readers showed a clear bias toward short-term, tried-and-true measures that deliver nearly immediate savings—notably in energy costs (see "into the green"). Bigger, longer-horizon efforts, especially those with less-certain paybacks, barely made the list.
We wish that companies and their leaders would avoid knee-jerk reactions in periods of transient difficulty. Somebody's going to break a jaw that way. We wish that every business leader had the courage and the vision to take the long view and do the right thing(s).
But sadly, only a few do. And the pressure to make a profit—and make it now—is immense. Not to mention how important it is in publicly held companies to not disappoint The Street. So, with a little luck, enough organizations will pursue the simple, short-term things that look like they'll keep the boss out of trouble in enough cases to make a bit of a difference.
As economic conditions improve, maybe there's a fighting chance of getting the really important green infrastructure bits back on the table.
Here's a harsh reality, and we can look to Europe for a preview of coming attractions. The dad-gum gummint isn't going to care that 2008/2009 were tough years. Our dedicated public servants are likely to become enthralled by the promise of green and mandate what we, as organizations, have got to do and when. Think the government won't be here soon? Surprise! The administration's secretary of labor has made the creation of green jobs a high priority.
Seems to us that the prudent management tactic for today is pre-emption. Doing everything we can—now—to make/save real money. Setting the wheels in motion for the big, but longer-term, projects that will make life both greener and more profitable into the coming decades. Our guess is that those who set strong and positive green agendas now are going to be way ahead of those who close their eyes and hope that the mandates are never issued.
When Washington sets the agenda and timeline, the relevance and payback for specific companies are typically not in the equation. But there'll be no forgiveness—and maybe even crippling penalties—for those who don't comply.
Staying in the game
So, it's not as easy being green as it might have been when companies were more profitable, but the stakes in being—or not being—green have grown. And those are the stakes we've got to deal with if we're going to be in the game.
Even if you're not quite ready to reconfigure your distribution network, or build a new green DC from scratch, or explore biofuels and fuel cell technology, there are things you can do—or plan for. Remember, though, simply swapping out light bulbs—while a good thing—won't get you remotely close to where you need to go in a new, green world.
Like it or not, we've got to get real about our efforts to green up our act, including initiatives that might be slow to produce results but can radically change the resource consumption equation. Using alternative fuel sources—and less of them—comes to mind. Extending preliminary advances into arenas with potentially huge payoffs—e.g., over-the-road trucking—does as well.
Supply chain planning (SCP) leaders working on transformation efforts are focused on two major high-impact technology trends, including composite AI and supply chain data governance, according to a study from Gartner, Inc.
"SCP leaders are in the process of developing transformation roadmaps that will prioritize delivering on advanced decision intelligence and automated decision making," Eva Dawkins, Director Analyst in Gartner’s Supply Chain practice, said in a release. "Composite AI, which is the combined application of different AI techniques to improve learning efficiency, will drive the optimization and automation of many planning activities at scale, while supply chain data governance is the foundational key for digital transformation.”
Their pursuit of those roadmaps is often complicated by frequent disruptions and the rapid pace of technological innovation. But Gartner says those leaders can accelerate the realized value of technology investments by facilitating a shift from IT-led to business-led digital leadership, with SCP leaders taking ownership of multidisciplinary teams to advance business operations, channels and products.
“A sound data governance strategy supports advanced technologies, such as composite AI, while also facilitating collaboration throughout the supply chain technology ecosystem,” said Dawkins. “Without attention to data governance, SCP leaders will likely struggle to achieve their expected ROI on key technology investments.”
The British logistics robot vendor Dexory this week said it has raised $80 million in venture funding to support an expansion of its artificial intelligence (AI) powered features, grow its global team, and accelerate the deployment of its autonomous robots.
A “significant focus” continues to be on expanding across the U.S. market, where Dexory is live with customers in seven states and last month opened a U.S. headquarters in Nashville. The Series B will also enhance development and production facilities at its UK headquarters, the firm said.
The “series B” funding round was led by DTCP, with participation from Latitude Ventures, Wave-X and Bootstrap Europe, along with existing investors Atomico, Lakestar, Capnamic, and several angels from the logistics industry. With the close of the round, Dexory has now raised $120 million over the past three years.
