Mitch Mac Donald has more than 30 years of experience in both the newspaper and magazine businesses. He has covered the logistics and supply chain fields since 1988. Twice named one of the Top 10 Business Journalists in the U.S., he has served in a multitude of editorial and publishing roles. The leading force behind the launch of Supply Chain Management Review, he was that brand's founding publisher and editorial director from 1997 to 2000. Additionally, he has served as news editor, chief editor, publisher and editorial director of Logistics Management, as well as publisher of Modern Materials Handling. Mitch is also the president and CEO of Agile Business Media, LLC, the parent company of DC VELOCITY and CSCMP's Supply Chain Quarterly.
As any student of literature knows, the three basic types of conflicts in fiction are "man against man," "man against nature," and "man against himself." But in the business world, the conflict more often is about "man against machine."
Many a school kid gets his or her introduction to "man against machine" conflict in the classic American folk tale of John Henry versus the steam drill. The story centers on former slave John Henry, who after the Civil War went to work for the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad as a steel-driver. Part of a team of men who cleared the path for the railroad, Henry spent his days driving steel wedges into rock, which were then filled with explosives to lay the path. In a version of the story by S.E. Schlosser, Henry is described as "a mighty man, the strongest and most powerful working the rails." Revered by his co-workers, Henry was said to be able to do the work of three, spending days driving "holes by hitting thick steel spikes into rocks" with his 14-pound sledge hammer.
One day, a salesman appeared at the work site promoting a new steam-powered driver he claimed could out-drill any man. There were, of course, disbelievers. His claim was tested by a contest between Henry and the newfangled steam-powered driver. The site foreman ran the steam driver. Henry pulled out two gigantic 20-pound sledges and went to work furiously pounding away alongside the contraption. When the dust settled, Henry had drilled two seven-foot holes to the machine's one nine-foot hole. Man beat machine, but tragically, Henry collapsed and died of exhaustion.
The next day, and every day of the project thereafter, the steam-powered drill went to work. As time passed, more machines came on line, and fewer workers were needed. The new technology had supplanted humans.
Since then, the story has been repeated time and again, with new and increasingly sophisticated technologies taking over jobs once performed by people. With the advent of the computer age in the 1950s, the trend jumped into high gear.
Even so, the claims made by two Oxford University researchers this fall were stunning. Most notable was their contention that in the relatively short term (say, 40 to 50 years), as many as 50 percent of all existing jobs in the U.S. could be vulnerable to replacement by computers. Their report, The Future of Employment: How Susceptible Are Jobs to Computerisation? notes that, "while people have been concerned at technology's ability to supplant human workers for hundreds of years, modern advances in computing technology mean that whole occupations may soon be made obsolete."
The study, conducted by Carl Frey and Michael Osborne, looked at nearly 700 existing U.S. occupations and found that nearly one-half are at risk of obsolescence. The authors argue that the next generation of big data-driven computers will take the place of low-skilled workers across myriad industries.
This time around, even jobs traditionally considered to be at low risk of automation may be sucked into the vortex—including some related to the business of delivering goods. "Recent technological progress is likely to have significant consequences for logistics and transportation," Osborne says. Take long-haul trucking, for example. While a truck driver's job may seem safe in the short term, advanced sensing technologies and computing capabilities constitute a very real threat down the road. "The Google driverless car is now licensed to drive in the state of Nevada," says Osborne. "It won't be too long until such machines are able to substitute for human drivers in a range of occupations."
Perhaps this means the seemingly never-ending motor carrier driver shortage will finally be resolved. But this much at least is clear. As the technology hurtles forward, American workers who underestimate the power of the machine risk going the way of the mighty John Henry.
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.