Economic Watch: Manufacturing Slips as E-Commerce Jumps

New economic reports this week paint a picture of a U.S. economy that continues to gain momentum following a slow start to the year, due in part to increased e-commerce – despite some bumps in the road for manufacturing and housing.

Industrial production rose 0.2% in July from the month before, following an increase of 0.4% in June, according to Federal Reserve figures issued Thursday morning

In July, manufacturing output edged down 0.1% as the production of motor vehicles and parts fell substantially, marking the third straight monthly drop. That decrease was mostly offset by a net gain of 0.2% for other manufacturing industries. When the manufacturing sector is compared to a year earlier, it is up 1.2%.

The indexes for mining and utilities in July rose 0.5% and 1.6%, respectively, from the month before.

At 105.5% of its 2012 average, total industrial production was 2.2% above its year-earlier level.

“This report, which is the first definitive look at July's factory sector, is unexpectedly flat and puts an end to the run of recently strong economic data,” said analysts at Econoday. “Vehicle sales were up in July, but it has been a tough year for the sector. And given the decline in this report's manufacturing component, the upward momentum that the factory sector was showing looks less certain now.”

The report follows a separate one earlier in the month focusing exclusively on the manufacturing sector. It showed factory activity in July continued growing but the pace was slower than it was during June.

Manufacturing is estimated to make up about 12% of all U.S. economic activity.

A separate report released Thursday by the Commerce Department showed U.S. e-commerce in the second quarter grew significantly and faster than overall U.S. retail sales.

The 4.8% increase from the ...Read the rest of this story

Trailer Orders Decline But Meet Expectations

Photo: Great Dane

The final trailer order numbers for the month of July have been released by transportation industry analysts FTR and ACT Research, showing a steep decline from the previous month, but an increase overall compared to last year.

FTR found that trailer orders hit 13,400 units, falling 29% from June but up 40% compared to last July. Order activity met expectations in most segments, according to FTR.

“Orders usually fall as fleet managers take a break and turn their focus to next year,” said Don Ake, FTR vice president of commercial vehicles. “The bright spots this month are the strong flatbed orders, and that production did not fall much from June's impressive totals. This indicates production should be fairly steady the rest of the year.”

July is usually the weakest order month of the year, according to ACT Research, due to a pause from fleets as they reassess equipment needs for the rest of the year.

“We saw continued strong year-over-year net order performance last month,” said Frank Maly, ACT's director of CV transportation analysis and research. “As has been the pattern, solid dry van commitments helped lead the total industry, with significant year-over-year gains in flatbed trailers occurring as well.”

So far this year, the industry has booked over 153,000 net orders, according to ACT, representing a 43% improvement over 2016. The shift by fleets to a more positive outlook coincided with last fall's election, according to ACT.

“Another positive for the industry is that cancellations remain low,” said Maly. “Fleets are obviously standing firm with their order commitments, an indication of fleet confidence in the near-to-medium term outlook.”

Related: HDT's 2017 Trailer Update

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TMW Adds Real-Time Freight Tracking to TMS Solutions

Fleets using TMW Systems' Innovative IES, Access, or AccessPlus transportation management solutions can now extend real-time order and shipping information to their customers with the IES Freight Tracker portal, an integrated customer service and dispatch.

Replacing TMW's Pressurize platforms, the new visibility portal enables carriers to improve customer satisfaction through accurate, transparent and timely order updates.

“More than ever before, transportation and logistics providers are facing pressure to provide customers with transparency into every step of the delivery process,” said Ray West, senior vice president and general manager of TMS solutions for TMW. “With the launch of the IES Freight Tracker portal, we are enabling Innovative IES users to meet these heightened expectations by giving them a way to provide customers with accurate, up-to-date load status whenever and wherever they want to access them.”

The IES Freight Tracker portal is designed to be a scalable and cost-effective customer support tool that integrates into a user's existing Innovative IES platform. The web-based solution allows carriers to view shipments from multiple customer codes and utilize drag-and-drop functionality to reposition shipment details.

Users can offer their customers configurable, secure access to real-time delivery details. Transportation providers can easily customize settings for each customer, allowing them to view orders based on type and to sort and filter shipment details. In addition, customers can use the portal to access shipment documents and related images, export shipment data to Excel, and create up to seven hyperlinks to important documents indexed by order number.

Implementation of the IES Freight Tracker portal requires the use of Innovative IES, Access, or Access Plus solutions in version R9.7 or later along with the Innovative Web Edition module. Other requirements include an internet-connected device with a web browser and business-quality internet bandwidth.

