29 November, 2022

Durable drives for belt conveyor systems

Posted on 29 November, 2022 by Keith McKinley

Nord Drivesystems has specially developed the MAXXDRIVE XT industrial gear unit for the requirements for conveyor technology drives in the bulk goods and mineral industries. It provides output torques of 15 to 75kNm with speed ratios from 6.3 to 22.4 and is offered in seven sizes for powers from 22 to 2,100kW.

The power and speed ranges of the two-stage right-angle gear unit have been specially designed for industries in which low speed ranges are required in combination with high powers – such as the bulk goods and mineral industries. Its robust design makes the MAXXDRIVE XT resistant to dirt and reliable in rough operating conditions. A special sealing concept reduces maintenance. Large roller bearings and centre distances increase the load capacity and service life of the components.

As standard, the industrial gear unit is equipped with a heavily ribbed UNICASE housing and an integrated axial fan. Due to the increased surface and the airflow covers, the cooling airflow is optimised and a very high thermal limiting power is achieved. In many cases, additional cooling is not required.

Individually configured drives

“As with other application areas, our drive solutions for the industry are individually configured for customers according to the modular principle,” emphasises Jörg Niermann, Head of Marketing at Nord Drivesystems. This is based on a comprehensive range of frequency inverters, motors and gear units, as well as coupling and brake systems, each with a wide variety of options. Features such as hydraulic couplings tailored to the particular process or Taconite seals, which effectively protect radial shaft seals against abrasive dust and corrosion, ensure smooth operation.

Nord also offers innovative predictive maintenance concepts for heavy industrial gear units. Nord drives networked via the frequency inverter communicate their status data via the control system or directly into a secure cloud. With optional vibration monitoring, condition changes can be detected at an early stage and predictive maintenance can be scheduled in good time. Performance data recording also ensures optimal system dimensioning as well as continuous condition monitoring of the drives.

Clark GTS range with new engines

Posted on 29 November, 202225 July, 2025 by David Priestman

Clark has equipped its popular GTS series with new HMC diesel and LPG engines. The environmentally-friendly industrial engines comply with EU emission level 5 and ensure equally powerful and economical operation.

The GTS series consists of diesel and LPG forklifts with lifting capacities from 2 to 3.3t and lifting heights of up to 7,315mm. As is standard at Clark, the GTS series is also built according to the “built to last” principle and accordingly has a solid construction with high-quality and durable components. The standard wet multi-disc brakes, the transmission in separate design, the stable, vibration-free steering axle and the ergonomic driver’s workplace make this series not only robust and reliable, but also comfortable and safe.

This makes the truck series ideal for intensive use in multi-shift operation in goods distribution, production or warehousing. In addition, maintenance costs are extremely low over the entire life cycle. The new low-maintenance timing chain also contributes to this. This has a positive effect on the total cost of ownership of the vehicles.

New engines for low-emission

The new powerful HMC four-cylinder industrial engines with diesel particulate filter ensure powerful acceleration and reliable operation with more economical consumption. The engine power is 48.7kW with a displacement of 2,199cc. Since the engine and transmission are installed separately from the drive axle (split transmission), vibrations and oscillations at the driver’s seat have been reduced and smooth driving behaviour ensured.

To optimally adapt the performance to the individual application, the maximum speed can be adjusted via an optional speed limiter. Compared to vehicles with drum brakes, the GTS series with enclosed and oil-cooled multi-disc brakes requires up to 50% less effort. In addition, downtimes and costs for brake maintenance are eliminated, as they are maintenance-free compared to drum brakes. Another advantage of wet multi-disc brakes is that operating the truck in a dusty or wet environment has no negative impact on the braking effect.

Ergonomic driver’s workplace

The driver’s workplace is designed so that the driver enjoys plenty of headroom and legroom. The suspension seat and the tilting steering column can be individually adjusted. The pedals are arranged in a car-like manner and can be operated intuitively. The vehicle is operated via hydraulic levers that are conveniently positioned on the bonnet. Up to five hydraulic functions can be implemented directly from the factory.

