State-of-the-art tech tools help keep the beverages flowing
Beverage distributor Odom Corp. needed better visibility and control over its four-state fulfillment operation. It found the answer in a complete intralogistics solution that includes everything from lift trucks and racking to an integrated software suite.
For nearly a century, Odom Corp. has distributed beverages across the Pacific Northwest, serving customers ranging from stadium venues and grocery stores to restaurants and mom-and-pop diners. Founded in Alaska in 1932, the company has since expanded into Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Hawaii. Today, the Bellevue, Washington-based company delivers more than 30 million cases of beer, wine, cider, and soda per year.
It accomplishes all that with 1,650 employees working in four distribution centers that occupy more than 700,000 square feet of space. But as the company added new suppliers, locations, and stock-keeping units (SKUs) over the years, it found it increasingly difficult to standardize operations and monitor end-to-end performance across the enterprise.
After evaluating the operation, company leaders drew up a “wish list” of what they wanted in a solution: They needed a way to provide a standardized operator experience across the company as well as gain better visibility into picking, labor, and costs. And because labor challenges are prevalent in the industry, they also needed a uniform way to train and retrain operators across multiple pieces of equipment throughout the four-state operation. And finally, they needed a technology solution to tie it all together—one that would allow them to track activity and communicate across the entire enterprise to ensure customers receive the correct shipment on the promised date.
STANDARD PROCEDURES
For help finding a solution, Odom turned to lift truck manufacturer and logistics technology vendor The Raymond Corp. in 2014. Initially, Odom was interested mainly in Raymond’s iWarehouse Intelligent Warehouse Solutions suite, which includes a fleet and asset management system and a labor management system (LMS). But as the years passed, it became more firmly entrenched in the Raymond ecosystem. By 2021, Raymond was providing Odom with complete intralogistics solutions composed of telematics and other software systems, operator-assist technologies, more than 100 lift truck models, racking, energy solutions, maintenance agreements, tracking, and more.
A key advantage of this arrangement is that all of those tools operate as a single, integrated set of solutions that provides a comprehensive view of the company’s entire enterprise, Odom says.
“Instead of having 10 to 15 different brands of equipment in the warehouse, we had one holistic experience, all connected with one integrated technology solution. That really gave us a lot of advantages,” Mike McCartney, director of operations, the Odom Corp.–Alaska, said in a prepared statement.
For instance, with one brand of product, operators know what to expect when they get on a piece of equipment. The standardization of equipment across Odom’s facilities also means that an employee from one site can go help out at another without requiring any additional training, which reduces labor costs.
Similarly, the integrated technology bundle has allowed Odom to gather information on its fleet, assets, and workforce throughout the enterprise—information it can then use to enhance efficiency and reliability. For instance, the iWarehouse suite’s LMS provides Odom with clear visibility into where and how labor dollars are being spent, allowing the distributor to quickly and easily analyze costs and identify inefficiencies—such as missing time—at every level of the operation. In fact, since initial implementation, Odom has seen an 86% drop in missing or unaccounted-for time—down to 36%.
A WELCOME ASSIST
At the same time, the operation’s accuracy has improved, thanks to an operator-assist system that has helped Odom address one of its biggest weaknesses: operators putting cases on the wrong pallet. The technology in this case is the Raymond Pick2Pallet product, a put-to-light technology within the truck forks that’s designed to reduce picking errors. Odom’s system, which was custom engineered for use with beverage pallets, uses a combination of colored LED lights and audible instructions to provide directions and reinforce correct product placement.
The Raymond Pick2Pallet system not only allowed Odom to train and develop its pickers quickly, but also allows supervisors to take swift corrective action if they see problems developing.
“When we see the employees’ errors increasing, we will put them on the “Pick2Pallet LED Light System” jacks, and within a single day, their errors are reduced to an acceptable level,” Odom’s Vaughn Sommerseth, warehouse manager, NW Beverages, said in the statement.
Together, the equipment and suite of logistics technologies are helping Odom reduce errors, cut costs, and boost productivity, supporting a consistent experience across all of its locations as the company continues to grow.
Nearly one-third of American consumers have increased their secondhand purchases in the past year, revealing a jump in “recommerce” according to a buyer survey from ShipStation, a provider of web-based shipping and order fulfillment solutions.
The number comes from a survey of 500 U.S. consumers showing that nearly one in four (23%) Americans lack confidence in making purchases over $200 in the next six months. Due to economic uncertainty, savvy shoppers are looking for ways to save money without sacrificing quality or style, the research found.
Younger shoppers are leading the charge in that trend, with 59% of Gen Z and 48% of Millennials buying pre-owned items weekly or monthly. That rate makes Gen Z nearly twice as likely to buy second hand compared to older generations.
The primary reason that shoppers say they have increased their recommerce habits is lower prices (74%), followed by the thrill of finding unique or rare items (38%) and getting higher quality for a lower price (28%). Only 14% of Americans cite environmental concerns as a primary reason they shop second-hand.
Despite the challenge of adjusting to the new pattern, recommerce represents a strategic opportunity for businesses to capture today’s budget-minded shoppers and foster long-term loyalty, Austin, Texas-based ShipStation said.
For example, retailers don’t have to sell used goods to capitalize on the secondhand boom. Instead, they can offer trade-in programs swapping discounts or store credit for shoppers’ old items. And they can improve product discoverability to help customers—particularly older generations—find what they’re looking for.
Other ways for retailers to connect with recommerce shoppers are to improve shipping practices. According to ShipStation:
70% of shoppers won’t return to a brand if shipping is too expensive.
