Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

Inbound

Logistics gives back

Here's our monthly roundup of some of the charitable works and donations by companies in the material handling and logistics space.

Maxim Truck and Trailer employees at charity breakfast
  • XPO employee with SantaEmployees of

    XPO Logistics Inc.

    in Rockford, Illinois, received a welcome surprise during the company's annual Fill the Truck holiday drive for animal welfare. The Pound Bakery, an Illinois-based manufacturer of pet treats, donated $30,000 worth of goods—enough to fill one of XPO's 53-foot tractor-trailers end to end. Fill the Truck raised a record 40,000 pounds of pet food, accessories, and cleaning supplies as well as $2,200 in cash.
  • Joseph Tillman, founder of educational development company TSquared Logistics, along with 13 other logistics leaders, participated in century (100-mile) bike rides around the country to raise funds to fight type 1 diabetes (T1D) in 2019. In total, the 14 "Logistics Leaders for T1D Cure" team members raised $75,000 for the cause in 2019. The team has raised over $200,000 since 2016.
  • Ifco, a company that operates a pooling system for reusable plastic containers (RPCs), has donated the use of 5,000 RPCs annually to Food for Life, a food-rescue organization in Ontario, Canada. The arrangement will allow Food for Life to use Ifco's RPCs all the way through its supply chain, eliminating the need for it to repackage donations that arrive in RPCs into cardboard boxes for handling and shipping to ensure the crates are returned to the Ifco system.
  • Canadian truck dealership Maxim Truck & Trailer raised $27,202 for the Christmas Cheer Board of Winnipeg, Manitoba, at its annual charity pancake breakfast in December. (See top photo.) Along with the cash donation, the company collected a pallet load of nonperishable food items for the Christmas Cheer Board, which provides assistance to needy families, and made a large donation of surplus food to a local shelter.
  • Employees of Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin-based Storage Battery Systems conducted a food drive in December to aid the Falls Area Food Pantry in its mission to fight local hunger. All together, the employees collected more than 2,200 pounds of food, which was delivered to the pantry in early January.

The Latest

More Stories

Trucking industry experiences record-high congestion costs

Trucking industry experiences record-high congestion costs

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.

Keep ReadingShow less

Featured

From pingpong diplomacy to supply chain diplomacy?

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.”

Keep ReadingShow less
forklift driving through warehouse

Hyster-Yale to expand domestic manufacturing

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.

Keep ReadingShow less
map of truck routes in US

California moves a step closer to requiring EV sales only by 2035

Federal regulators today gave California a green light to tackle the remaining steps to finalize its plan to gradually shift new car sales in the state by 2035 to only zero-emissions models — meaning battery-electric, hydrogen fuel cell, and plug-in hybrid cars — known as the Advanced Clean Cars II Rule.

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.

Keep ReadingShow less
chart of global trade forecast

Tariff threat pours cold water on global trade forecast

Global trade will see a moderate rebound in 2025, likely growing by 3.6% in volume terms, helped by companies restocking and households renewing purchases of durable goods while reducing spending on services, according to a forecast from trade credit insurer Allianz Trade.

The end of the year for 2024 will also likely be supported by companies rushing to ship goods in anticipation of the higher tariffs likely to be imposed by the coming Trump administration, and other potential disruptions in the coming quarters, the report said.

Keep ReadingShow less