Category Archives: Technology

After 21 months of construction, the world’s first zero-carbon intelligent container terminal in Tianjin Port was officially put into operation. The terminal is a 200,000-ton container terminal with a designed annual throughput of 2.5 million TEUs. The terminal adopts an intelligent horizontal transportation system that connects its key facilities to realize real-time information interaction of all production factors. The artificial intelligence robots of transportation here are equipped with various sensors to be their “eyes and ears”. Therefore, compared with traditional container terminals, the intelligent terminal in Tianjin can save manpower, time and cost, while maintaining a world-leading efficiency. The terminal is operated all by wind and photovoltaic power, achieving zero-carbon emission in energy consumption and production.

o9 Solutions Inc., an AI software platform provider for transforming planning and decision-making, reported a 97% increase in Q3 2021 bookings, which translates into an almost three-fold increase in year-to-date bookings compared to the same period in 2020. These results show o9’s continued strong growth momentum. Upsells to existing customers drove 20% of the bookings activity year-to-date at o9. This included clients that expanded their initial purchase multiple times within the year, reinforcing the rapid value proposition delivered by o9’s platform. EMEA and APAC were strong contributors to bookings in Q3, signaling o9’s growing market share within these regions. New customer bookings in Q3 2021 were well diversified across a range of enterprise sizes and o9’s core verticals with significant strength in manufacturing. During the quarter, the company had successful deployments in new industry verticals, including one of the largest global telecom companies and a large global pharmaceutical company. There were new deployments at one of the largest beverage companies in the world, where o9 is replacing a global legacy planning solution. Overall, the quarter saw customer deployments across demand, supply chain, integrated business planning, and commercial planning – reaffirming the flexibility of the platform to deliver value for a variety of planning and decision-making use cases across the enterprise.

Pluss Advanced Technologies (PLUSS) has received support SAMRIDH, a healthcare blended financing facility, to increase manufacturing capacity of its ‘temperature-controlled’ shipping containers for pharmaceuticals. PLUSS makes these containers from ‘phase change materials’ using the concept of thermal energy storage, to maintain inside-temperature without electricity at desired levels for up to 120 hours. The containers, called Celsure, are used in transport and storage of temperature sensitive pharma products, including vaccines. Through an innovative financing model, SAMRIDH leveraged philanthropic funds to help PLUSS raise commercial capital needed for the expansion of its business operations. SAMRIDH is supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by IPE Global. PLUSS provides Celsure containers that maintain precise temperature between 2 and 8°C, 15 and 25°C and -20°C, for up to five days. These solutions bring operational and cost efficiency in transport of temperature sensitive products. They are used by pharma, diagnostics and biotech companies to pack and transport temperature sensitive drugs, vaccines, test kits, clinical trial samples and other products that require a constant temperature to maintain their efficacy. With support from SAMRIDH, PLUSS will double the manufacturing capacity of Celsure boxes to 6,000 boxes per month and set up a conditioning facility in Hyderabad. This will assist pharma and biotech companies in making timely deliveries of covid-19 test kits, drugs and vaccines to remote areas where it is a considerable challenge to maintain the right cold-chain.

Volocopter’s electric heavy-lift drone VoloDrone conducted its first public flight at ITS World Congress 2021. Together with the international logistics leader DB Schenker, Volocopter, the pioneer of urban air mobility (UAM), demonstrated VoloDrone’s seamless integration into the logistics supply chain with an end-to-end cargo transport demonstration. The partners showed their significant progress together since DB Schenker became a strategic investor of Volocopter in early 2020. The 3-minute test flight took off at 3:02 p.m. at homePORT Hamburg and reached a maximum altitude of 22 meters. For this delivery simulation, the electric heavy-lift utility drone was equipped with a load-box in between its landing gear. First, the demonstration teams secured a Euro-pallet sized load to the box under the VoloDrone, followed by a smooth take-off. After this, the aircraft brought the payload to a DB Schenker Cargo Bike and landed safely. Once the payload was transferred successfully, the Cargo Bike delivered its cargo to the final destination under the area’s park deck, marking the completion of the entirely electric, multimodal last-mile delivery. “This first public VoloDrone flight is a strong sign for Volocopter´s leading position in the UAM industry. We are the only UAM company offering solutions for passengers and goods that are flying fully scaled and publicly around the world,” says Florian Reuter, Volocopter CEO. “Our VoloDrone will make existing logistics processes more robust, efficient, and sustainable. DB Schenker is an invaluable partner in our endeavor to untap the massive potential of our VoloDrone’s logistics use cases.”

