Every year at its annual EDGE Conference, the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) honors individuals and organizations that are helping to push the supply chain discipline to new heights. The following are some of the recognitions given out this year.
The 2023 Distinguished Service Award was presented to Ted Stank, University Chancellor’s Professor and the Harry J. and Vivienne R. Bruce Chair of Excellence in Business in the Department of Supply Chain Management at the University of Tennessee (UT) at Knoxville.
Lynn Fritz (pictured above), former chairman and chief executive officer of Fritz Companies and co-founder of the Fritz Institute, a nonprofit public charity, was inducted into CSCMP’s Supply Chain Hall of Fame.
Mukul Parkhe, lead industrial engineer at DHL Supply Chain USA, and Jonathan Porter, founder and CEO of PorterLogic, received the 2023 George Gecowets Emerging Leader Award, formerly named the Young Professionals’ Emerging Leader Award, for outstanding supply chain professionals age 32 and under. Parkhe helped lead WMS, optimized operations, and labor management system projects for 13 DHL warehouses. While Porter created a company that offers a low-code supply chain operations platform that replaces all spreadsheets typically used to manage warehouses and inventory.
Mike Regan, founder and chief of relationship development at TranzAct Industries Inc., was presented with the 2023 Gail Rutkowski Transportation Excellence Award. The award recognizes individuals and companies who use their knowledge, connections, and industry expertise to educate, support, and create long-term impact in transportation-related fields.
Nicolò Masorgo of the University of Arkansas, won the Doctoral Dissertation Award for his paper “Sharing Economy Last Mile Delivery: Three Essays Addressing Operational Challenges, Customer Expectations, and Supply Uncertainty.”
The Bernard J. La Londe Best Paper Award was given to Ellie C. Falcone from Texas Christian University and Brian S. Fugate and David D. Dobrzykowski from the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas for their paper “Supply Chain Plasticity During a Global Disruption: Effects of CEO and Supply Chain Networks on Operational Repurposing.”
Jason Miller of Michigan State University, Jonathan Phares of Iowa State University, and Stephen Burks of the University of Minnesota–Morris received the E. Grosvenor Plowman Award for their research paper, “Job Creation and Job Destruction Dynamics in the Truck Transportation Industry in Online Retailing.”
The Teaching Innovation Award was given to Michael Haughton at Wilfrid Laurier University for his paper, “Consultants’ success story case studies and post-secondary SCM/logistics Pedagogy.”
Supply chain visibility company Roambee received the Supply Chain Innovation Award (SCIA) for using its artificial-intelligence-powered “grouped” sensor-driven asset tool to transform its supply chain visibility operations.
Businesses were preparing to deal with the effects of the latest major storm of the 2024 hurricane season as Francine barreled toward the Gulf Coast Wednesday.
Louisiana was experiencing heavy rain and wind gusts at midday as the storm moved northeast through the Gulf and was expected to pick up speed. The state will bear the brunt of Francine’s wind, rain, and storm damage, according to forecasters at weather service provider AccuWeather.
“AccuWeather meteorologists are projecting a storm surge of 6-10 feet along much of the Louisiana coast with a pocket of 10-15 feet on some of the inland bays in south-central Louisiana,” the company reported in an afternoon update Wednesday.
Businesses and supply chains were prepping for delays and disruptions from the storm earlier this week. Supply chain mapping and monitoring firm Resilinc said the storm will have a “significant impact” on a wide range of industries along the Gulf Coast, including aerospace, life sciences, manufacturing, oil and gas, and high-tech, among others. In a statement, Resilinc said energy companies had evacuated personnel and suspended operations on oil platforms as of Tuesday. In addition, the firm said its proprietary data showed the storm could affect nearly 11,000 manufacturing, warehousing, distribution, fabrication, and testing sites across the region, putting at risk more than 57,000 parts used in everyday items and the manufacture of more than 4,000 products.
Francine, which was expected to make landfall as a category 2 hurricane, according to AccuWeather, follows the devastating effects of two storms earlier this summer: Hurricane Beryl, which hit the Texas coast in July, and Hurricane Debby, which caused $28 billion in damage and economic loss after hitting the Southeast on August 5.
Economic activity in the logistics industry expanded in August, though growth slowed slightly from July, according to the most recent Logistics Manager’s Index report (LMI), released this week.
The August LMI registered 56.4, down from July’s reading of 56.6 but consistent with readings over the past four months. The August reading represents nine straight months of growth across the logistics industry.
The LMI is a monthly gauge of economic activity across warehousing, transportation, and logistics markets. An LMI above 50 indicates expansion, and a reading below 50 indicates contraction.
Inventory levels saw a marked change in August, increasing more than six points compared to July and breaking a three-month streak of contraction. The LMI researchers said this suggests that after running inventories down, companies are now building them back up in anticipation of fourth-quarter demand. It also represents a return to more typical growth patterns following the accelerated demand for logistics services during the Covid-19 pandemic and the lows of the recent freight recession.
