Industry News

Recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics re-confirmed the important role that companies in the truck transportation and inventory warehousing industry provide between manufacturers and consumers. Businesses contract with trucking and warehousing companies like Komar Distribution Services to pick up, transport, store, and deliver a variety of goods.

KDS provides third party logistics services to US and foreign businesses including freight trucking, specialized freight trucking, FTZ warehousing, cross docking, pick and pack, storage and back office solutions.

Transportation Service Categories

General freight trucking uses motor vehicles, such as trucks and tractor-trailers, to provide over-the-road transportation of general commodities. This industry segment is further subdivided based on distance traveled. Local trucking establishments carry goods primarily within a single metropolitan area and its adjacent non-urban areas. Long-distance trucking establishments carry goods between distant areas.

Local trucking comprised 29,400 trucking establishments in 2008. The work of local trucking firms varies with the products transported. Produce truckers usually pick up loaded trucks early in the morning and spend the rest of the day delivering produce to many different grocery stores. Lumber truck drivers, on the other hand, make several trips from the lumberyard to one or more construction sites. Some local truck transportation firms may also take on sales and customer relations responsibilities for a client, in addition to delivering the firm’s products.

Long-distance trucking comprises establishments engaged primarily in providing trucking between distant areas and sometimes between the United States and Canada or Mexico. Numbering 40,900 establishments, these firms handle every kind of commodity.

Specialized freight trucking provides over-the-road transportation of freight, which, because of size, weight, shape, or other inherent characteristics, requires specialized equipment, such as flatbeds, tankers, or refrigerated trailers. This industry sector also includes the moving industry—that is, the transportation of household, institutional, and commercial furniture for individuals or companies that are relocating. Like general freight trucking, specialized freight trucking is subdivided into local and long-distance components. The specialized freight trucking sector contained 47,600 establishments in 2008.

Intermodal transportation encompasses any combination of transportation by truck, train, plane, or ship. Typically, trucks perform at least one leg of the trip, since they are the most flexible mode of transport. For example, a shipment of cars from an assembly plant begins its journey when they are loaded onto rail cars. Next, trains haul the cars across country to a depot, where the shipments are broken into smaller lots and loaded onto tractor-trailers, which drive them to dealerships. Each of these steps is carefully orchestrated and timed so that the cars arrive just in time to be shipped on their next leg of their journey. Though some perishable and time-sensitive goods may be transported by air, they are usually picked up and delivered by trucks.

Warehousing and storage facilities comprised 15,200 establishments in 2008.  Komar Distribution Services (KDS) operates warehousing and storage facilities for general merchandise and retail apparel.  KDS takes responsibility for keeping general merchandise and apparel secure and in good condition. In addition to inventory warehousing services, we offer logistical services, such as labeling, inventory control management, repackaging, and transportation arrangement.

The Impact of NAFTA

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has resulted in increased trade with Mexico and Canada which, unlike other trading partners, can be reached by truck. Specifically, the U.S. and Canada have had longstanding agreements that allow drivers to deliver goods between the two Nations somewhat effortlessly. On the other hand, trucks traveling between the U.S. and Mexico have faced more difficulty, and bilateral agreements have been unstable.

Trucking and warehousing firms often provide logistical services encompassing the entire transportation process. Logistical services manage all aspects of the movement of goods between producers and consumers. Among their value-added services are sorting bulk goods into customized lots, packaging and repackaging goods, controlling and managing inventory, order entering and fulfillment, labeling, performing light assembly, and marking prices.

Some full-service companies even perform warranty repair work and serve as local parts distributors for manufacturers. Some of these services, such as maintaining and retrieving computerized inventory information on the location, age, and quantity of goods available, have helped to improve the efficiency of relationships between manufacturers and customers.

KDS Technology in Action

Komar Distribution Services offers their clients new technologies and the coordination of supply chain processes to expedite the distribution of goods. KDS routinely uses computers to analyze work routines in order to optimize the use of available labor has led to increases in productivity.

KDS utilizes Radio Frequency Identification Devices (RFID) to track and manage incoming and outgoing shipments. RFID simplifies the receiving process by allowing entire shipments to be scanned without unpacking a load to manually compare it against a bill of lading.

Many companies tap Komar Distribution for just-in-time shipping, which means that goods arrive just before they are needed, saving recipients money by reducing their need to carry large inventories.

These technologies and processes reflect two major trends in warehousing: supply chain integration, whereby firms involved in production, transportation, and storage all move in concert so as to act with the greatest possible efficiency; and ongoing attempts to reduce inventory levels and increase inventory accuracy.

NXP is leading producer unveils its roadmap for new technology that can assist companies offering RFID integration to their inventory warehousing services. Read the full story by Mark Roberti in RFID Journal and we have included and excerpt below:

NXP Semiconductors, the world’s largest producer of microchips used in radio frequency transponders, has shared with RFID Journal its plans for new products over the next few years. The company intends to introduce new ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) chips based on the ISO 18000-6C protocol by the end of this year, a dual-frequency chip (HF and UHF) in 2011, and the further evolution of its Mifare chips, including enhanced security.

“We remain committed to the RFID business in a big way,” says Tim Newsom, NXP’s director of marketing and business strategy for RFID in the Americas. “It’s a healthy, profitable business for us, and we believe the market will only continue to grow.”

In 2007, NXP introduced its Ucode G2XL and G2XM chips—two UHF chips based on the ISO 18000-6C standard (which is the same as EPCglobal’s Gen 2 protocol) and offering a longer read range and strong use-case performance (see NXP Boosts EPC Gen 2 Tag Memory, Performance). Newsom anticipates NXP’s newest ISO 18000-6C chips will perform better in applications than the top UHF chips currently available, and that the chips will begin shipping before the end of the year. “We hope to share more information very soon on the products’ details,” he says, “but it will offer some interesting new use cases, and continue to support the traditional ones with higher performance.”

“We focused on high performance in the total use case with our previous UHF chips, and were behind the leader in pure read range,” Newsom said during a meeting with RFID Journal at the company’s Applications and Systems Center (ASC) in Graz, Austria (for more information on the center, see Optimizing Chip and Tag Designs in the Lab). “With these new chips, we’ll improve upon the performance available today, and remain a leader in application performance.”

Testing and application support conducted at NXP’s ASC focuses on ensuring tags that incorporate NXP chips are fully interoperable with all application hardware and tags, including those made with competitors’ chips. “We are certain our chip will not only outperform in applications,” Newsom states, “it will also be fully interoperable, because of the support of the ASC.”

Heinze Elzinga, NXP’s director of product management, indicates that his company is “in the early phases of the development” of a new integrated circuit that will operate at both HF and UHF. “The product features have been defined,” he says, “and the development team is now working on the design.”

To read end of article, visit: http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/view/5352