The hydrostatic power steering enables easy and safe steering with just a few turns of the steering wheel. In addition, the driver has a good field of vision through the mast. This is ensured by the low front wall and the nested mast profiles. The clear driver display informs the driver about all important operating data at a glance. On diesel engines, it also serves to monitor the diesel particulate filter.

Safe and quiet load handling

The nested mast profiles and the robust 6-roller fork carriage provide high strength even under the heaviest loads. For low-noise lifting operations, the trucks are equipped with mast damping as standard. During lifting operations, the transition between the individual mast profiles is smooth. This protects the goods and lift mast components and allows smooth and precise load handling.

In order to guarantee a high level of safety in different operating conditions, numerous safety features are available for the trucks, such as a highly visible orange safety belt, automatic neutralisation of the direction of travel if the belt buckle is not closed with sequence monitoring, blue LED warning lights or the CLARK SafeView@360 camera system so that the driver has everything in view around the truck. Hydraulic accumulators are also designed to prevent the load from swinging up on uneven floors.

Wide range of additional equipment

In order to adapt the trucks individually to the application, Clark offers a wide range of additional equipment, such as wide track, twin or non-marking tyres, integrated or mounted sideshifters, fork positioner, lockable fuel filler cap, additional hydraulic functions, quick-change system, rear-view mirrors, strobe lights as well as different seats and cab variants.

With a full cab, for example, the two-part driver’s doors can be opened 180° and fixed to the truck frame. This makes it possible to move the truck with the doors open, for example in summer. A heater, electrically heated rear window, front and rear windscreen wipers, easily accessible storage compartments and a radio with Bluetooth function round off the comfortable full cab.

Fashion group DK Company gets new racking

Posted on 29 November, 2022 by Keith McKinley

NC Nielsen, AR Racking’s Danish strategic distributor, carried out the design and installation of the new warehouse of the multi-brand fashion group DK Company in Ikast (Denmark) in an extraordinary time of just nine weeks leading the comprehensive management of the project.

DK Company has become one of the main European suppliers of fashion brands for men and women. With a presence in 35 different markets, the Danish company has a new 11,000 sq m operations centre to meet the growth experienced in recent years. Specifically, in 2021 it increased its revenue by 20% compared to the previous year and the forecasts for 2022 are along the same lines.

The storage area, which covers a total surface area of 3,000 sq m, stands out for its versatility and rapid location of the goods. NC Nielsen, considered the high number of references and diversity of the volume of the products to configure a solution with adjustable pallet racking that integrates levels for manual picking operations. In total, 4,000 pallet positions, of which 60% will be for picking.

Top quality racking for DK Company

DK Company communicated to NC Nielsen the urgency to have an agile, easy to configure, secure and adaptable warehouse. “It was a very quick and continuous process: from the first meeting to the first layout, the order and completing the installation in a total of nine weeks,” said Niels Henrik Hagelskjær, DK Company Warehouse Manager.

With more than five decades of experience, NC Nielsen stands out for its reliability, specialised service and high quality standards. “DK Company needed a fast project turnaround time, so having a top quality racking manufacturer and supplier such as AR Racking allowed us to fully focus on the study, design, advisory and planning aspect of the project to offer the customer the best storage solution in the most competitive timeframe possible,” explained Lars Kjærgaard Stenberg, NC Nielsen Project Manager.

Solid and strategic partnership

AR Racking’s commercial presence in more than 60 countries is mainly coordinated and consolidated through its distribution network. In Northern Europe and Scandinavian countries, AR Racking has been competing for years with total reliability and efficiency thanks to strategic partners such as NC Nielsen.

María Cossio, AR Racking Area Manager, explained it as follows: “We offer close support to the distributor, providing them with our specialisation as a manufacturer to effectively fulfil the needs of local companies in storage matters; however, none of this would be possible without having trusted partners such as NC Nielsen.”

