Terry Orf has joined Battery Handling Systems as vice president of global sales and marketing. Orf is a veteran of the material handling industry, having previously held a variety of sales management positions. Battery Handling Systems is a manufacturer of battery extraction and exchange systems based in St. Louis.
Steve McAlexander has joined Charming Shoppes as the new senior vice president, supply chain management. Charming Shoppes is a multi-channel specialty retailer of women's apparel whose brands include Lane Bryant, Fashion Bug, Catherines Plus Sizes and Petite Sophisticate. McAlexander spent the past seven years as vice president, worldwide logistics for Borders, the book and music retailer. In his new role with Charming Shoppes, he will be responsible for all supply chain management functions, including distribution, transportation, and international trade and compliance.
ESYNC, a supply chain consulting firm based in Toledo, Ohio, has added Marc Wulfraat to its managerial team. Wulfraat, who will serve as a director, working in both sales and consulting, brings many years of experience in supply chain consulting and marketing to his new position.
The Port of Savannah has announced that it has been selected as a port of call on Maersk Line's new East Mediterranean service. With this addition, the Georgia port is now a stop for five of the seven dedicated Mediterranean U.S. East Coast services. Last year, Maersk Line and the Georgia Ports Authority signed a 20-year agreement to assure that Savannah remains one of the line's primary ports of call in the South Atlantic.
GENCO has hired Thomas Aumann as senior vice president of brokerage and shipper alliance. Aumann will be responsible for business development and customer relationships for these services at GENCO's Supply Chain Management division in Green Bay, Wis. He joins GENCO with over 15 years of transportation and logistics experience.
Grubb & Ellis, a company that provides commercial real estate services, has named Timothy Feemster to the newly created position of senior vice president, national director of global logistics, transaction services. Feemster has over 30 years of experience in logistics, supply chain and warehouse operations, most recently with Menlo Worldwide. In his new role, Feemster will help Grubb & Ellis expand its real estate resources and offerings for logistics companies.
Michael Weinstock has been promoted to senior vice president, operations at DSC Logistics. He joined DSC in 1996 and has served in a number of capacities since. In addition to Weinstock's appointment, DSC has added Ralph Drayer, founder and chairman of consulting firm Supply Chain Insights, and John Berry, founder and chairman of The Family Business Boardroom Inc., to its advisory board of directors. DSC is a Chicago-based supply chain management company with a nationwide network.
TGW, parent company of Michigan-based TGW-ERMAN- CO, has expanded in Europe. TGW Group has now opened a branch in the United Kingdom, with offices located in the British Midlands. The office will serve the U.K. and Ireland with material handling and integration solutions designed for the challenges found in those markets.
Gene Smith has joined the Loss Prevention Foundation as vice president. A management veteran, Smith will initially be charged with marketing the foundation's LPCqualified certification program. The Loss Prevention Foundation's mission is to advance the loss prevention profession by providing educational resources.
FedEx Freight has promoted Mike Moss to president and CEO of FedEx Freight West. Moss previously worked for FedEx Freight East, joining the company in 1997 after working in a number of sales and operational positions within the transportation industry. FedEx Freight is the regional and interregional less-than-truckload (LTL) subsidiary of FedEx Corp.
Jerry Cothran, the retired director for performance-based logistics at the Defense Acquisition University, has joined consulting firm Supply Chain Visions. A recognized expert in performance-based logistics, Cothran will continue as a principal adviser to the Department of Defense while working with Supply Chain Visions' aerospace and defense logistics clients.
The supply chain risk management firm Overhaul has landed $55 million in backing, saying the financing will fuel its advancements in artificial intelligence and support its strategic acquisition roadmap.
The equity funding round comes from the private equity firm Springcoast Partners, with follow-on participation from existing investors Edison Partners and Americo. As part of the investment, Springcoast’s Chris Dederick and Holger Staude will join Overhaul’s board of directors.
According to Austin, Texas-based Overhaul, the money comes as macroeconomic and global trade dynamics are driving consequential transformations in supply chains. That makes cargo visibility and proactive risk management essential tools as shippers manage new routes and suppliers.
“The supply chain technology space will see significant consolidation over the next 12 to 24 months,” Barry Conlon, CEO of Overhaul, said in a release. “Overhaul is well-positioned to establish itself as the ultimate integrated solution, delivering a comprehensive suite of tools for supply chain risk management, efficiency, and visibility under a single trusted platform.”
Artificial intelligence (AI) and data science were hot business topics in 2024 and will remain on the front burner in 2025, according to recent research published in AI in Action, a series of technology-focused columns in the MIT Sloan Management Review.
In Five Trends in AI and Data Science for 2025, researchers Tom Davenport and Randy Bean outline ways in which AI and our data-driven culture will continue to shape the business landscape in the coming year. The information comes from a range of recent AI-focused research projects, including the 2025 AI & Data Leadership Executive Benchmark Survey, an annual survey of data, analytics, and AI executives conducted by Bean’s educational firm, Data & AI Leadership Exchange.
The five trends range from the promise of agentic AI to the struggle over which C-suite role should oversee data and AI responsibilities. At a glance, they reveal that:
Leaders will grapple with both the promise and hype around agentic AI. Agentic AI—which handles tasks independently—is on the rise, in the form of generative AI bots that can perform some content-creation tasks. But the authors say it will be a while before such tools can handle major tasks—like make a travel reservation or conduct a banking transaction.
The time has come to measure results from generative AI experiments. The authors say very few companies are carefully measuring productivity gains from AI projects—particularly when it comes to figuring out what their knowledge-based workers are doing with the freed-up time those projects provide. Doing so is vital to profiting from AI investments.
The reality about data-driven culture sets in. The authors found that 92% of survey respondents feel that cultural and change management challenges are the primary barriers to becoming data- and AI-driven—indicating that the shift to AI is about much more than just the technology.
