Global Logistics and Supply Chain Strategies - October 2008 - (Page 20)

carrier profitability “are absolutely moving in the right direction,” it says. They include carrier bankruptcies, improving mileage utilization, lower empty miles and a supposed flattening of rates. Yet executives of some major truckload carriers have warned that rates will continue to rise, in the range of 3 percent to 10 percent, not counting fuel surcharges. Visit www.schneider.com/logistics/. Lower Cost, Product Innovations Spur the Growth of Real Time Locating Systems, IDTechEx Says New and more affordable technologies are responsible for an upswing in the adoption of real-time locating systems (RTLS), according to Cambridge, Mass.-based IDTechEx. The technology can be used to locate remote objects to within an accuracy of one millimeter, although a tolerance of several meters is sufficient for intermodal containers, says chairman Peter Harrop. “Although RTLS has been around for over 10 years, it really only took off in the last two years,” he says. More than 100 hospitals in the U.S. have used it to keep track of staff and assets. Now, with the price of the technology coming down, “the market has widened even further.” RTLS systems can even be used by parents to keep track of their children. Harrop cites reports that the market for RTLS will grow from $200m to more than $1bn over the next ten years. Various systems will offer ranges from a few centimeters to several kilometers. System prices are currently running from a few hundred to several million dollars. Aiding in the adoption of RTLS is the growing need of many industries to keep track of people and valuable assets. For example, says Harrop, tighter safety regulations and the threat of costly lawsuits are prompting oil rigs and refineries to keep tabs on personnel at all times. A typical airport is missing 15 percent of its passenger baggage trolleys at any one time. The development of industry standards will also contribute to the expansion of RTLS. One such standard allows tracking tags to “talk” to one another in mesh networks. Says Harrop: “The rule book is now being changed with dramatic breakthroughs almost every month.” Visit www.idtechex.com. New Rand Corp. Report Questions Whether U.S. Railroads Are Ready to Handle Future Growth U.S. railroads have done a good job of improving efficiency to accommodate a surge of demand over the last 15 years, says the Rand Corp. But whether they can continue to meet the needs of shippers remains to be seen. “As the volumes of freight being transported by rail approach the capacity of the network, it seems reasonable to expect a reduction in the performance of the railroad network,” Rand says in a recent report on the state of U.S. railroads. It questions whether the industry can accommo- date further growth through technology and operational efficiencies alone. If the railroads fail to invest sufficiently in new capacity, “rail market share will continue to fall and the number of trucks on the road will grow at an accelerating rate.” In particular, Rand wonders whether the streamlining of infrastructure will render railroads unable to cope with disruptions. Many parallel routes have been abandoned or are currently operating near capacity, the study says. Yet the creation of redundant tracks or routes “is a capital-intensive solution.” In the end, the ability of railroads to recover from serious disruptions might have more to do with operational flexibility and good planning than with redundant tracks and equipment, Rand says. It worries that railroads aren’t collecting key metrics that measure system resiliency—specifically, the impact on routes that were not directly affected by the initial event, and the time it takes for all operations to return to normal. The report suggests that railroads model normal levels of activity, then calculate the impact of unusually slow speeds of lengthy delays. “This model could then be employed to see how a track closure disrupts the network and how long its effects last,” Rand says. Visit www.rand.org. 20 OCTOBER 2008 http://www.schneider.com/logistics/ http://www.idtechex.com http://www.rand.org

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Global Logistics and Supply Chain Strategies - October 2008

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