51% of consumers are turned off by late deliveries
40% of shoppers won’t return to a retailer again if the packaging is bad.
The “CMA CGM Startup Awards”—created in collaboration with BFM Business and La Tribune—will identify the best innovations to accelerate its transformation, the French company said.
Specifically, the company will select the best startup among the applicants, with clear industry transformation objectives focused on environmental performance, competitiveness, and quality of life at work in each of the three areas:
Shipping: Enabling safer, more efficient, and sustainable navigation through innovative technological solutions.
Logistics: Reinventing the global supply chain with smart and sustainable logistics solutions.
Media: Transform content creation, and customer engagement with innovative media technologies and strategies.
Three winners will be selected during a final event organized on November 15 at the Orange Vélodrome Stadium in Marseille, during the 2nd Artificial Intelligence Marseille (AIM) forum organized by La Tribune and BFM Business. The selection will be made by a jury chaired by Rodolphe Saadé, Chairman and CEO of the Group, and including members of the executive committee representing the various sectors of CMA CGM.
The global air cargo market’s hot summer of double-digit demand growth continued in August with average spot rates showing their largest year-on-year jump with a 24% increase, according to the latest weekly analysis by Xeneta.
Xeneta cited two reasons to explain the increase. First, Global average air cargo spot rates reached $2.68 per kg in August due to continuing supply and demand imbalance. That came as August's global cargo supply grew at its slowest ratio in 2024 to-date at 2% year-on-year, while global cargo demand continued its double-digit growth, rising +11%.
The second reason for higher rates was an ocean-to-air shift in freight volumes due to Red Sea disruptions and e-commerce demand.
Those factors could soon be amplified as e-commerce shows continued strong growth approaching the hotly anticipated winter peak season. E-commerce and low-value goods exports from China in the first seven months of 2024 increased 30% year-on-year, including shipments to Europe and the US rising 38% and 30% growth respectively, Xeneta said.
“Typically, air cargo market performance in August tends to follow the July trend. But another month of double-digit demand growth and the strongest rate growths of the year means there was definitely no summer slack season in 2024,” Niall van de Wouw, Xeneta’s chief airfreight officer, said in a release.
“Rates we saw bottoming out in late July started picking up again in mid-August. This is too short a period to call a season. This has been a busy summer, and now we’re at the threshold of Q4, it will be interesting to see what will happen and if all the anticipation of a red-hot peak season materializes,” van de Wouw said.
The report cites data showing that there are approximately 1.7 million workers missing from the post-pandemic workforce and that 38% of small firms are unable to fill open positions. At the same time, the “skills gap” in the workforce is accelerating as automation and AI create significant shifts in how work is performed.
That information comes from the “2024 Labor Day Report” released by Littler’s Workplace Policy Institute (WPI), the firm’s government relations and public policy arm.
“We continue to see a labor shortage and an urgent need to upskill the current workforce to adapt to the new world of work,” said Michael Lotito, Littler shareholder and co-chair of WPI. “As corporate executives and business leaders look to the future, they are focused on realizing the many benefits of AI to streamline operations and guide strategic decision-making, while cultivating a talent pipeline that can support this growth.”
But while the need is clear, solutions may be complicated by public policy changes such as the upcoming U.S. general election and the proliferation of employment-related legislation at the state and local levels amid Congressional gridlock.
“We are heading into a contentious election that has already proven to be unpredictable and is poised to create even more uncertainty for employers, no matter the outcome,” Shannon Meade, WPI’s executive director, said in a release. “At the same time, the growing patchwork of state and local requirements across the U.S. is exacerbating compliance challenges for companies. That, coupled with looming changes following several Supreme Court decisions that have the potential to upend rulemaking, gives C-suite executives much to contend with in planning their workforce-related strategies.”
Stax Engineering, the venture-backed startup that provides smokestack emissions reduction services for maritime ships, will service all vessels from Toyota Motor North America Inc. visiting the Toyota Berth at the Port of Long Beach, according to a new five-year deal announced today.
Beginning in 2025 to coincide with new California Air Resources Board (CARB) standards, STAX will become the first and only emissions control provider to service roll-on/roll-off (ro-ros) vessels in the state of California, the company said.
Stax has rapidly grown since its launch in the first quarter of this year, supported in part by a $40 million funding round from investors, announced in July. It now holds exclusive service agreements at California ports including Los Angeles, Long Beach, Hueneme, Benicia, Richmond, and Oakland. The firm has also partnered with individual companies like NYK Line, Hyundai GLOVIS, Equilon Enterprises LLC d/b/a Shell Oil Products US (Shell), and now Toyota.
Stax says it offers an alternative to shore power with land- and barge-based, mobile emissions capture and control technology for shipping terminal and fleet operators without the need for retrofits.
In the case of this latest deal, the Toyota Long Beach Vehicle Distribution Center imports about 200,000 vehicles each year on ro-ro vessels. Stax will keep those ships green with its flexible exhaust capture system, which attaches to all vessel classes without modification to remove 99% of emitted particulate matter (PM) and 95% of emitted oxides of nitrogen (NOx). Over the lifetime of this new agreement with Toyota, Stax estimated the service will account for approximately 3,700 hours and more than 47 tons of emissions controlled.
“We set out to provide an emissions capture and control solution that was reliable, easily accessible, and cost-effective. As we begin to service Toyota, we’re confident that we can meet the needs of the full breadth of the maritime industry, furthering our impact on the local air quality, public health, and environment,” Mike Walker, CEO of Stax, said in a release. “Continuing to establish strong partnerships will help build momentum for and trust in our technology as we expand beyond the state of California.”