Etihad Cargo, the cargo and logistics arm of the Etihad Aviation Group, has revamped the etihadcargo.com portal to provide customers with a heightened and intuitive online experience. The new-look website includes the introduction of quicker booking processes and streamlined flows, a personalised dashboard, recommendations, and dynamic pricing. Following customer feedback, the site also now incorporates a new dynamic map of the carrier’s global network which provides detailed information on Etihad Cargo teams and its global network outstation capabilities. Migrating to a customer-centric platform has cut the time customers take to complete a booking from more than two minutes previously to less than 45 seconds, equating to only 12 clicks, compared 23 needed before. New features such as requesting shipping quotes, booking ad-hoc prices which have been negotiated offline and booking shipments based on arrival timelines have been introduced to streamline the user experience. Customers will also have the ability to create and manage booking templates based on previous purchases. “With a fresh look and feel incorporating key features requested by customers, the site’s entire user experience has been enriched to provide improved response time and functionality across customers’ booking journeys,” explained Martin Drew, SVP Sales and Cargo at Etihad Aviation Group.

dnata,has partnered with Gather AI, a US-based technology start-up, and launched autonomous drones in its warehouses at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) in the USA. The aim is to digitize acceptance and warehouse inventory processes by monitoring shipments with 99.8 percent accuracy. Gather AI’s software enables the drones to map the environment, collect inventory data, count cases, measure temperature, and read barcodes using only their cameras, without the need for any additional active infrastructure. The drones are paired to a tablet device providing live inventory data. The collected data can be viewed directly on the tablet or the web, via a user-friendly application.

Jeena & Co., a legacy logistics brand has been at the forefront of digital adoption and tech enabled innovation in end to end logistics solutions, has once again, taken a lead in embracing the latest in supply chain technology innovations. As part of this strategic partnership, Jeena has provided on ground logistics support to TechEagle in successful completion of Asia’s First Drone based vaccine delivery project in complete cold chain environment for the Telangana government. During the project, TechEagle’s Drone delivered vaccines in a temperature controlled box weighing 2.5kg for an aerial distance of 11.5km Drone maintained 2.4 degree Celsius through out the flight. For the project Jeena Criticare managed the on-ground logistics & transportation while TechEagel was the Drone OEM & Operator, for the specialised drone enabled medical supply chain.

Global logistics company DP World operated International Container Transshipment Terminal (ICTT) at Vallarpadam Cochin unveiled a solar power plant with production capacity of 1122 MW (megawatts)/per annum. The plant was inaugurated by P. Rajeeve, Honourable Minister for Industries, Law and Coir, Government of Kerala, and Hibi Eden, Member of Parliament (Ernakulam), Kerala. The plant is set up across 3.4 acres of land with an investment of over INR 3.7 crore. It has a peak production capacity of 830 kilowatt-hours. The solar plant will help reduce 905 tonnes/per annum of CO2 emissions which is equivalent to CO2 absorbed by approximately 41,580 trees in a year. The plant will produce over 12% of the terminal’s total annual power consumption. DP World is committed to sustainable practices across all its facilities and is undertaking several measures to achieve Carbon footprint reduction targets in a time-bound manner. This solar plant is part of the many planned milestones towards DP World achieving Carbon Neutrality across all facilities in India by 2030.

In keeping with his commitment to nation-building and fostering a conducive atmosphere for the fruitful public, private and academic partnerships, Piyush Goyal, Hon’ble Minister of Commerce & Industry, Government of India, inaugurated the Centre of Excellence in Logistics and Supply Chain Management at the National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE) on Thursday, 23rd September 2021. While congratulating NITIE for this initiative and reminiscing about his past association with the institute when his father was a visiting faculty there, Piyush Goyal, Hon’ble Minister of Commerce & Industry, Government of India, highlighted the tremendous scope of global business supply chains in driving the nation’s economy. He urged all the students and faculty members to take into consideration the importance of efficiency and the geographic spread of industries and factories today, while committing to drive India’s progress – not just for themselves but also for the marginalised and underprivileged sections of society.

CargoBooking, also known as CargoBooking.aero is a global digital air cargo booking platform providing real time capacities and rates for airlines. Launched in August 2020, it also looks after the airlines’ General Sales Agents (GSAs) to deliver instant air cargo quoting and booking with Application Programming Interface (API) integration to freight forwarders. The solution, powered by global IT service provider and software development company Awery Aviation Software, gives a consolidated view of all connected airlines and GSA prices on possible flight and truck routing options. “The digital transformation of the air cargo industry is gaining momentum, enhancing efficiency and cost effectiveness across the supply chain,” said Tristan Koch, Awery’s new Chief Commercial Officer. Our in-house team has been working together for over 12 years to develop aviation software solutions to support the digitisation of the industry, and with CargoBooking, we are delivering a streamlined user experience connecting capacity and demand.”