Ben Ames has spent 20 years as a journalist since starting out as a daily newspaper reporter in Pennsylvania in 1995. From 1999 forward, he has focused on business and technology reporting for a number of trade journals, beginning when he joined Design News and Modern Materials Handling magazines. Ames is author of the trail guide "Hiking Massachusetts" and is a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism.
Facing clogged container flows in global maritime operations, a Swedish port has launched a digital platform that it says can boost the efficiency of ships mooring at the dock to unload their cargo.
Sweden’s Port of Gothenburg says the “Allberth” berth planner tool has been rolled out to its Port Control division—which receives all calls at the facility—and to the safety and security coordinators at its Energy Terminal. The tool lets users quickly identify berths that are vacant and then act on that information, improving their resource planning, reducing waiting times, and leading to lower emissions.
The software product is the result of collaboration between the Finnish company Awake.AI, which is responsible for developing the service, and the Gothenburg Port Authority. Leaders say it will be the first step in the task of increasing transparency and visualization of the call system, as well as the ongoing digitalization of the port as a freight hub.
While the Swedish tool is now being used solely by port controllers, external users will also gradually join the system. Allberth offers two-way integration, both for in-house use by berth planning personnel at the Port of Gothenburg and also for external use by the various parties involved in calls.
“We can now use the same tool to examine the safety parameters to determine whether a ship can moor at a specific berth, to position the ship, and to plan the time,” Fredrik Rauer, traffic coordinator and project leader for Berth Planner at the Gothenburg Port Authority, said in a release.
“We can also show external parties the calls that have been coordinated with the terminal and the calls for which we only have an approved vessel notification. Without this status distinction, it will appear as if we have two or three moored vessels overlapping and an outsider would logically put this down to scheduling problems. With Allberth we can give mooring personnel, the ship’s agent, and the terminal the opportunity to act immediately on the information that we visualize in the application,” Rauer said.
The Port of Gothenburg is the largest port in Scandinavia, handling almost 30% of Swedish foreign trade including exports such as steel, vehicles, and forest products and imports in the form of consumer goods such as clothes, furniture, food, and electronics.
First, 54% of retailers are looking for ways to increase their financial recovery from returns. That’s because the cost to return a purchase averages 27% of the purchase price, which erases as much as 50% of the sales margin. But consumers have their own interests in mind: 76% of shoppers admit they’ve embellished or exaggerated the return reason to avoid a fee, a 39% increase from 2023 to 204.
Second, return experiences matter to consumers. A whopping 80% of shoppers stopped shopping at a retailer because of changes to the return policy—a 34% increase YoY.
Third, returns fraud and abuse is top-of-mind-for retailers, with wardrobing rising 38% in 2024. In fact, over two thirds (69%) of shoppers admit to wardrobing, which is the practice of buying an item for a specific reason or event and returning it after use. Shoppers also practice bracketing, or purchasing an item in a variety of colors or sizes and then returning all the unwanted options.
Fourth, returns come with a steep cost in terms of sustainability, with returns amounting to 8.4 billion pounds of landfill waste in 2023 alone.
“As returns have become an integral part of the shopper experience, retailers must balance meeting sky-high expectations with rising costs, environmental impact, and fraudulent behaviors,” Amena Ali, CEO of Optoro, said in the firm’s “2024 Returns Unwrapped” report. “By understanding shoppers’ behaviors and preferences around returns, retailers can create returns experiences that embrace their needs while driving deeper loyalty and protecting their bottom line.”
Facing an evolving supply chain landscape in 2025, companies are being forced to rethink their distribution strategies to cope with challenges like rising cost pressures, persistent labor shortages, and the complexities of managing SKU proliferation.
1. Optimize labor productivity and costs. Forward-thinking businesses are leveraging technology to get more done with fewer resources through approaches like slotting optimization, automation and robotics, and inventory visibility.
2. Maximize capacity with smart solutions. With e-commerce volumes rising, facilities need to handle more SKUs and orders without expanding their physical footprint. That can be achieved through high-density storage and dynamic throughput.
3. Streamline returns management. Returns are a growing challenge, thanks to the continued growth of e-commerce and the consumer practice of bracketing. Businesses can handle that with smarter reverse logistics processes like automated returns processing and reverse logistics visibility.
4. Accelerate order fulfillment with robotics. Robotic solutions are transforming the way orders are fulfilled, helping businesses meet customer expectations faster and more accurately than ever before by using autonomous mobile robots (AMRs and robotic picking.
5. Enhance end-of-line packaging. The final step in the supply chain is often the most visible to customers. So optimizing packaging processes can reduce costs, improve efficiency, and support sustainability goals through automated packaging systems and sustainability initiatives.
Keith Moore is CEO of AutoScheduler.AI, a warehouse resource planning and optimization platform that integrates with a customer's warehouse management system to orchestrate and optimize all activities at the site. Prior to venturing into the supply chain business, Moore was a director of product management at software startup SparkCognition. He is a graduate of the University of Tennessee, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering.
Q: Autoscheduler provides tools for warehouse orchestration—a term some readers may not be familiar with. Could you explain what warehouse orchestration means?
