IN BRIEF: New Services & Solutions

March 23, 2022

Tags: Ocean, Trucking, Technology

Transportation

• ZIM Integrated Shipping Services introduced the ZIM Ecommerce Baltimore Express (ZXB) service, which offers a fast transit time to Baltimore from Asia, calling on Yantian, Cai Mep, New York, and Boston. Starting as a bi-weekly service, it will become weekly within a few months, offering shippers dedicated out-of-gate lanes to avoid queues in Baltimore; guaranteed space and equipment without rolling; late cutoff from Asia ports; and expedited rail/air/road connections to inland destinations.
• THE Alliance is reconfiguring its ocean services in spring 2022 to provide more comprehensive port coverage. It is dividing its Asia-North Europe loop into two separate services (namely South East Asia to Europe; South East Asia and South China to Transpacific West Coast). It is also deploying larger ships for the most frequented services, including introducing fuel-efficient 11,000-TEU vessels to replace older tonnages.
• Yang Ming Marine Transport started a direct service connecting China and Australia. The China-Australia-2 Service (CA2) set sail on March 10, 2022. Deploying a fleet of six 3,500-3,900 TEU vessels, the new service is a joint operation with T. S. Lines Ltd., Pacific International Lines Ltd., and Sea Lead Shipping. The CA2 rotation includes Qingdao, Shanghai, Nansha, Shekou, Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane.




• CMA CGM consolidated its CAGEMA Mainliner service in South Florida to Port Everglades, which will serve as the single U.S. port of entry for the ocean carrier’s direct route to the Islands. Southbound ports of call on the CAGEMA Loop 2 service for Port Everglades include Kingston, Jamaica, as well as Point Lisas and Port of Spain in Trinidad and Tobago. The Northbound route includes Saint George’s, Grenada; Kingston, Jamaica; and Lafito and Cap-Haitien, Haiti.
• P&O Maritime Logistics now offers container-carrying services in Europe after completing a container fitting modification to the deck of a multi-carrying vessel (MCV). P&O Maritime Logistics’ MCV fleet can now carry 20-foot, 40-foot, and 45-foot containers in addition to general and oversized project cargo. The MCVs are ideal for lower-volume, high-frequency shortsea routes as well as trade routes through rivers and to shallow water ports.
• DHL Express started a route between Vietnam and the United States. The flight, which departs Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City with its final destination at the DHL Express Americas Hub at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, is operated by Kalitta Air with a dedicated Boeing 777F that serves the route once a week.
• Lufthansa Cargo launched a medium-haul network with converted A321 freighters, starting with the first commercial flight from Frankfurt to Dublin on March 15, 2022. Lufthansa Cargo will later add Istanbul, Tel Aviv, Malta, Tunis, Dublin, and Manchester. The carrier will also commence flights to Cairo starting March 29.

Services

• American Airlines Cargo now offers a dedicated suite of life sciences and healthcare cargo products. For cargo under 100 pounds, bulk or containerized, its Priority Parcel services or ExpediteFS services provide next-flight booking options, priority boarding, and short tender times. The airline offers handling and monitoring capabilities based on the level of handling a shipment requires.
• RoadOne IntermodaLogistics will open a 340,000-square-foot distribution and fulfillment center in Norfolk, Virginia. Expected to be delivered by August 2022, the transload facility is less than 6 miles from the Port of Virginia and will have 80 dock doors for loading and unloading trucks, as well as more than 800 trailer parking spots. RoadOne will also be working with the Port of Virginia to deploy electric drayage trucks and yard jockeys for repositioning containers.
• Smith Eagle Logistics has been renamed SEL Supply-Chain Solutions (SELSCS), which now provides third-party logistics (3PL) services across the United States and Mexico. The new business serves an expanded national and international area as well as implements an entrepreneurial program for independent agents.
• Atlas Air entered into a long-term, dedicated charter agreement to operate two of its new Boeing 747-8 freighters on a global basis for freight forwarder Kuehne+Nagel. Atlas Air will commence operation of these aircraft for Kuehne+Nagel following their delivery from Boeing, in the third and fourth quarter of 2022.
• Roadrunner, a less-than-truckload (LTL) provider, now offers reduced transit times across its network as a result of improvements to its operations over the past year. New facilities and measures such as self-service and delivery processes for drivers, upgraded dock operations, and tracking technologies have sped up deliveries for its customers in 120 long-haul lanes.
• Chunker, a warehouse marketplace, leased six state-owned sites in California for one year, with an option for a second year, to store shipping containers to alleviate congestion at California ports. The sites include three armories, a former prison site, and two fairground sites. Chunker will coordinate between California ports, trucking companies, and cargo owners to help move containers.
• Transitex completed construction of its first refrigerated warehouse in Portugal. Located within the facilities of the Plataforma Logística de Elvas, the new warehouse allows the company to provide integrated services to fruit and vegetable exporters in Portugal and Spain, as well as offer solutions for the cold chain of fruit imports originating in the southern hemisphere.
• Taylored Services opened a new facility at the Port of Los Angeles. The new site provides 79 dock positions, secured trailer and container storage, 24/7 surveillance, transloading services, and warehouse space for new and existing clients.
• Bolloré Logistics‘ container freight station (CFS) in Prince Rupert, Canada, now serves all trade lanes transiting through Prince Rupert, notably those connecting east Asia (China, Korea, and Japan) with North America, in particular eastern Canada and the U.S. Midwest. Consisting of a 20,000-square-foot warehouse, the CFS was opened to provide container destuffing and transloading services for a large industrial project in the region and now offers a permanent transload service at the Port of Prince Rupert.