GoFreight raises $23m

Posted on 29 November, 202229 July, 2025 by David Priestman

GoFreight has announced that it raised $23m in Series A funding, co-led by Flex Capital and Headline. The round includes participation from LFX Venture Partners, Palm Drive Capital, and existing investors like LA-based Mucker Capital, Cornerstone Ventures, and Red Building Capital.

GoFreight offers an all-in-one cloud-based software that consolidates the complex and meticulous work of freight forwarders into a single software platform solution. GoFreight’s software helps its customers manage the transportation of goods via ocean, air, and land routes with features tailored to freight forwarding. The platform is accessible from any device type, including mobile phones, desktops, and tablets.

“The global freight forwarding industry has grown immensely in the past 10 years but the technology freight forwarders use to run their businesses has not changed,” says Trenton Chen, CEO, and Founder of GoFreight. “Many of these companies still use antiquated ERP systems that were developed over 20 years ago. With GoFreight, a freight forwarder sales rep can turn an inquiry into a quotation that can convert into a new job with just a few clicks.”

GoFreight customers benefit from funding

Freight forwarders can win more bids with a dynamic quotations tool and automate their workflows by removing much of the manual data entry and transference. The software helps freight forwarders track shipments with real-time, carrier, EDI-integrated, container-tracking, visibility–close files with integrated payment processing and accounting–and oversee the efficiency and general health of the business with dashboards containing both out-of-the-box and customizable reporting and analytics. GoFreight will use the new capital for further product advancements and team expansion, specifically around research, development, and customer experience.

“We will expand upon the platform to develop products and features like smart quotations, rate management, and purchase order management,” says Chen. “This will help freight forwarders grow their businesses by providing a more frictionless experience to service the freight forwarder’s end customers. We believe this is the correct path to truly digitalise the freight forwarding industry, and further help the entire global supply chain become more efficient and resilient.”

The Series A funding will also fuel the continued buildout of GoFreight’s customers’ end-user-facing applications to lessen the burden placed on forwarders to manage their customers’ manual requests for information related to shipments and containers. GoFreight will expand its Product and Customer Experience teams with this funding. It follows a high-growth year for GoFreight, which saw its sales more than double.

“When GoFreight began, it had one mission in mind: to revolutionize the Freight Forwarding industry with modern tools designed by industry experts,” says Chen. “It exists for a customer base that has not seen innovation in their tech stack in the past 30 years.”

State-of-the-art tools

GoFreight says it serves its customers by empowering them with state-of-the-art tools and applications in a platform that is easy to implement and boasts a modern user interface for swift adoption. GoFreight’s comprehensive analytics suite with prebuilt dashboards and reports can help busy managers easily oversee their business. Further, the platform is designed to connect all freight management features into one easily accessible, centralized location. Its software makes use of EDI integrations with carriers to reduce repetitive data entry, and easily transpose documents into the platform where they can be sent to freight partners and carriers electronically.

“GoFreight’s cloud software is transforming the freight forwarding process, a $186 billion segment of logistics that is often overlooked,” said Tom Gieselmann, Partner at Headline. “GoFreight’s all-in-one software provides greater transparency to freight movement, allowing freight forwarders to better manage their business, which can range anywhere from 0-1500+ users, end-to-end. This versatility makes the product incredibly impactful, and a big reason behind why we’ve identified them as one of the most promising logistics tech companies on the market.”

80% say Brexit is biggest disruption

Posted on 29 November, 202231 July, 2025 by David Priestman

Research from Ivalua, a leading global spend management cloud provider, has revealed that 80% of UK businesses say that Brexit has been the biggest disrupter to supply chains in the last 12 months, while 83% fear the biggest disruption from Brexit is yet to come.

The Ivalua-commissioned study, conducted by Coleman Parkes, found that Brexit was having a bigger impact on supply chains than the war in Ukraine (76%), rising energy costs (71%) and COVID-19 (59%). Increasing supply chain disruption meant that 28% of UK businesses lost revenue in the last 12 months, with these businesses estimating an average drop in revenue of 18%. Supply chain disruption has also resulted in products arriving late, resulting in SLA fines (68%) and reputational damage (64%).

