Friday, December 03, 2010

The nation’s supply chain may be at risk if new sources of energy are not tapped in the near future, said the American Petroleum Institute

Railroad volumes for the week of Thanksgiving ending November 27 showed steady year-over-year improvements, according to data released by the Association of American Railroads (AAR).

Thursday, December 02, 2010

The reauthorization of a bill focused on diesel emissions reduction was passed by the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works earlier this week. The bipartisan bill, S. 3973, the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act (DERA), is authored by Senators George V. Voinovich (R-Ohio) and Tom Carper (D-Del.)

The final version, which was released this week, did not change course on this proposal, with the commission, led by Alan K. Simpson, former Republican Senate leader, and Erskine B. Bowles, White House Chief of Staff under President William Clinton, making the same proposal to fully fund the transportation fund instead of relying on deficit spending.

The November edition of the Cass Information Systems Index pointed to an uptick in freight growth following a decline in October. The index, which measures the number of shipments and expenditures that are processed through Cass’s account payable systems, has been up in seven of the last nine months.

Wednesday, December 01, 2010

The manufacturing sector remained on solid footing in November, according to the Institute for Supply Management (ISM).

Freight transportation and logistics services provider Vitran Corporation Inc. said it has sold selected assets of Frontier Transport Corporation, its owner-operator truckload operation, to Indianapolis-based Online Transport.

While operating a global supply chain network has myriad advantages for shippers, it has its challenges as well. Some of these challenges include things like a lack of visibility into various information sources and varying sources of complexity that can influence daily operations and performance. This was a major takeaway from a recent study published by the IBM Institute for Business Value, entitled “New rules for a new decade, a vision for smarter supply chain management.”

The Port of Seattle Commission authorized the port’s annual budget and plan of finance yesterday, approving nearly $500 million in capital projects and maintaining the agency’s tax levy at $73.5 million.

As world leaders gathered in Cancun, Mexico this week to discuss ways to come up with a uniform approach to temper climate change, various signs pointed to the United Nations-hosted meeting being rife with challenges. That turned out to be the case, with various media reports indicating that an accord was not reached.