FreightCasts Weekly Recap (10/19-10/25)

WHAT THE TRUCK?!?

• Don’t fear the reefer
  • Dooner and The Dude are live from FreightWaves’ Cold Chain Summit, where they’re learning about the clinical supply chain, COVID vaccines, the power of partnerships, jackalopes and more.
  • This episode features Luiz da Costa, director of global import-export and trade compliance for Takeda Pharmaceuticals International; Josh Asbury, vice president of HubTran; Norman Highnam, transport refrigeration consultant and cold chain expert; Travis Ross, customer success manager for Coretex; and Niko Brown, regional sales manager for SkyBitz.
• Who’s stealing your cargo?
  • Dooner and The Dude are talking about cargo theft, building culture in freight, financial problems for small carriers, tales from the PR circuit, and a #PlayItForward to Baby’s Got Chargebacks.
  • Plus, a Cold Chain Summit event preview.
  • This episode features Tom Whaley, president, Level One Technologies; Indie Bollman, vice president, organizational development, Trailer Bridge; Susan Fall, owner, LaunchIt Public Relations; Trey Griggs, vice president, Lean Sales; and Scott Cornell, transportation lead and crime and theft specialist, Travelers Insurance.

FreightWaves LIVE

• Evolution of last-mile deliveries amid COVID-19 – Last Mile Logistics
  • As e-commerce sales are projected to hit over $709 billion in the U.S. in 2020 in large part because of the COVID-19 pandemic, logistics companies are focused on last-mile delivery and improving customers’ experience. JT Engstrom, chief strategy officer of FreightWaves, and Lakshmanan Chidambaram, president of the Americas for Tech Mahindra, discussed the evolution of e-commerce over the next two years during FreightWaves’ virtual Last Mile Logistics Summit.
• A rail shipper’s perspective on last mile – Last Mile Logistics
  • Responding to pressure to be more transparent about their service performance following the major railroad mergers of the 1990s, the freight railroads began providing shippers and regulators weekly data on metrics such as rail car velocity and terminal dwell times. But one measure that they haven’t been providing, asserts an executive at one of the country’s largest agribusiness companies, is how well they’ve been performing against the promise of precision scheduled railroading (PSR), an operating methodology adopted by most of the railroads and one that can have a significant effect on first-mile and last-mile delivery for customers.“As far as a rail shipper is concerned, the game is won or lost in that first-mile, last-mile segment of the supply chain,” said Brad Hildebrand, global lead for rail and barge at Cargill Inc. during a fireside chat Thursday with FreightWaves Senior Staff Reporter Joanna Marsh at FreightWaves Last Mile Logistics Summit. “If that’s not going well, it can have a huge impact on operations.”
• As e-commerce hits new heights, so do merchandise returns – Last Mile Logistics
  • Purchase returns and the reverse logistics portion of last-mile delivery have become a focal point as more consumers settle into the lifestyles and purchasing habits that have become the new norm in a COVID world. Consumers’ acceptance of a digital retail channel has provided salvation to many retailers that have seen pandemic-related shutdowns choke off traditional in-store buying. At the FreightWaves Last Mile Logistics Summit on Thursday, Tony Sciarrotta, executive director, Reverse Logistics Association, and Nicholas Isasi, executive VP, DM Transportation Management Services, chatted about some of the issues and best practices used in reverse logistics and processing purchase returns.
• Going the last mile with ‘guys on motorcycles with guns’ – Last Mile Logistics
  • To put the U.S. last-mile trucking market in broader perspective, look at non-U.S. markets. Things are really different over there across the border. In a fireside chat during the FreightWaves Last Mile Logistics Summit, Liftit co-founder and CEO Brian York outlined how his company is growing its last-mile operations in Latin America, which now span Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Ecuador with FreightWaves’ Andrew Cox.

Midday Market Update

• Freight’s holiday hiring spree
  • On today’s Midday Market Update presented by Amazon Freight, Michael Vincent and Zach Strickland talk about the SONAR-powered data, issues and news that moves you.They’re joined by Andrew Lockwood, senior manager, Suddath Global Logistics; David Broering, President Non Asset, NFI; Alan Adler, Detroit Bureau Chief, FreightWaves; and FreightWaves market experts Andrew Cox, Anthony Smith, with Nick Austin on weather. This is a live interactive event. Viewers are encouraged to comment during broadcasts every Tuesday and Thursday at 12PM EDT on FreightWaves’ Linkedin and Facebook channels.

Put That Coffee Down

• Think like a shipper
  • “What I told you was true, from a certain point of view. You’re going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.” – Obi Wan Kenobi
  • Dooner and Hill are talking all about selling from a certain point of view: that of the shipper.
  • How do you go about outlining the needs of your customers, and in what ways do you position your pitch to address them?
  • This episode features Paul Estrada, VP of strategic initiatives, Emerge.
  • Paul spent 12 years at Niagara Bottling, a 1 million-truckload shipper annually.

Freightonomics

• The cold facts of the supply chain
  • Zach and Anthony cover the latest trends impacting the cold chain with special guest Zac Rogers.

Fuller Speed Ahead

• Transportation lawyer: $411M nuclear verdict shows jurors had ‘free rein’
  • Transportation lawyer Kristen Johnson joined “Fuller Speed Ahead” to discuss her thoughts on the $411 million nuclear verdict — the largest on record.
• Dr. Yossi Sheffi, Director of the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics
  • Dr. Yossi Sheffi, the Director of the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics chats with FreightWaves CEO and Founder Craig Fuller.

Drilling Deep

• Postal Service mired in controversy before Election Day
  • John Kingston brings in his colleague Mark Solomon again to talk about the state of the U.S. Postal Service. Solomon was a guest on Drilling Deep not all that long ago to talk about the same subject. But the amount of new controversy that has arisen since then means it’s time to revisit this key cog in supply chains.
  • Also on Drilling Deep this week, host Kingston discusses how a couple of big deals in the U.S. oil patch could be good news for trucking companies that serve that sector.

FreightWaves Morning Minute

• Monday-Friday
  • The fastest minute in freight.
  • The top headlines from FreightWaves.com every weekday morning. Available on FreightWaves.com/podcasts, your favorite podcasts player and Alexa by adding the skill “FreightWaves.”