Wall Street Journal (July 1)
“The automation of Amazon facilities is approaching a new milestone: There will soon be as many robots as humans.” After years dedicated to “automating tasks previously done by humans in its facilities,” Amazon now has over “one million robots in those workplaces…. The most it has ever had and near the count of human workers at the facilities.” The shift “has helped Amazon improve productivity, while easing pressure on the company to solve problems such as heavy staff turnover at its fulfillment centers.” Currently, “some 75% of Amazon’s global deliveries are assisted in some way by robotics.”
Tags: Amazon, Automation, Deliveries, Facilities, Fulfillment centers, Humans, Milestone, Problems, Productivity, Robots, Staff turnover, Workplaces
Washington Post (August 21)
“A looming rail work stoppage in Canada is worrying U.S. businesses and threatening deliveries of cars, timber, petroleum products, grains and other crucial supplies.” A strike would likely prevent “more than 2,500 railcars from crossing the border each day.” Estimates suggest one day of stoppage will “require three to five days for the railroads to recover” so the “consequences of a Canadian rail strike could be far-reaching.”
Tags: Businesses, Canada, Cars, Consequences, Deliveries, Grains, Looming, Petroleum, Railcars, Railroads, Recover, Strike, Timber, U.S., Work stoppage
Star Tribune (November 5)
“Transoceanic shipping is no longer backed up. But labor shortages at airlines and trucking firms continue to influence U.S. supply chains.” An October survey found that central state supply mangers believed “the speed of deliveries is back to pre-pandemic levels. But about one-third of them also said their biggest challenge for the fourth quarter was supply-chain disruptions,” albeit markedly down “from nearly 60% two months earlier.”
Tags: Airlines, Challenge, Deliveries, Labor shortages, Pandemic, Shipping, Speed, Supply chains, Transoceanic, Trucking firms, U.S.
Time (December 18)
Online shopping may save individual shoppers from going out in the traffic, but overall it’s compounding traffic woes. “Our city streets and parking resources are being swamped by this new retail reality. Cities simply are not designed to handle the daily tidal wave of deliveries produced by our have-it-now online economy.”
Tags: Deliveries, Online economy, Online shopping, Parking, Reality, Retail, Streets, Swamped, Traffic
The Economist (January 16)
“Since the new year, the price of oil has surprised even the most bearish punters, plunging by 18%.” With prices already dipping below $30 a barrel, few know how low oil will go or when prices will begin to recover. Analysts have placed the bottom as low as $10, with April deliveries calculated at “anything from $25 to $56 a barrel.” The only thing everyone agrees on is that current supply vastly outstrips demand.
New York Times (December 24, 2013)
With postal services around the world struggling to survive, Canada is taking a step that few nations have dared. “With the digital handwriting ever clearer on the wall, the Canadian postal service has announced that it will end its remaining door-to-door letter deliveries over the next five years and focus on its one clear growth area: package deliveries to a public that is increasingly doing its shopping online.”
Tags: Canada, Deliveries, Letters, Online, Packages, Postal Service, Shopping, Survival