Moreover, 80% of UK businesses say that Black Swan events such as Brexit, COVID-19 and the War in Ukraine have “left supply continuity on life support”.

“These findings lay bare the significant toll of supply chain disruption on UK businesses,” comments Alex Saric, smart procurement expert at Ivalua. “Supply continuity has been left on life support after repeated blockages and restarts, resulting in supplier failure and organisations struggling to onboard new suppliers to kick-start supply. With supply chains being shocked at shrinking intervals, organisations must work to future-proof supply chains. A digitised, data-driven approach to supply chain management is a prerequisite for actionable scenario planning and agility. Yet, according to a study from Procurious, only 24% of executive teams have fast-tracked investments in new technology for procurement.”

Disruption to continue

On average, UK businesses estimate supply chain disruption will impact them for the next six months, with 31% saying the impact will continue for the next year. Over half (59%) believe supply chain disruption has become normal, and that we’ll see more Black Swan events in the future.

The effect of this disruption could be severe, with 69% of UK businesses concerned that more supply chain disruption will put suppliers out of business, while 51% fear they will go out of business. A further 83% say disruption has also slowed down their ability to innovate and develop new products.

“As Black Swan events accelerate, UK businesses must bolster resilience by ensuring they have total visibility into all suppliers, including tier-2 and 3. Collaboration is critical too – supply chains are only as resilient as your ability to work with suppliers to mitigate the impact of any disruption.” added Saric.

“But to do this, supply chain management must be digitalised. This is essential for continually assessing risk exposure, building a complete view of your supplier ecosystem and sharing information. Doing so will help organisations to better handle disruption, and cope with growing pressure that recession and inflation will pile on procurement teams in the next 12 months.”

Home Delivery: Competitive Difference

Posted on 29 November, 20227 August, 2025 by David Priestman

Peak season home delivery is more complex than ever. Andrew Tavener of Descartes explains how businesses should address the critical challenges.

In the face of peak season order volumes, last-mile delivery has become a trigger point for defining the customer experience. Unfortunately, as consumers head into the holiday shopping season, many are frustrated and taking action against poor performers.

A recent study of 8,000 European and North American consumers found that nearly three-quarters (73 percent) of consumers experienced delivery problems in the October–December 2021 holiday shopping period. The top three issues (see illustration) were related to timeliness: deliveries were late (26 percent); deliveries didn’t arrive when promised (22 percent); and time windows for deliveries were too long and inconvenient (22 percent). Plus, a disgruntled 16 percent didn’t receive their delivery.

This poor delivery performance can be catastrophic for retailers during peak season, especially with many online vendors relying on high sales volumes during the holidays to buoy revenues. Nearly one-quarter (23 percent) of the study respondents refused to order from poorly performing retailers again; nearly a quarter lost trust in both the delivery company (24 percent) and the retailer (21 percent). Additionally, 17 percent of consumers indicated they advised friends and family to avoid the retailer. E-commerce vendors that accept mediocre delivery quality will likely experience hits to their holiday sales tallies as consumers turn to competitors that do find ways to meet consumers’ expectations.

Meeting the delivery performance expectations of holiday shoppers begins well before the product is loaded onto the truck — with visibility into the warehouse. From an inventory management (and customer trust) perspective, retailers must ensure the products presented online accurately reflect available inventory. Furthermore, consumers should be able to choose from various delivery options at the point of sale (POS).

On the home delivery front, while delivery speed remains – for many consumers – a factor in purchase decisions, notably, consumers place more value on retailers keeping their delivery promise. To meet delivery expectations and keep customers happy (preventing failed deliveries and returning for post-holiday purchases), e-commerce retailers must find ways to boost last-mile efficiency, productivity and reliability.

Sustainable home delivery

If all these factors weren’t challenging enough, further research around home delivery sustainability has revealed its increasing importance to a significant percentage of consumers. Indeed, only 38 percent of over 8000 consumers across nine countries in Europe and North America thought that most retailers were doing a good job of sustainable home delivery.