Dexory says its product, DexoryView, provides real-time visibility across warehouses of any size through its autonomous mobile robots and AI. The rolling bots use sensor and image data and continuous data collection to perform rapid warehouse scans and create digital twins of warehouse spaces, allowing for optimized performance and future scenario simulations.
Originally announced in September, the move will allow Deutsche Bahn to “fully focus on restructuring the rail infrastructure in Germany and providing climate-friendly passenger and freight transport operations in Germany and Europe,” Werner Gatzer, Chairman of the DB Supervisory Board, said in a release.
For its purchase price, DSV gains an organization with around 72,700 employees at over 1,850 locations. The new owner says it plans to investment around one billion euros in coming years to promote additional growth in German operations. Together, DSV and Schenker will have a combined workforce of approximately 147,000 employees in more than 90 countries, earning pro forma revenue of approximately $43.3 billion (based on 2023 numbers), DSV said.
After removing that unit, Deutsche Bahn retains its core business called the “Systemverbund Bahn,” which includes passenger transport activities in Germany, rail freight activities, operational service units, and railroad infrastructure companies. The DB Group, headquartered in Berlin, employs around 340,000 people.
“We have set clear goals to structurally modernize Deutsche Bahn in the areas of infrastructure, operations and profitability and focus on the core business. The proceeds from the sale will significantly reduce DB’s debt and thus make an important contribution to the financial stability of the DB Group. At the same time, DB Schenker will gain a strong strategic owner in DSV,” Deutsche Bahn CEO Richard Lutz said in a release.
Transportation industry veteran Anne Reinke will become president & CEO of trade group the Intermodal Association of North America (IANA) at the end of the year, stepping into the position from her previous post leading third party logistics (3PL) trade group the Transportation Intermediaries Association (TIA), both organizations said today.
Meanwhile, TIA today announced that insider Christopher Burroughs would fill Reinke’s shoes as president & CEO. Burroughs has been with TIA for 13 years, most recently as its vice president of Government Affairs for the past six years, during which time he oversaw all legislative and regulatory efforts before Congress and the federal agencies.
Before her four years leading TIA, Reinke spent two years as Deputy Assistant Secretary with the U.S. Department of Transportation and 16 years with CSX Corporation.
Serious inland flooding and widespread power outages are likely to sweep across Florida and other Southeast states in coming days with the arrival of Hurricane Helene, which is now predicted to make landfall Thursday evening along Florida’s northwest coast as a major hurricane, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
While the most catastrophic landfall impact is expected in the sparsely-population Big Bend area of Florida, it’s not only sea-front cities that are at risk. Since Helene is an “unusually large storm,” its flooding, rainfall, and high winds won’t be limited only to the Gulf Coast, but are expected to travel hundreds of miles inland, the weather service said. Heavy rainfall is expected to begin in the region even before the storm comes ashore, and the wet conditions will continue to move northward into the southern Appalachians region through Friday, dumping storm total rainfall amounts of up to 18 inches. Specifically, the major flood risk includes the urban areas around Tallahassee, metro Atlanta, and western North Carolina.
In addition to its human toll, the storm could exert serious business impacts, according to the supply chain mapping and monitoring firm Resilinc. Those will be largely triggered by significant flooding, which could halt oil operations, force mandatory evacuations, restrict ports, and disrupt air traffic.
While the storm’s track is currently forecast to miss the critical ports of Miami and New Orleans, it could still hurt operations throughout the Southeast agricultural belt, which produces products like soybeans, cotton, peanuts, corn, and tobacco, according to Everstream Analytics.
That widespread footprint could also hinder supply chain and logistics flows along stretches of interstate highways I-10 and I-75 and on regional rail lines operated by Norfolk Southern and CSX. And Hurricane Helene could also likely impact business operations by unleashing power outages, deep flooding, and wind damage in northern Florida portions of Georgia, Everstream Analytics said.
Before the storm had even touched Florida soil, recovery efforts were already being launched by humanitarian aid group the American Logistics Aid Network (ALAN). In a statement on Wednesday, the group said it is urging residents in the storm's path across the Southeast to heed evacuation notices and safety advisories, and reminding members of the logistics community that their post-storm help could be needed soon. The group will continue to update its Disaster Micro-Site with Hurricane Helene resources and with requests for donated logistics assistance, most of which will start arriving within 24 to 72 hours after the storm’s initial landfall, ALAN said.