Volume 4  Issue 2 July 30, 2008

Don't Mess with Estes

It's not easy growing 15 to 20 percent a year in a mature industry like less-than-truckload trucking. The secret at Estes Express Lines is using information technology to keep operations lean and nimble.

By James A. Bacon

When the remains of Hurricane Gaston blew over Richmond, Va., in August 2004, it dumped a foot of rain on the city. Basements that had remained dry for decades were flooded. At the Estes corporate headquarters on West Broad Street, water rose waist high in the bottom floor.

That was a very big problem: The data center for the less-than-truckload (LTL) trucking company was housed in the basement. Water fried the data center, threatening to paralyze the carrier's vast logistical network.

Responding to the emergency, Estes terminals around the country reverted to manual systems for billing and tracking freight, but there was no way that truck drivers and dock workers could keep the system going for long without critical technology. The system had become too finely tuned and interdependent. A mishap in one spot could ricochet unpredictably around a system that encompassed dozens of terminals and thousands of trucks in finely meshed schedules for thousands of customers.

 

Estes COO  Billy Hupp

Thanks to the round-the-clock exertions of the Richmond IT staff and beyond-the-call-of-duty efforts of vendors like IBM, Estes managed to restore its computer system within a few days. Nuno Valentine, the executive in charge of the company's IT operations, actually looks back upon the crisis with equanimity. Employees rose to the occasion, he says. "It was a bonding experience." As a benefit, he grins, the company replaced the old

gear with cool, state-of-the-art equipment.

Rather than being traumatized by the near catastrophe, Estes has built upon it. The trucking company now equips its truck drivers with hand-held communication devices, embeds computers in its forklifts, runs sophisticated algorithms to help make incredibly complex scheduling and routing decisions, and is integrating its system with those of customers and partners.

"If this dies, we die," says Valentine dramatically, gesturing to the racks of servers and IBM memory banks holding some 20 to 30 terabytes of data. He says that, knowing it will take a lot more than a hurricane to disrupt operations again. The data center in Richmond has a sister site in Arizona. Every bit and byte is backed up and redundant. If something happened to the Richmond center, operations would seamlessly shift to Arizona. Says Valentine: "We can jump back and forth at will." More.

An Eruption of

Palletting Productivity

Ashland-based Flexicell has modernized the packing operations of 100-year-old olive oil importer Pompeian Inc. with pallet-stacking robots.

Pompeian Inc., a leading packager of olive oils, vinegars and cooking wines, encountered a distribution bottleneck last summer. Business was booming for the 102-year-old firm but its century-old facility in downtown Baltimore was feeling growing pains.

The cases of olive oil, cooking wine and other products were stacked on pallets and wrapped by hand. The labor-intensive process ran up labor costs. Said Kevin Lydon, vp of operations: “Four individuals used to manually stack between 3,500 and 4,000 cases each ten-hour day on pallets.”

Pompeian called upon Ashland-based Flexicell Inc., to design a robotic palletizing system capable of handling its shipping cases. The robots had to be capable of handling cases of different sizes, six or seven different pack patterns and 15 to 21 different products.

six palletizing robots, and a Wulftec stretch wrapper. The robots can handle cases weighing up to 37 pounds, using vacuum grippers powered by an electrical vacuum pump. When the robots finish stacking a pallet, they signal the transfer cart to come to the cell and pick up the load.

The entire palletizing/case-handling system was designed, constructed, assembled, tested, installed and delivered in less than six months. The cells operate 10 hours/day and four days/week. Says Lydon: “We're already seeing a payback." (R'Biz, July 23, 2008)

Read the full story in the July 1, 2008, edition of Packaging Digest.

Operation Cut Red Tape

Defense Supply Center Richmond is introducing "One Pass Pricing" to streamline delivery of repair parts to the U.S. Air Force.

