FROM: INSIDE LOGISTICS | Done Deals of May
Drone Delivery Canada Corp. has been selected as a member of Transport Canada’s newly formed Canadian Drone Advisory Committee (CanaDAC). DDC will be represented on the committee by Mark Wuennenberg, its vice-president regulatory affairs. CanaDAC will provide a forum for industry to inform government policy and regulation and advance Canada’s thinking on remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS), more complex beyond visual line-of-sight operations and increasingly automated aircraft. The committee will focus on topics that pertain to the continued integration of RPAS into the Canadian economy, new ways to use RPAS, and what government and industry needs to do to prepare for these changes.
CEVA Logistics has chosen Nulogy‘s cloud-based software to digitize its co-packing operations. With co-packing sites operating several different systems, CEVA decided to standardize on one software platform. Nulogy’s software had been in use at the CEVA Logistics Venray, Netherlands, site since 2017, and was selected following a competitive tender.
Mölnlycke has selected Kinaxis Inc.’s RapidResponse software to connect more than 45 manufacturing and distribution sites. Headquartered in Sweden, with operations in more than 100 countries, 172-year-old. Mölnlycke designs and supplies surgical and wound care products, from the operating room to the home, that help achieve the best patient, clinical, and economic outcomes.
Pinnacle Logistics Solutions is expanding into Western Canada with the opening of an office in Edmonton, Alberta. The office is intended to position the company as a coast-to-coast enterprise with a foothold in Western Canada. Headquartered in Cambridge, Ontario, Pinnacle was founded in 2017 and focuses on over-dimensional and multi-modal freight. With this latest development, Pinnacle now boasts a workforce of more than a dozen employees.
Wills Transfer Limited of Smiths Falls, Ontario, has acquired Orange Logistics Centers, a third-party logistics business located in Carp, Ontario. Orange Logistics drivers, material handlers and warehouses have now become part of the Wills Transfer team. Orange Logistics clients will continue to be primarily served by the same personnel familiar with the current operations. Wills Transfer now operates over 800,000 square feet of warehousing in Ottawa, Perth, Smiths Falls, Brockville, Cornwall, and now Carp. It provides order fulfillment, pick and pack services, kitting, asset tagging, container de-stuffing, cross docking, inventory management, rail car siding, refrigerated storage and outsourcing solutions.
Descartes Systems Group has acquired Portrix Logistics Software, a provider of multimodal rate management solutions for logistics services providers (LSPs). Headquartered in Germany, Portrix has been in business for more than 10 years. The company’s core product, Global Price Management (GPM), enables global shipment routing, pricing, rating and capacity allocation management. Portrix’s solutions integrate with systems including CRM, transportation management, and customer-facing online booking platforms, such as Descartes Kontainers.
Amazon.com plans to open its first robotic fulfillment centre in the state of Louisiana. In the new 650,000 square-foot facility, located in Shreveport, approximately 1,000 employees will pick, pack, and ship smaller customer items such as books, toys, electronics and other household items.
Cymbiotika , a nutritional supplement brand has opened a new fulfillment centre in Toronto. The facility is Cymbiotika’s first in Canada. It will hold the full range of Cymbiotika products and will enable 24-48 hour delivery across the country.
E2open Parent Holdings, Inc., which provides supply chain management software, will acquire BluJay Solutions, a logistics execution platform. The stock and cash transaction is valued at approximately US$1.7 billion. BluJay operates a trade network of over 50,000 participants serving over 5,700 global customers. E2open says the combined company will have annual revenue of $500 million.
After a successful pilot project, Guardian Industries (a subsidiary of Koch Industries) will deploy cobots from Mobile Industrial Robots (MIR) across its manufacturing facilities worldwide for in-process goods transportation. Guardian manufactures glass products for architectural, residential, interior, transportation and technical applications; and chrome-plated and painted plastic components for the automotive and commercial truck industries.
Autonomous mobile robot (AMR) manufacturer Seegrid Corporation is forming an in-house research group. The Blue Labs team comprises world-class automation experts, many with Ph.D. level expertise in robotics and computer vision systems. They will be developing new technologies for material handling in the manufacturing, warehousing, and logistics sectors.
Heinemann Americas, the Florida-based subsidiary of international duty-free company Gebr. Heinemann, has chosen Bolloré Logistics to manage its state-side warehouse. Since Heinemann Americas opened its Miami office nearly seven years ago, it has become a major player in the U.S. cruise market. Bolloré will help it meet the logistics needs of new and expanding contracts with some of the world’s largest cruise lines including Carnival, Royal Caribbean, MSC, and Princess.
CEVA Logistics has begun operating omni-channel distribution of Under Armour’s sports apparel products in the U.K. Up to 200 employees now operate from CEVA Logistics’s dedicated 75,000-square-foot distribution centre in Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire. The location of the DC reduces lead time from 10 working days to 2-3 working days for wholesale customers.
FROM: Logistics Management | Thee Top 50 3PLs takee to a rapid clip
Armstrong & Associates (A&A) reports the 3PL providers industry will achieve $246 billion in gross revenues in 2021. That’s up 6.3% compared from 2020 – an even more impressive statistic when you consider the 2020 rate of industry revenue growth (8.8%).
Of course the 2020 revenue bump is directly related to the pandemic and a surge in online shopping both in North America and internationally. The eCommerce segment of total retail sales increased nearly 5x based on YOY averages mostly due to the COVID-19 virus lockdowns and brick and mortar retail closures. It is also important to note that the year prior, in 2019, the industry registered its first overall decline in average revenue in a decade.Needless to say, there is a statute of limitations on the industries ability to match the pace of eCommerce growth. Perhaps it is more accurate to suggest that 3PL’s may only fare as well as the coalition of supply chain services is able to collaborate and come to agreement on adapting various innovations (like automations and transparency technologies – both of which are polarizing issues in fulfillment services.)
Still, for the time being anyway, the 3PL market is safe and will likely even continue to thrive thanks for mergers and acquisitions across the space.
Nick Bailey, head of research for Transport Intelligence Ltd., attributes this to a few causal factors, mainly naming the following:
- China’s impact on global supply chains, digitalization
- The rapid development of technologies that increase the strategic value of supply chain operations to shippers
- The fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic
FROM: SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT REVIEW |
Gartner’s Supply Chain Research Team Releases New Study on 3PL Innovation
Here is a roundup of SC Management Review’s chat with Farrah Salim, Sr. Principal Analyst at Gartner. Salim spoke with SCMR about innovations in 3PL’s for 2021, global trade, mergers, and more. To read Farrah’s full comments and the interview, follow the link!
THE ROUNDUP
- Digital transformation of 3PLs
- End-to-end solutions and visibility in order to meet customer demand
- Sustainability and carbon neutrality
- Freight forwarding and air freight
- M&A activity
- Capacity issues across transport modalities
- Selective availability of innovative solutions to shippers