Last Sunday, on the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, another hurricane slammed into the Gulf Coast. Although not to the same scale as Katrina, Hurricane Ida has been deadly and destructive too, including in the Northeast where it caused massive flooding and killed at least 45 people.
When disaster strikes, few things are more important than good logistics. In fact, it’s often the key differentiator between wanting to deliver help and actually being able to.
That is what the American Logistics Aid Network (ALAN) is all about. As stated on its website, “ALAN is an industry-wide organization that exists to provide supply chain assistance to disaster relief organizations (and other non-profits). We do this by bringing the expertise and resources of the logistics industry together with non-profit disaster relief organizations so that we can help solve their most pressing supply chain challenges immediately after disasters strike. That way, help – and hope – arrive sooner.”
If you’re looking for a way to help, I encourage you to visit ALAN’s website and make a donation. ALAN is also one of the charities our Indago supply chain research community supports. So, if you’re a supply chain or logistics practitioner from a manufacturing, retail, or distribution company, I encourage you to learn more about Indago, join our research community, and select ALAN as the charity you want to support.
Wishing everyone affected by Hurricane Ida much love and support in the days ahead.
Moving on, here’s the supply chain and logistics news that caught my attention this week:
- Walmart aims to hire 20,000 supply chain employees as it ramps up for the holiday season (CNBC)
- Air Cargo Boom in Supply Chain Crunch Has Car Tires Flying First Class (WSJ – sub. req’d)
- CH Robinson introduces drayage congestion surcharge for major US ports (Supply Chain Dive)
- Container shipping reliability drops further (Lloyd’s Loading List)
- Surging Covid-19 Cases Hammer Asian Factories (WSJ – sub. req’d)
- E2open Completes Acquisition of BluJay Solutions and Raises Fiscal Year 2022 Guidance
- OneRail closes $9M series A investment round, bringing total raise to $21.5M (Logistics Management)
- Gatik expands autonomous box truck operations to Texas with $85 million in new funds (TechCrunch)
- Electric Truck Project Deploys 100 Trucks in California (Heavy Duty Trucking)
- Chip Shortage Curtails Heavy-Duty Truck Production (WSJ – sub. req’d)
- FedEx testing autonomous delivery robot on Richardson streets (The Dallas Morning News)
Since many folks will be taking off early today for the holiday weekend, we’ll save our commentary for another day.
Have a happy weekend!
Song of the Week: “Here is Gone” by Goo Goo Dolls
