To logisticians

When I began writing this newsletter, I aimed to build Morning Brew for the logistics and supply chain industry. However, over time as I learn about the space, I have pivoted the newsletter a couple of times.

From a daily newsletter covering technology in space across the globe, to now doing deep dives on specific techs, industries, and companies in the space. An example newsletter, I began last week; Tesla Autonomous Trucking.

The vision remains consistent though - to keep logistics professionals informed on the technology happening in the space.

Here is my thought process on how the newsletter would look & feel moving forward:

• 2 weekly tech news ( acquisition, funding, incumbents, start-ups, and more). The days of the week are Monday and Thursday.

• 2 weekly in-depth analyses ( technology, companies, regions, experts, and more). The days of the week are Wednesday and Sunday.

• One more day in case of trends, news, or research reports produced on the go. I will keep you in the know before any of this publication.

Now, having the newsletter direction out of the way, today I cover several topics that have happened in the past week.

In today’s Inbox.

• In the box; Uber, Kiwibot, Einride,…

• E-commerce logistics: Rent the Runway, & Logicarts

• Technology: Warehousing automation & dynamic pricing,

• Old guards: Amazon, Schneider & SVT Robotics

Let’s dive in.

Silent reading time: 4 mins 43 secs

In the Box

Uber

The ride-hailing giant’s subsidiary Uber Eats will be partnering with sidewalk robotics delivery company Carkten to offer autonomous delivery in Fairfax, Virginia’s Mosaic District shopping mall.

The partnership comes as an extension of a pilot launched in Miami last year in December.

Competitors: Ube is not alone in embracing sidewalk robotic delivery. Other rivals pursuing this space include; Doordash doing package drop-offs using Google’s Wing drones in Australia, and Grubhub partnering with Starship technologies for robotics food delivery in U.S college campuses.

Einride

The Swedish- based autonomous trucking announced its expansion to the U.K. in partnership with PepsiCo - a beverage and consumer goods giant subsidiary company Walkers.

The snack-food company will use Einride trucks and platforms to deliver goods between the cities of Leicester and Coventry. This will help them cut on fossil fuel-powered transport by 250,000 miles per year.

The head of sustainability for PepsiCo in the UK; Archana Jagannathan said; looking forward to better understanding the potential role of electric trucks in transport operations.

One side note is the futuristic look of Einride’s truck pod. Here is what the pod looks like;

Frayt

The on-demand delivery provider headquartered in Cincinnati recently closed $7 million to take on large-scale shippers.

The Series A funding was led by Refinery Ventures.

Frayt has already attracted large-scale shippers including the following and 300 hundred other customers:

• Cargill

• The Tile Shop

• Bridgestone

• Sherwin Williams

Kiwibot

The ongoing partnership with Sodexo has gotten an expansion thumbs up to do sidewalk robotics delivery at Shenandoah University.

The 15 Kiwibot robots will be operating on the campus to deliver affordable food to students from the University’s innings and Sodexo - a food service and facilities management company.

By downloading the Everyday App from Play and App Stores, students will get closer to the future of delivery.

Speedbird

High Lander, the Israeli - based developer of autonomous air traffic operating systems announced a partnership with Brazil-based UAV drone operator Speedbird to speed up safe food drone delivery across the country.

Speedbird manufacturers of UAVs meant for the transport and delivery of goods is working with Brazil’s largest delivery food app iFood to make thousands of drone delivery across the country.

“Speedbird is adapting High Lander’s technology as their drones are flying very heavily in many urban areas throughout Brazil, so they need to effectively monitor the airspace to prevent conflicts and collisions,” - High Lander founder and CEO Alon Abelson.

E-commerce Logistics

Rent the Runway: The rental fashion platform announced it is eliminating the extra courier trip by consolidating returns pickup and delivery processes to cut costs.

This is a result of hiked prices from courier partners like UPS. “We intend to continue transportation optimization to absorb carrier price increases,” - CFO Scarlett O’Sullivan

Logicarts: The Indian- based last-mile solution for bulky and semi-bulky goods is taking shape in the country since its launch in 2019.

The e-commerce logistic company operates primarily in the B2B space and has some of India’s largest e-commerce players including; Flipkart, Reliance, Amazon, and 3,000 other customers.

Technology

Warehousing automation

OPEX - a global leader in next-generation automation solutions provider has partnered with Advanced Robotics - a technology implementation integrator based in Hungary.

In the partnership, Advanced Robotics will be the first to install OPEX’s Perfect Pick in Europe set for 2024.

Dynamic Pricing

Logistics giants like FedEx and UPS are making strides into dynamic pricing for parcel delivery.

In the past, until providers roll out rates, the shipping rates have often been static.

As the CEO and founder of Tusk Logistics Ben Emmrich envisions, dynamic pricing would benefit both carriers and customers.

For instance, FedEx used dynamic pricing that helped the logistic giant bring in $150 million in profit during the peak season from home delivery fees.

Old Guards

Amazon

The e-commerce giant open a 1-million square feet order fulfillment in Kansas City, in the U.S. dedicated to high-ticket ( big and bulky) packages like furniture, and sporting equipment.

SVT Robotics

The provider of enterprise software for industrial robots recently released a new SoftBot Platform Connector for Tecsys, a supply chain management software company.

“Our collaboration with SVT allows Tecsys to offer a hardware-agnostic warehouse automation solution perfectly tailored to each use case. It liberates them to choose automation that best addresses their warehouse challenges, rather than limiting them to a specific WMS provider’s preferred automation partner.” - Bill Benbigh Tecsys VP of Product Marketing

Frito-Lay

The snack food giant owned by PepsiCo recently outsourced some of their electric vehicle (EV) shipments to third-party Schneider National in North America.

The carrier’s Freightliner eCascadias will initially handle intermodal inbound and outbound dray moves between the Southern California ports and Frito-Lay’s Rancho Cucamonga distribution center.

That is it for now.

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To more tech in logistics.

Okerosi.