Unstructured data is important again. The ability to apply Generative AI tools to manage unstructured data—such as text, images, and video—is putting a renewed focus on getting all that data into shape, which takes a whole lot of human effort. As the authors explain “organizations need to pick the best examples of each document type, tag or graph the content, and get it loaded into the system.” And many companies simply aren’t there yet.
Who should run data and AI? Expect continued struggle. Should these roles be concentrated on the business or tech side of the organization? Opinions differ, and as the roles themselves continue to evolve, the authors say companies should expect to continue to wrestle with responsibilities and reporting structures.
Shippers today are praising an 11th-hour contract agreement that has averted the threat of a strike by dockworkers at East and Gulf coast ports that could have frozen container imports and exports as soon as January 16.
The agreement came late last night between the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) representing some 45,000 workers and the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) that includes the operators of port facilities up and down the coast.
Details of the new agreement on those issues have not yet been made public, but in the meantime, retailers and manufacturers are heaving sighs of relief that trade flows will continue.
“Providing certainty with a new contract and avoiding further disruptions is paramount to ensure retail goods arrive in a timely manner for consumers. The agreement will also pave the way for much-needed modernization efforts, which are essential for future growth at these ports and the overall resiliency of our nation’s supply chain,” Gold said.
The next step in the process is for both sides to ratify the tentative agreement, so negotiators have agreed to keep those details private in the meantime, according to identical statements released by the ILA and the USMX. In their joint statement, the groups called the six-year deal a “win-win,” saying: “This agreement protects current ILA jobs and establishes a framework for implementing technologies that will create more jobs while modernizing East and Gulf coasts ports – making them safer and more efficient, and creating the capacity they need to keep our supply chains strong. This is a win-win agreement that creates ILA jobs, supports American consumers and businesses, and keeps the American economy the key hub of the global marketplace.”
The breakthrough hints at broader supply chain trends, which will focus on the tension between operational efficiency and workforce job protection, not just at ports but across other sectors as well, according to a statement from Judah Levine, head of research at Freightos, a freight booking and payment platform. Port automation was the major sticking point leading up to this agreement, as the USMX pushed for technologies to make ports more efficient, while the ILA opposed automation or semi-automation that could threaten jobs.
"This is a six-year détente in the tech-versus-labor tug-of-war at U.S. ports," Levine said. “Automation remains a lightning rod—and likely one we’ll see in other industries—but this deal suggests a cautious path forward."
Editor's note: This story was revised on January 9 to include additional input from the ILA, USMX, and Freightos.
Logistics industry growth slowed in December due to a seasonal wind-down of inventory and following one of the busiest holiday shopping seasons on record, according to the latest Logistics Managers’ Index (LMI) report, released this week.
The monthly LMI was 57.3 in December, down more than a percentage point from November’s reading of 58.4. Despite the slowdown, economic activity across the industry continued to expand, as an LMI reading above 50 indicates growth and a reading below 50 indicates contraction.
The LMI researchers said the monthly conditions were largely due to seasonal drawdowns in inventory levels—and the associated costs of holding them—at the retail level. The LMI’s Inventory Levels index registered 50, falling from 56.1 in November. That reduction also affected warehousing capacity, which slowed but remained in expansion mode: The LMI’s warehousing capacity index fell 7 points to a reading of 61.6.
December’s results reflect a continued trend toward more typical industry growth patterns following recent years of volatility—and they point to a successful peak holiday season as well.
“Retailers were clearly correct in their bet to stock [up] on goods ahead of the holiday season,” the LMI researchers wrote in their monthly report. “Holiday sales from November until Christmas Eve were up 3.8% year-over-year according to Mastercard. This was largely driven by a 6.7% increase in e-commerce sales, although in-person spending was up 2.9% as well.”
And those results came during a compressed peak shopping cycle.
“The increase in spending came despite the shorter holiday season due to the late Thanksgiving,” the researchers also wrote, citing National Retail Federation (NRF) estimates that U.S. shoppers spent just short of a trillion dollars in November and December, making it the busiest holiday season of all time.
The LMI is a monthly survey of logistics managers from across the country. It tracks industry growth overall and across eight areas: inventory levels and costs; warehousing capacity, utilization, and prices; and transportation capacity, utilization, and prices. The report is released monthly by researchers from Arizona State University, Colorado State University, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rutgers University, and the University of Nevada, Reno, in conjunction with the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP).
As U.S. small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) face an uncertain business landscape in 2025, a substantial majority (67%) expect positive growth in the new year compared to 2024, according to a survey from DHL.
However, the survey also showed that businesses could face a rocky road to reach that goal, as they navigate a complex environment of regulatory/policy shifts and global market volatility. Both those issues were cited as top challenges by 36% of respondents, followed by staffing/talent retention (11%) and digital threats and cyber attacks (2%).
Against that backdrop, SMEs said that the biggest opportunity for growth in 2025 lies in expanding into new markets (40%), followed by economic improvements (31%) and implementing new technologies (14%).
As the U.S. prepares for a broad shift in political leadership in Washington after a contentious election, the SMEs in DHL’s survey were likely split evenly on their opinion about the impact of regulatory and policy changes. A plurality of 40% were on the fence (uncertain, still evaluating), followed by 24% who believe regulatory changes could negatively impact growth, 20% who see these changes as having a positive impact, and 16% predicting no impact on growth at all.
That uncertainty also triggered a split when respondents were asked how they planned to adjust their strategy in 2025 in response to changes in the policy or regulatory landscape. The largest portion (38%) of SMEs said they remained uncertain or still evaluating, followed by 30% who will make minor adjustments, 19% will maintain their current approach, and 13% who were willing to significantly adjust their approach.