delivery

Oldcastle Inc., a manufacturer of building products, is implementing private fleet management and transportation management systems (TMS) solutions from Descartes Systems Group  to manage its delivery processes for its products and distribution groups.

Oldcastle was looking to improve the performance of its operations by improved management of its own dedicated fleet of vehicles and third-party delivery carriers. Oldcastle is implementing Descartes' Transportation Manager, Route Planner and Automatic Vehicle Locator (AVL) solutions to manage its delivery processes. As part of the solution, Descartes' Global Logistics Network (GLN) connects to Oldcastle's trading partners to exchange information.

Gartner says almost 3 million personal and commercial drones will be shipped in 2017, but delivery drones will comprise less than 1 per cent of the commercial market by 2020.

Production of drones for personal and commercial use is growing rapidly, with global market revenue expected to increase 34 per cent to reach more than $6 billion in 2017 and grow to more than $11.2 billion by 2020, according to a new forecast from Gartner, Inc (see Table 1). Almost three million drones will be produced in 2017, 39 per cent more than in 2016 (see Table 2).

While the civil markets (personal and commercial) have been wading through regulation by various governments, drones’ popularity in these markets has not diminished. The overall drone market will see substantial growth, but the dynamics of the personal and commercial submarkets are very different, Gartner analysts said.

Southern Air Inc., a U.S.-based cargo airline, has chosen DHL Express as its preferred international express delivery provider. DHL will now provide express transportation of Southern Air aircraft-related parts to and from the United States in support of its global operations.

"In our industry, time is literally money," says Dan McHugh, CEO of Southern Air. "Any delay in delivery of a part for a scheduled maintenance or repair could result in significant losses and diminished credibility with commercial and government customers."

FedEx Corp. has expanded its alternative-energy vehicle fleet by introducing all-electric parcel delivery trucks in the United States. Four purpose-built electric trucks-optimized for electric operation from the wheels up-are slated to hit the road in the Los Angeles area starting in June 2010, joining more than 1,800 alternative-energy vehicles already in service for FedEx around the world.

Rather than creating its own proprietary technology, FedEx is turning to the marketplace to spur solutions that can rapidly be scaled up to provide affordable and reliable service to a wide range of delivery truck operators. It is purchasing its first North American all-electric vehicles from two different suppliers to evaluate the robustness of this technology for demanding daily FedEx Express deliveries in the Los Angeles area and provide information to help guide future FedEx vehicle purchases.

Abercrombie & Fitch Co., a specialty retailer of casual apparel for men, women and children, has implemented a supply chain software solution to provide real-time visibility into the status of orders, shipments and in-transit inventory. The global, multi-mode visibility solution is designed to allow the retailer's logistics team to streamline its supply chain process from vendor to distribution center and collaborate with merchants and service providers to reduce costs, shipment delays and improve customer service.

Fastway Couriers (www.fastway.com.au) has invested in ‘Flirtey’, claimed to be the world’s first commercial aerial delivery service.

Fastway New Zealand and Flirtey recently successfully trialled the first drone parcel delivery in Auckland, transporting auto parts on a 1.9 kilometre trip, bypassing factories and traffic congested roads below. (To see the journey of the drone, visit http://bit.ly/1Ny8THO or http://bit.ly/1HwrBQ2).

Chief executive officer at Fastway Couriers Australia Richard Thame said:

“We’re very impressed by the recent trial untaken by our counterparts in New Zealand. Drone technology is rapidly progressing and may present future opportunities for increasing speed of delivery, particularly in traffic congested areas.”

By road, the same delivery route takes close to 20 minutes to complete, depending on congestion. During the trial, transporting by aerial drone took less than a quarter of the time, as it was able to travel uninterrupted.

Chief executive officer at Flirtey Matthew Sweeny said:

Fergusons Transport has revolutionised the planning of its automotive logistics services for car builder Nissan with advanced routing and scheduling software from Paragon Software Systems. The Paragon system produces optimised routes and schedules in minutes, replacing time consuming manual planning that took weeks to complete.

"Paragon was a natural choice for Fergusons Transport. Nissan's logistics partners favour the software and it came highly recommended. I am over the moon with the software. It saves us so much time by delivering the information we need in minutes - no more weeks and weeks of poring over spreadsheets. We can quickly run the plan, assign the routes to the drivers and get on with the business of Nissan's logistics," says George Mallaby, the Fergusons Group IT Support Controller.

Использование воздушных подушек для выпадающих посылок и дронов, которые реагируют на жесты рук человека (на английском)

Amazon запатентовал воздушную подушку, которая обертывает посылку, которая доставляется дроном. Идея в том, чтобы дрон не приземлялся а сбрасывал посылки на землю с определенной высоты - от 5 до 25 футов. Это обосновывается тем, что погодные условия бывают разные, а также тем, что это дополнительные затраты энергии

Второй патент касается реагирования дрона на жесты рук человека - дрон может изменить траекторию, задать человеку вопрос, отменить доставку и другое.