Defense Supply Center Richmond (DSCR) is adopting the "One Pass Pricing" (OPP) methodology in a bid to cut red tape and reduce the time it takes to deliver spare parts. The supply center is responsible for supplying more than 1.2 million repair parts to the U.S. Air Force.

Contracts without OPP typically require lengthy negotiations between the government and private industry at different locations and over the telephone, fax machines or through the mail for extended periods. "The pricing process has been bogged down for years," says Rodney Bonner, an administrator of the new program. "With the push to increase long-term contracts coverage and improve material availability, one pass pricing helps DSCR get the right items on contract quicker and improves our ability to support the warfighter."

The new collaborative process brings stakeholders together to look at supporting documentation and develop preliminary prices. The approach has proven successful with existing suppliers like Sikorsky Aircraft Company. Process days to add items to a contract were reduced from 157 to 34 days, while the associated steps decreased from 44 to 13.

"Brig. Gen. Andy Busch, DSCR commander, has emphasized the need to have items on long-term contract as a key contributor to delivering to the warfighter in the shortest time possible," says Brian Benfer, the newly appointed One Pass Pricing Program manager. (R’Biz, May 16, 2008) More.

 Business

Agility Healthcare Solutions Inc., developer of software that tracks equipment throughout hospitals, has introduced AgileTrac Enterprise, a new family of products that help hospitals provide better patient care and better business outcomes. (June 24, 2008) More. 

Home Care Delivered, Inc., a provider of mail-order, diabetes home-testing supplies, has been awarded supplier contracts by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to serve Medicare beneficiaries in the Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dallas, Pittsburgh and Miami areas. (May 27, 2008) More.

Logistics Management Resources, Inc., a provider of logistics management support services to the U.S. Army, has been awarded, as a subcontractor of Stanley Associates, two task orders from the U.S. Navy. (May 11, 2008) More.

Flexicell Opens Powder Coating Service. Flexicell, Inc., a provider of packing, palletizing and material-handling solutions, has refitted its Ashland facility to include a painting area and oven. The new equipment will powder-coat and bake metal parts to create a durable and attractive finish. (April 15, 2008) More.

Shippers Expands in Charleston. Shippers Commonwealth, a developer of transportation management systems that operates a customer management center in Richmond, has expanded its executive offices in Charleston, S.C. (March 24, 2008) More.

RIC

AirTran Adds Flights. AirTran Airways will add two daily nonstop flights between Richmond International Airport and New York’s LaGuardia Airport beginning August 7, 2008. Passengers will fly on the fuel-efficient Boeing 717 aircraft, with business class on every flight plus XM Satellite Radio. (June 10, 2008) More.


RIC Opens Cell Phone Lot. Richmond International Airport has opened a 40-car “cell phone” lot where drivers can wait to pick up passengers. During heavy arrival periods, it’s not practical to allow vehicles to dwell. The cell phone lot offers a convenient waiting location only a minute’s drive from the terminal. (April 22, 2008) More.

Port of Richmond

The Port of Richmond has requested $4.5 million from the Commonwealth of Virginia Rail Enhancement Fund for the Deepwater Terminal Railroad Freight Improvement Project. This rail project would expand the Deepwater Terminal Railroad for improved freight rail connectivity.

The port also has submitted a grant application to underwrite a Richmond-Norfolk barge service on the James River. The proposal, which would dovetail with the Maritime Administration’s “Marine Highway” initiative, would reduce congestion on bottlenecked roads, bridges and tunnels in Hampton Roads, save fuel and reduce air emissions.

Independent Container Line (ICL), a steamship line serving the port for more than 23 years, is now using Super Racks, a height-adjustable flat rack container that can safely accommodate tool making machinery, construction machinery and material, project cargo, ship building materials, power plant materials, military cargo, farming machinery, electric machinery, housing materials, and transportation vehicles.

Eimskip Shipping Line has started a rotation change in April, putting a vessel into Richmond every twelve days instead of every 14 days. The change would add four additional vessel calls per year by Eimskip.

More.