FreightWaves LIVE: An Events Podcast

The U.S. Postal Service faces a set of conditions that no other business in the U.S. confronts on a daily basis, and it isn’t helping that its potential and actual competitors get a seat at the table in determining its fate.That was the view of Gordon Glazer, a senior consultant with Shipware LLC and a specialist on the Postal Service. Glazer was interviewed by FreightWaves senior writer Mark Solomon as part of the FreightWaves Last Mile Logistics Summit. WatchApple PodcastSpotifyMore FreightWaves Podcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The head of J.B. Hunt Transportation Services Inc.’s (NASDAQ:JBHT) final-mile operation said Thursday that significant investments must be made in the home delivery of big and bulky items because it is fast becoming the most critical part of the supply chain.Nick Hobbs, who runs the Lowell, Arkansas-based company’s Dedicated Contract Services (DCS) and Final Mile Services operations, said during the FreightWaves Last Mile Logistics Summit that Hunt is aggressively investing in its final-mile network for heavy goods ordered online. That’s because it is a relatively new area and it is critical to its brand and its customers’, Hobbs said. Since the reputations of both brands are at stake, carriers and their customers must invest the time and resources to collaborate for the benefit of the end consumer, he said.The key difference between home deliveries of heavy goods and small packages is that large-format items are typically brought into people’s homes. This requires an entirely new level of interaction that many companies with roots in truckload and less-than-truckload (LTL) services are not accustomed to or trained for.  WatchApple PodcastSpotifyMore FreightWaves Podcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As e-commerce continues to take market share from brick-and-mortar retail, the heavy bulky last-mile market is seeing rapid growth, with reverse logistics as a particularly strong revenue driver.That was one of the takeaways from a fireside chat between Kirby Fine, principal, ATL Partners, and Gordon Branov, CEO of Pilot Freight Services, during the FreightWaves Last Mile Logistics Summit on Thursday. WatchApple PodcastSpotifyMore FreightWaves Podcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Despite the hype surrounding the Tesla Semi truck, the future for electric vehicles in the transportation and logistics industry seems to be coming sooner and on a larger scale for fleets serving the last mile. Case in point: Amazon’s order for 100,000 customized electric delivery vehicles produced by Rivian. “It just makes so much sense for an electric vehicle with that stop-and-go application and that high idle time, inner-city traffic kind of environments,” said Chris Nordh, senior director of Advanced Vehicle Technology and Energy Products for Fleet Management Solutions at Ryder System. He is joined by  Bob Stojanovic of ABB. WatchApple PodcastSpotifyMore FreightWaves Podcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The coronavirus pandemic forced many companies to adapt the way they manufactured and packaged their products, as well as how they shipped them to their final destination, according to Karen Tyndall, GlobalTranz Inc.’s director of customer solutions.“What we found was that [customers] were buying online and ultimately making those purchases from their living room,” Tyndall said. “The unique challenge to final mile is that when you have the challenge of getting products into a customer’s hand safely, and also in a timely manner, many companies that were not prepared or aligned with providers to even facilitate that service were scrambling to buy capacity within the market.”FreightWaves Market Expert and analyst Zach Strickland talked with Tyndall during a virtual Fireside Chat, “B2B vs. B2C Last Mile Strategies,” during the FreightWaves Last Mile Logistics Summi WatchApple PodcastSpotifyMore FreightWaves Podcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

An XPO Logistics (NYSE: XPO) executive forecast Thursday that XPO might need an additional 25-30% of delivery capacity during this fall’s strong peak season.“We want to go into this peak period and really prove that we’re ready for the Super Bowl and ready to do this,” XPO Last Mile President Erik Caldwell told FreightWaves President George Abernathy during the keynote event, “How Changes in Consumer Demand Are Reshaping the Last Mile,” as part of Thursday’s virtual FreightWaves Last Mile Logistics Summit.That additional 25-30% of additional delivery capacity would be on top of what XPO was running this summer, Caldwell said, noting that the company’s summer volumes were even higher than what was delivered during the 2019 peak season.  WatchApple PodcastSpotifyMore FreightWaves Podcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Using data collected from innovative technology such as wearables not only supports safety measures and productivity, according to Cormac Gilligan, global vice president of environment, health and safety for PepsiCo Inc. .t can also provide employees with a sense of ownership because of the data’s real-life applications.Gilligan pointed to PepsiCo’s adoption of employees using wearables during certain work shifts or manufacturing plants and distribution centers. The wearables allowed employees to see how they moved, collecting data on “high-risk postures” such as twisting and turning one’s body. PepsiCo then used that data to identify and fix work design issues or process problems, Gilligan said during a virtual fireside chat on the roles of digitization and automation in frontline safety during FreightWaves’ The Future of Logistics Real Estate WatchApple PodcastSpotifyMore FreightWaves Podcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The coronavirus pandemic has solidified the status of e-commerce in the global economy while becoming even more a part of modern life, said Melinda McLaughlin, vice president, global head of research for Prologis.“What happened really was COVID-19 pulled a lot of adoption that would have happened and customers were, frankly, planning for over three, five, to 10 years, but pulled it all into one year,” McLaughlin said. “So when we emerge from this crisis, it’s not like we go back on that trajectory that we were pre-COVID; a lot of that adoption stays and is persistent.” FreightWaves’ chief strategy officer JT Engstrom talked with McLaughlin during the FreightWaves Future of Logistics Real Estate SummitWatchApple PodcastSpotifyMore FreightWaves Podcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Changes in technology, labor regulations and emissions, as well as a potential driver shortage and rising insurance costs, are just some of the challenges facing the surface transportation industry, according to  Dave Belter, vice president and general manager of transportation management with Ryder System.Belter told FreightWaves Chief Strategy Officer JT Engstrom during a virtual fireside chat at The Future of Logistics Real Estate summit Tuesday that there are “a lot of uncertainties and a lot of changes in the industry as a whole” for carriers trying to serve their customers and grow their businesses. WatchApple PodcastSpotifyMore FreightWaves Podcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As e-commerce sales are projected to hit $709.78 billion in the U.S. in 2020, logistics companies are turning to the virtual world to hire, onboard and train employees.Prologis Inc.the world’s largest developer, owner and operator of logistics warehouses, is partnering with tech startup Strivr, which has developed a virtual reality-based platform, to provide hands-on learning and realistic decision-making practice to help workers maximize efficiency and reduce safety incidents.Steven Hussain, director of community workforce programs for Prologis, and Derek Belch, founder and CEO of Strivr, discussed using virtual learning to train the industrial workforce of tomorrow during FreightWaves’ virtual Future of Logistics Real Estate Summit WatchApple PodcastSpotifyMore FreightWaves Podcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices