On-demand warehousing technology firm Flowspace says it has enhanced its fulfillment tools this week by acquiring RetailOps, a San Diego-based software company that enables omnichannel brands to manage and optimize their supply chain operations.
Flowspace will incorporate RetailOps’ technology into its existing fulfillment platform, thus bolsters its ability to meet the needs of modern omnichannel retailers, who require real-time data that delivers actionable insights so they can centrally and efficiently orchestrate their supply chain, the Los Angeles-based company said.
According to Flowspace, its OmniFlow software provides brands with the real-time visibility and insights needed to orchestrate fulfillment across multiple locations, while centralizing omnichannel visibility and reporting in a single dashboard.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed but all RetailOps employees, including founders Sam Moses and Daniel Norman, will join Flowspace.
“The acquisition of RetailOps’ sophisticated technology and talented team further accelerates Flowspace’s ability to deliver best-in-class software and service to our customers,” Ben Eachus, co-founder and CEO of Flowspace, said in a release. “Modern, omnichannel merchants need modern, omnichannel solutions that ensure top-notch execution. Whether they’re using their own facilities or rely on Flowspace's network, our software gives brands the centralized visibility and reporting they need to orchestrate and optimize fulfillment from anywhere.”
Launched out of the Y Combinator technology accelerator program in 2017, Flowspace raised $12 million in Series A funding in 2019, and through an additional Series B round has now raised a total of $46.5 million.
As another potential strike looms at East and Gulf coast ports, nervous retailers are calling on dockworkers union the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) to reach an agreement with port management group the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) before their current labor contract expires on January 15.
The latest call for a quick solution came from the American Apparel & Footwear Association (AAFA), which cheered President-elect Donald Trump for his published comments yesterday indicating that he supports the 45,000 dockworkers’ opposition to increased automation for handling shipping containers.
In response, AAFA’s president and CEO, Steve Lamar, issued a statement urging both sides to avoid the major disruption to the American economy that could be caused by a protracted strike. "We urge the ILA to formally return to the negotiating table to finalize a contract with USMX that builds on the well-deserved tentative agreement of a 61.5 percent salary increase. Like our messages to President Biden, we urge President-elect Trump to continue his work to strengthen U.S. docks — by meeting with USMX and continuing work with the ILA — to secure a deal before the January 15 deadline with resolution on the issue of automation,” Lamar said.
While the East and Gulf ports are currently seeing a normal December calm post retail peak and prior to the Lunar New Year, the U.S. West Coast ports are still experiencing significant import volumes, the ITS report said. That high volume may be the result of inventory being pulled forward due to market apprehension about potential tariffs that could come with the beginning of the Trump administration, as well as retailers already compensating for the potential port strike.
“The volumes coming from Asia on the trans-Pacific trade routes are not overwhelming the supply of capacity as spot rates at origin are not being pushed higher,” Paul Brashier, Vice President of Global Supply Chain for ITS Logistics, said in a release. “For the time being, everything seems balanced. That said, if the US West Coast continues to be a release valve for a potential ILA strike supply chain disruption, there is a high risk that both West Coast Port and Rail operations could become overwhelmed.”
Hackers are beginning to extend their computer attacks to ever-larger organizations in their hunt for greater criminal profits, which could drive an anticipated increase in credit risk and push insurers to charge more for their policies, according to the “2025 Cyber Outlook” from Moody’s Ratings.
In Moody’s forecast, cyber risk will intensify in 2025 as attackers switch tactics in response to better corporate cyber defenses and as advances in artificial intelligence increase the volume and sophistication of their strikes. Meanwhile, the incoming Trump administration will likely scale back cyber defense regulations in the US, while a new UN treaty on cyber crime will strengthen the global fight against this threat, the report said.
“Ransomware perpetrators are now targeting larger organizations in search of higher ransom demands, leading to greater credit impact. This shift is likely to increase the cyber risk for entities rated by Moody's and could lead to increased loss ratios for cyber insurers, impacting premium rates in the U.S.," Leroy Terrelonge, Moody’s Ratings Vice President and author of the Outlook report, said in a statement.
The warning comes just weeks after global supply chain software vendor Blue Yonder was hit by a ransomware attack that snarled many of its customers’ retail, labor, and transportation platforms in the midst of the winter holiday shopping surge.
That successful attack shows that while larger businesses tend to have more advanced cybersecurity defenses, their risk is not necessarily diminished. According to Moody’s, their networks are generally more complex, making it easier to overlook vulnerabilities, and when they have grown in size over time, they are more likely to have older systems that are more difficult to secure.
Another factor fueling the problem is Generative AI, which will will enable attackers to craft personalized, compelling messages that mimic legitimate communications from trusted entities, thus turbocharging the phishing attacks which aim to entice a user into clicking a malicious link.
Complex supply chains further compound the problem, since cybercriminals often find the easiest attack path is through third-party software suppliers that are typically not as well protected as large companies. And by compromising one supplier, they can attack a wide swath of that supplier's customers.
In the face of that rising threat, a new Republican administration will likely soften U.S. cyber regulations, Moody’s said. The administration will likely roll back cybersecurity mandates and potentially curtail the activities of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), thus heightening the risk of cyberattack.
Global forklift sales have slumped in 2024, falling short of initial forecasts as a result of the struggling economy in Europe and the slow release of project funding in the U.S., a report from market analyst firm Interact Analysis says.
In response, the London-based firm has reduced its shipment forecast for the year to rise just 0.3%, although it still predicts consistent growth of around 4-5% out to 2034.
The “bleak” figures come as the European economy has stagnated during the second half of 2024, with two of the leading industry sectors for forklifts - automotive and logistics – struggling. In addition, order backlogs from the pandemic have now been absorbed, so order volumes for the global forklift market will be slightly lower than shipment volumes over the next few years, Interact Analysis said.
On a more positive note, 3 million forklifts are forecast to be shipped per year by 2031 as enterprises are forced to reduce their dependence on manual labor. Interact Analysis has observed that major forklift OEMs are continuing with their long-term expansion plans, while other manufacturers that are affected by demand fluctuations are much more cautious with spending on automation projects.
At the same time, the forklift market is seeing a fundamental shift in power sources, with demand for Li-ion battery-powered forklifts showing a growth rate of over 10% while internal combustion engine (ICE) demand shrank by 1% and lead-acid battery-powered forklift fell 7%.
And according to Interact Analysis, those trends will continue, with the report predicting that ICE annual market demand will shrink over 20% from 670,000 units in 2024 to a projected 500,000 units by 2034. And by 2034, Interact Analysis predicts 81% of fully electric forklifts will be powered by li-ion batteries.
The reasons driving that shift include a move in Europe to cleaner alternatives to comply with environmental policies, and a swing in the primary customer base for forklifts from manufacturing to logistics and warehousing, due to the rise of e-commerce. Electric forklift demand is also growing in emerging markets, but for different reasons—labor costs are creating a growing need for automation in factories, especially in China, India, and Eastern Europe. And since lithium-ion battery production is primarily based in Asia, the average cost of equipping forklifts with li-ion batteries is much lower than the rest of the world.
Companies in every sector are converting assets from fossil fuel to electric power in their push to reach net-zero energy targets and to reduce costs along the way, but to truly accelerate those efforts, they also need to improve electric energy efficiency, according to a study from technology consulting firm ABI Research.
In fact, boosting that efficiency could contribute fully 25% of the emissions reductions needed to reach net zero. And the pursuit of that goal will drive aggregated global investments in energy efficiency technologies to grow from $106 Billion in 2024 to $153 Billion in 2030, ABI said today in a report titled “The Role of Energy Efficiency in Reaching Net Zero Targets for Enterprises and Industries.”
ABI’s report divided the range of energy-efficiency-enhancing technologies and equipment into three industrial categories:
Commercial Buildings – Network Lighting Control (NLC) and occupancy sensing for automated lighting and heating; Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based energy management; heat-pumps and energy-efficient HVAC equipment; insulation technologies
Manufacturing Plants – Energy digital twins, factory automation, manufacturing process design and optimization software (PLM, MES, simulation); Electric Arc Furnaces (EAFs); energy efficient electric motors (compressors, fans, pumps)
“Both the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP) continue to insist on the importance of energy efficiency,” Dominique Bonte, VP of End Markets and Verticals at ABI Research, said in a release. “At COP 29 in Dubai, it was agreed to commit to collectively double the global average annual rate of energy efficiency improvements from around 2% to over 4% every year until 2030, following recommendations from the IEA. This complements the EU’s Energy Efficiency First (EE1) Framework and the U.S. 2022 Inflation Reduction Act in which US$86 billion was earmarked for energy efficiency actions.”
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The new "Amazon Nova" AI tools can use basic prompts--like "a dinosaur sitting in a teacup"--to create outputs in text, images, or video.
Benefits for Amazon's customers--who include marketplace retailers and logistics services customers, as well as companies who use its Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform and the e-commerce shoppers who buy goods on the website--will include generative AI (Gen AI) solutions that offer real-world value, the company said.
The launch is based on “Amazon Nova,” the company’s new generation of foundation models, the company said in a blog post. Data scientists use foundation models (FMs) to develop machine learning (ML) platforms more quickly than starting from scratch, allowing them to create artificial intelligence applications capable of performing a wide variety of general tasks, since they were trained on a broad spectrum of generalized data, Amazon says.
The new models are integrated with Amazon Bedrock, a managed service that makes FMs from AI companies and Amazon available for use through a single API. Using Amazon Bedrock, customers can experiment with and evaluate Amazon Nova models, as well as other FMs, to determine the best model for an application.
Calling the launch “the next step in our AI journey,” the company says Amazon Nova has the ability to process text, image, and video as prompts, so customers can use Amazon Nova-powered generative AI applications to understand videos, charts, and documents, or to generate videos and other multimedia content.
“Inside Amazon, we have about 1,000 Gen AI applications in motion, and we’ve had a bird’s-eye view of what application builders are still grappling with,” Rohit Prasad, SVP of Amazon Artificial General Intelligence, said in a release. “Our new Amazon Nova models are intended to help with these challenges for internal and external builders, and provide compelling intelligence and content generation while also delivering meaningful progress on latency, cost-effectiveness, customization, information grounding, and agentic capabilities.”
The new Amazon Nova models available in Amazon Bedrock include:
Amazon Nova Micro, a text-only model that delivers the lowest latency responses at very low cost.
Amazon Nova Lite, a very low-cost multimodal model that is lightning fast for processing image, video, and text inputs.
Amazon Nova Pro, a highly capable multimodal model with the best combination of accuracy, speed, and cost for a wide range of tasks.
Amazon Nova Premier, the most capable of Amazon’s multimodal models for complex reasoning tasks and for use as the best teacher for distilling custom models
Amazon Nova Canvas, a state-of-the-art image generation model.
Amazon Nova Reel, a state-of-the-art video generation model that can transform a single image input into a brief video with the prompt: dolly forward.