Furthermore, 60 percent of consumers today have environmental importance expectations for their home deliveries – from combining orders, accepting longer lead times for delivery, to having the retailer recommend the most friendly delivery option. And, if we look five years ahead, there is also a growing trend from consumers that the use of eco-friendly vehicles and a retailer’s ability to show home delivery carbon footprint will play a factor in their purchasing choices.

If a proportion of consumers are willing to compromise on convenience to ensure greater retailer sustainability, then the imperative to get efficiency and reliability right holds even greater emphasis, with a focus on making every mile as green as possible.

Competitive differentiator

While critical to an optimised customer experience, final mile delivery is a complex part of the fulfilment process – and is only becoming increasingly more so.

By implementing technology that creates efficiencies across the delivery lifecycle — from dynamic delivery appointment scheduling, delivery route planning, and continuous route optimisation to GPS-enabled real-time mobile tracking, mobile proof-of-delivery, and delivery status notifications — retailers can give consumers more delivery choices, improve delivery reliability, keep customers informed of delivery status, and – crucially – provide different consumers with parameters for home delivery that suit their specific priorities.

Indeed, gearing up with the right technology tools can help e-commerce retailers keep their delivery promise, whatever that may be — a critical factor in building customer loyalty and driving repeat business — by ensuring customers get the products they want, delivered to their door, at the expected time.

Moreover, these tools can also lay the foundation for agile and dynamic home delivery options that meet consumers’ growing needs for both convenience and sustainability.

www.descartes.com

Electric vans “could be worked harder”

Posted on 29 November, 202229 July, 2025 by David Priestman

Petrol and diesel-powered light commercial vehicles (LCVs) are being worked more than twice as hard as electric vans within the same customer fleets, despite the average daily mileage being well within the range of an electric LCV.

Detailed analysis of more than 85,000 vehicle records by Michelin Connected Fleet’s data science team found the average internal combustion-engined (ICE) van travels 63 miles per day, compared with just 28 miles for an electric LCV.

Michelin Connected Fleet also found that 59% of electric vehicles (EVs) are being plugged in when the state of charge is greater than 50% – which negatively impacts driver productivity, particularly given half of charging events occur during the daytime. This overcharging is also putting lithium-ion batteries through unnecessary charging cycles which could cause them to deteriorate faster, negatively impacting range and residuals.

Alberto De Monte, Business Segment Director for EV and OEM at Michelin Connected Fleet, says: “Range anxiety is clearly impacting the fleet market’s confidence in electric vans, resulting in EVs being overcharged, and under-worked.

“In most applications the EVs you buy today have the range to do the job of a petrol or diesel-powered van in and around cities, but they’re being deployed on the lightest duty work – whilst ICE assets are being worked harder, which is less efficient and increases emissions.”

Electric vans overcharged

Michelin Connected Fleet’s analysis has also revealed that van drivers charged batteries to 90% or more in 76% of the charging events it studied – in comparison with car drivers who hit 90% or more in only 58% of instances.

De Monte adds: “We know lithium-ion batteries perform best when the state of charge is maintained between 20 to 80%, and the general advice is to only charge the battery fully if you need that additional range for a particularly long journey.

“What we’re seeing points to more guidance being needed for fleets to ensure they are maximising the benefits which transitioning to EVs offer; and not storing up issues which could impact performance and residuals down the line.”

Michelin Connected Fleet offers a dedicated electric vehicle fleet management service called MoveElectric, designed to help businesses of all sizes to lower fleet CO2 emissions, reduce operating costs, and to integrate EVs for the most efficient last mile delivery strategy.

MoveElectric brings easy-to-use tools to help fleets plan, grow and master all aspects of EV fleet management, from identifying routes to achieving EV roll-out. It forms part of a comprehensive fleet management solution to help connect vehicles, optimise performance, and gain greater visibility across an entire fleet based upon informed data-driven choices.

Michelin Connected Fleet will be using its attendance at the London EV Show 2022 (29th November – 1st December 2022, ExCel London) to talk to fleets about the importance of switching to EVs, and showcasing how MoveElectric can support the transition.