“This suggests a return to traditional patterns of seasonality that we have not seen since pre-COVID,” the researchers wrote in the monthly LMI report, published Tuesday, adding that the buildup is somewhat tempered by increases in warehousing capacity and transportation capacity.
The LMI report is based on 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).
That hiring surge marks a significant jump in relation to the company’s nearly 17,000 current employees across North America, adding 21% more workers.
That increase is necessary because U.S. holiday sales in 2023 increased 3.9% year-over-year as consumer spending grew even amidst uncertain economic times and trends like inflation and consumer price sensitivity. Looking at the coming peak, a similar pattern is projected for this year, with shoppers forecasted to drive a 4.8% increase in holiday retail sales for 2024, Geodis said, citing data from Emarketer.
To attract the extra workforce, Geodis says it will offer competitive wages, peak premium pay incentives, peak and referral bonuses, an expedited payment option, and flexible schedules. And it’s using an AI-powered chatbot named Sophie to serve as a virtual recruiting assistant.
“We acknowledge the immense responsibility we have to our customers to deliver exceptional service every day, and this is especially true during peak season,” Anthony Jordan, GEODIS in Americas Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, said in a release. “Because peak season is the most business-critical sales period of the year for many of our retail clients, expanding our workforce is vital to ensure we have a flexible, dynamic team that can handle anticipated surges in demand.”
With the economy slowing but still growing, and inflation down as the Federal Reserve prepares to lower interest rates, the United States appears to have dodged a recession, according to the National Retail Federation (NRF).
“The U.S. economy is clearly not in a recession nor is it likely to head into a recession in the home stretch of 2024,” NRF Chief Economist Jack Kleinhenz said in a release. “Instead, it appears that the economy is on the cusp of nailing a long-awaited soft landing with a simultaneous cooling of growth and inflation.”
Despite an “eventful August” with initial reports of rising unemployment and a slowdown in manufacturing, more recent data has “calmed fears of a deteriorating U.S. economy,” Kleinhenz said. “Concerns are now focused on the direction of the labor market and the possibility of a job market slowdown, but a recession is far less likely.”
That analysis is based on data in the NRF’s Monthly Economic Review, which said annualized gross domestic product growth for the second quarter has been revised upward to 3% from the original report of 2.8%. And consumer spending, the largest component of GDP, was revised up to 2.9% growth for the quarter from 2.3%.
Compared to its recent high point of 9.1% in July of 2022, inflation is nearly back to normal. Year-over-year growth in the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index – the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation – was at 2.5% in July, unchanged from June and only half a percentage point above the Fed’s target of 2%.
The labor market “is not terribly weak” but “is showing signs of tottering,” Kleinhenz said. Only 114,000 jobs were added in July, lower than expected, and the unemployment rate rose to 4.3% from 4.1% in June. Despite the increase, the unemployment rate is still within the normal range, Kleinhenz said.
“Now the guessing game begins on the magnitude and frequency of rate cuts and how far the federal funds rate will be reduced,” Kleinhenz said. “While lowering interest rates would be good news, it takes time for rate reductions to work their way through the various credit channels and the economy as a whole. Consequently, a reduction is not expected to provide an immediate uplift to the economy but would stabilize current conditions.”
Going forward, Kleinhenz said lower rates should benefit households under pressure from loans used to meet daily needs. Lower rates will also make it more affordable to borrow through mortgages, home improvement loans, car loans, and credit cards, encouraging spending and increasing demand for goods and services. Small businesses would also benefit, since lower intertest rates could lower their financing costs on existing loans or allow them to take out new loans to invest in equipment and plants or to hire more workers.
The global air cargo market’s hot summer of double-digit demand growth continued in August with average spot rates showing their largest year-on-year jump with a 24% increase, according to the latest weekly analysis by Xeneta.
Xeneta cited two reasons to explain the increase. First, Global average air cargo spot rates reached $2.68 per kg in August due to continuing supply and demand imbalance. That came as August's global cargo supply grew at its slowest ratio in 2024 to-date at 2% year-on-year, while global cargo demand continued its double-digit growth, rising +11%.
The second reason for higher rates was an ocean-to-air shift in freight volumes due to Red Sea disruptions and e-commerce demand.
Those factors could soon be amplified as e-commerce shows continued strong growth approaching the hotly anticipated winter peak season. E-commerce and low-value goods exports from China in the first seven months of 2024 increased 30% year-on-year, including shipments to Europe and the US rising 38% and 30% growth respectively, Xeneta said.
“Typically, air cargo market performance in August tends to follow the July trend. But another month of double-digit demand growth and the strongest rate growths of the year means there was definitely no summer slack season in 2024,” Niall van de Wouw, Xeneta’s chief airfreight officer, said in a release.
“Rates we saw bottoming out in late July started picking up again in mid-August. This is too short a period to call a season. This has been a busy summer, and now we’re at the threshold of Q4, it will be interesting to see what will happen and if all the anticipation of a red-hot peak season materializes,” van de Wouw said.