Related: TMW Updates Billing, Planning, Business Tools

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TMW Expands Engage Series Bid Management Platform Functionality

TMW Systems announced new functionality for users of the company's Engage Series bid management platform that allows for tracking and analysis of shipper commitments.

Orders can now be processed through a user's transportation management system (TMS) or other solution to be matched with the corresponding bid award, helping Engage users ensure that shippers are meeting or exceeding their agreements. The application can be used with any TMS or other business management solution.

The Engage.Bid application allows transportation providers to streamline the freight bidding process by simplifying the analysis and storage of shipper requests for proposal (RFPs), providing easy access to rates and volume commitments, and providing a streamlined workflow for responding to RFPs. The application lets users process more bids, in less time, with fewer resources, while offering insight to lane rate, revenue potential, and other key metrics, according to TMW. The newly released Engage Series functionality allows users to join this bid intelligence with data for the actual freight delivered.

“Carriers, brokers, and 3PLs invest a great deal of time and energy in researching and competing for new business, yet too often lose sight of the actual outcome of many of those contracts,” said David Wangler, president of TMW Systems. “Engage helps make them more efficient and competitive on the front end of this process, while this new integration functionality helps ensure they realize the negotiated volume and revenue from each contract.”

Related: TMW Updates Billing, Planning, Business Tools

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TIA’s Voltmann shares details of White House meeting

July 31 was a “crazy day” at the White House, according to Robert Voltmann, president and CEO of the Transportation Intermediaries Associations (TIA).

As news broke that John Kelly, President Trump's new chief of staff, had fired communications director Anthony Scaramucci, Voltmann and the TIA leadership team were at the White House meeting with public liaison official Melissa Fwu.

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Trump Executive Order Aims to Speed Infrastructure Projects

Somewhat lost in the turmoil of Wednesday's contentious White House press conference was a new Executive Order issued by President Trump aimed at rebuilding the country's deteriorating infrastructure. In a statement, the president said, “Crumbling infrastructure will be replaced with new roads, bridges, tunnels, airports, and railways gleaming across our very, very beautiful land.”

In keeping with President Trump's campaign theme and promises, the White House said this latest Executive Order would curb or remove unnecessary red tape and a “fragmented, inefficient and unpredictable” system for environmental reviews. The infrastructure Executive Order will require agencies to track the costs of conducting environmental reviews and making permitting decisions.

According to the White House, regulatory red tape routinely holds up major infrastructure projects for years at significant cost to the economy. The White House cited a 2014 Government Accountability Office report saying it takes seven years on average for a complex highway project to go through the entire environmental review process. The White House also noted findings by National Association of Environmental Professionals, which found a single agency can take 3.7 to 5 years on average to complete an environmental review. The new Executive Order establishes a two-year goal to process environmental documents for major infrastructure projects.

According to the White House, President Trump's Executive Order will make the environmental and permitting processes needed for major infrastructure projects more efficient and effective. Rather than allow for a patchwork of agency reviews, the White House says this order implements a One Federal Decision policy under which the lead federal agency will work with other relevant federal agencies to complete the environmental reviews and permitting decisions needed for major ...Read the rest of this story

FourKites Recognized by Frost & Sullivan

Helping to plug the holes in freight visibility for shippers and 3PLs earned FourKites, Chicago, the 2017 North American Dynamic Supply Chain Tracking Solutions Entrepreneurial Company of the Year Award from Frost & Sullivan, which lauded the company's efforts to build a software platform to modernize information sharing within the logistics industry.

Essentially, the company “scrape” data from different sources to provide shippers and 3PLs real-time visibility of their shipments regardless of the type of data, explained Craig Fiander, senior vice president, global business development.

Establishing relationships with the carriers a shipper uses, FourKites' platform is able to integrate carrier dispatch and GPS information to provide visibility of shipments.

In addition to working with shippers, the company also provides a carrier portal built to upgrade EDI 214 infrastructures with real-time tracking data and geo-fencing. This allows carriers provide load information to customers without the need for check calls. The software uses a proprietary algorithm to calculate accurate ETAs.

FourKites has built relationships with most major TMS and mobile communications providers, allowing them to provide accurate visibility no matter what system a carrier or shipper may be using. For carriers, the system can be easily integrated into the company's existing dispatch, Fiander said, making deployment quick and easy.

In the case where a carrier is hauling multiple loads, carriers can give their customers access only information on their specific load. In other words, if a truck delivers a load to store A and then delivers to store B, the shipper for store B will only see the information regarding his load, explained Dan Buchholz, FourKites solution engineer. The platform can be used on any mode of transportation – truckload, LTL, intermodal, etc., Buchholz said.

For shippers, this capability is very attractive as it allows them to follow their shipments regardless of where they are or what they ...Read the rest of this story