Products

• The Treston Quick Edge Workstation is suitable for different working environments, such as packing and logistic centers, where the height adjustment is done according to different sizes of boxes. With a wide height adjustment range, the workstation adapts for operators of different standing heights.
• The Raymond Corporation introduced the Raymond Automated Transtacker (TRT) to its line of automated warehouse solutions. The Automated TRT offers dual-mode operation: automated mode for full pallet moves and manual mode for case picking. It is designed to lift loads as heavy as 3,000 pounds in aisles as narrow as 54 inches, reaching heights up to 59 feet.
• Zebra Technologies introduced a new portfolio of accurate UHF Integrated RFID portals to help businesses track goods and materials throughout their operations. Zebra’s four new integrated solutions include the Zebra Transition RFID Portal for use at dock doors; the Zebra Wall-Mount RFID Portal for doorways, storage rooms, and hallways in offices and warehouses; the Zebra Fixed RFID Tunnel to monitor assets on a conveyor; and the Zebra Integrated RFID Table using a fixed reader for asset sorting and packing.
• The new KR1018 cobot from Kassow Robots can complete pick-and-place tasks at high payloads. The user-friendly interface and plug-and-play design of the 7-axis cobot make it accessible to small and medium-sized enterprises without robot engineers. The seventh axis gives the KR1018 a small footprint, increased maneuverability, and wide range of motion to perform such tasks as the loading and unloading of heavy parts.
• The Combi-MR4 is a four-wheel electric-powered multidirectional reach-truck with Combilift’s new Dynamic 360° steering. The system provides rotation on each wheel, enabling directional change of the truck while on the move. With a low platform to maximize storage density, the Combi-MR4 has a capacity of up to 10,000 pounds.

Technology

• Logward now offers a free search tool to compare carrier schedules and pairs this information with allocated capacity for its customers. Users can explore schedules from more than 200 carriers directly on Logward’s website by inserting ports and dates.
• DAT Freight & Analytics integrated import and export data from IHS Market PIERS into DAT iQ’s RateView and Benchmark Analytics reporting to provide shippers with more freight data. On average, PIERS analyzes nearly 60,000 bills of lading every day that are filed with U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The agreement gives DAT access to trade data from all U.S. waterborne port locations.
• Shippers now have visibility into cargo moving from one railway to another with Blume Global’s end-to-end rail freight scheduler developed in partnership with Union Pacific Railroad, Norfolk Southern, and CSX. The provider’s complimentary, cloud-native platform allows companies that leverage railroad intermodal services to coordinate cross-country rail freight deliveries.
• Manhattan Associates, a provider of cloud-native supply chain software, extended its partnership with real-time supply chain visibility platform FourKites. FourKites adds location tracking for ocean and rail shipments to Manhattan Active Transportation Management, a transportation planning and execution system, providing predictive estimated times of arrival.
• Avetta, a provider of supply chain risk management software, launched Workforce Management, a solution to onboard, profile, verify, train, and manage site access for supply chain workers. The solution integrates the capabilities of acquired company Pegasus into the Avetta One platform, a single-source solution for managing operational, reputational, and regulatory compliance risks.
• Arvato Supply Chain Solutions deployed a new multi-client-capable shuttle warehouse with picking system, to process and ship pharmaceutical products more efficiently to hospitals, pharmacies, doctors, laboratories, patients, and wholesalers across Europe. The company opted for a shuttle system with stacked bins from its service provider KNAPP to increase storage density at its Harsewinkel, Germany, location.