Management Update

An executive summary of industry news

By Staff -- Logistics Management, 3/1/2005

• The ranks of independent LTLs are thinner now that Yellow Roadway Corp. has purchased USF Corp. for $1.37 billion. Both companies are union outfits, primarily represented by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. USF, however, has had rocky relations with the Teamsters as of late; the motor carrier shut down its Red Star unit in the Northeast after a one-day Teamsters strike last year. At present, USF has four regional trucking divisions as well as truckload and logistics operations. The buyout adds even more heft to Yellow Roadway, itself the product of a merger just two years ago.
• Congestion at the Port of Los Angeles could improve if discussions about a new intermodal facility bear fruit. The port has begun talks with BNSF Railway Co. about construction of an intermodal container-transfer yard about five miles north of the port. The facility would allow trucks carrying inbound containers from the port to travel just a short distance before transferring those boxes to railcars. BNSF would run through the Alameda Corridor to reach the facility.
• Hazmat shipments will have to take the scenic route around the nation's capital for a while. Last month, the District of Columbia's city council adopted an ordinance barring the rail or truck movement of many hazardous materials, including explosives and poisonous gases, within a 2.2 mile radius around the U.S. Capitol for 90 days. As a result of the ban, CSX Transportation will be forced to reroute traffic away from its main line through Washington. The railroad has gone to federal court to block implementation of the ordinance, saying it violates the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution.
• The European Union will implement its own hours-of-service rules later this month. The so-called "working time directive" for road transport will take effect on March 23. Under the pending rules, company-employed drivers may not operate vehicles for more than 60 hours per week. However, waiting time during loading or unloading of a vehicle does not count toward drivers' working-time quota. Independent truckers are exempted from the rules.
• Wal-Mart will roll out its RFID program to 600 stores and 12 distribution centers by December 2005, Chief Information Officer Linda Dillman said at the RFID World conference and exhibition in Dallas earlier this month. The retail giant's RFID program requires suppliers to mark pallets and cases with radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. The program will grow from 100 to 200 suppliers by year's end, Dillman added. When she spoke on March 2, Dillman said that the giant retailer had received 23,753 tagged pallets at its Texas distribution centers, which are pioneering its deployment of RFID. (For more on the status of Wal-Mart's initiative, see "Slow but steady" in the February 2005 issue.)
• And the winner is... Daniel Weiss, senior logistics manager for San Francisco-based Gap Inc., is the winner of our "Test Your Logistics IQ" contest. Weiss' name was picked at random from among the 54 logistics professionals who earned perfect scores on the 25-question quiz that ran in our December issue. In all, we received 630 completed entries. A few minutes on the phone with Weiss left little doubt concerning his mastery over current logistics trends. "It took me about 20 minutes to complete the quiz," he says. "I pretty much rattled this stuff off the top of my head." What will our winner be cranking up on his new iPod? "Everything from Bach to AC/DC and Metallica," he says. Congratulations Daniel, and keep rockin'.