A: Warehouse orchestration tools are software control layers that synthesize data from existing systems to eliminate costly delays, streamline inefficient workflows, and [prevent the waste of] resources in distribution operations. These platforms empower warehouses to optimize operations, enhance productivity, and improve order accuracy by dynamically prioritizing work continuously to ensure that the operation is always running optimally. This leads to faster trailer turn times, reduced costs, and a network that runs like clockwork, even during fluctuating demands.
Q: How is orchestration different from a typical warehouse management system?
A: A warehouse management system (WMS) focuses on tracking inventory and managing warehouse operations. Warehouse orchestration goes a step further by integrating and optimizing all aspects of warehouse activities in a capacity-constrained way. Orchestration provides a dynamic, real-time layer that coordinates various systems and processes, enabling more agile and responsive operations. It enhances decision-making by considering multiple variables and constraints.
Q: How does warehouse orchestration help facilities make their workers more productive?
A: Two ways to make labor in a warehouse more productive are to work harder and to work smarter. For teams that want to work harder, most companies use a labor management system to track individual performances against an expected standard. Warehouse orchestration technology focuses on the other side of the coin, helping warehouses "work smarter."
Warehouse orchestration technology optimizes labor by providing real-time insights into workload demands and resource availability based on actual fluctuating constraints around the building. It enables dynamic task assignments based on current priorities and worker skills, ensuring that labor is allocated where it's needed most, even accounting for equipment availability, flow constraints, and overall work speed. This approach reduces idle time, balances workloads, and enhances employee productivity.
Q: How can visibility improve operations?
A: Due to the software ecosystem in place today, most distribution operations are highly reactive environments where there is always a "hair on fire" problem that needs to be solved. By leveraging orchestration technologies, this problem is mitigated because you're providing the site with added visibility into the past, present, and future state of the operation. This opens up a vast number of doors for distribution leadership. They go from learning about a problem after it's happened to gaining the ability to inform customers and transportation teams about potential service issues that are 24 hours away.
That clash has come as retailers have been hustling to adjust to pandemic swings like a renewed focus on e-commerce, then swiftly reimagining store experiences as foot traffic returned. But even as the dust settles from those changes, retailers are now facing renewed questions about how best to define their omnichannel strategy in a world where customers have increasing power and information.
The answer may come from a five-part strategy using integrated components to fortify omnichannel retail, EY said. The approach can unlock value and customer trust through great experiences, but only when implemented cohesively, not individually, EY warns.
The steps include:
1. Functional integration: Is your operating model and data infrastructure siloed between e-commerce and physical stores, or have you developed a cohesive unit centered around delivering seamless customer experience?
2. Customer insights: With consumer centricity at the heart of operations, are you analyzing all touch points to build a holistic view of preferences, behaviors, and buying patterns?
3. Next-generation inventory: Given the right customer insights, how are you utilizing advanced analytics to ensure inventory is optimized to meet demand precisely where and when it’s needed?
4. Distribution partnerships: Having ensured your customers find what they want where they want it, how are your distribution strategies adapting to deliver these choices to them swiftly and efficiently?
5. Real estate strategy: How is your real estate strategy interconnected with insights, inventory and distribution to enhance experience and maximize your footprint?
When approached cohesively, these efforts all build toward one overarching differentiator for retailers: a better customer experience that reaches from brand engagement and order placement through delivery and return, the EY study said. Amid continued volatility and an economy driven by complex customer demands, the retailers best set up to win are those that are striving to gain real-time visibility into stock levels, offer flexible fulfillment options and modernize merchandising through personalized and dynamic customer experiences.
Geopolitical rivalries, alliances, and aspirations are rewiring the global economy—and the imposition of new tariffs on foreign imports by the U.S. will accelerate that process, according to an analysis by Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
Without a broad increase in tariffs, world trade in goods will keep growing at an average of 2.9% annually for the next eight years, the firm forecasts in its report, “Great Powers, Geopolitics, and the Future of Trade.” But the routes goods travel will change markedly as North America reduces its dependence on China and China builds up its links with the Global South, which is cementing its power in the global trade map.
“Global trade is set to top $29 trillion by 2033, but the routes these goods will travel is changing at a remarkable pace,” Aparna Bharadwaj, managing director and partner at BCG, said in a release. “Trade lanes were already shifting from historical patterns and looming US tariffs will accelerate this. Navigating these new dynamics will be critical for any global business.”
To understand those changes, BCG modeled the direct impact of the 60/25/20 scenario (60% tariff on Chinese goods, a 25% on goods from Canada and Mexico, and a 20% on imports from all other countries). The results show that the tariffs would add $640 billion to the cost of importing goods from the top ten U.S. import nations, based on 2023 levels, unless alternative sources or suppliers are found.
In terms of product categories imported by the U.S., the greatest impact would be on imported auto parts and automotive vehicles, which would primarily affect trade with Mexico, the EU, and Japan. Consumer electronics, electrical machinery, and fashion goods would be most affected by higher tariffs on Chinese goods. Specifically, the report forecasts that a 60% tariff rate would add $61 billion to cost of importing consumer electronics products from China into the U.S.