American Trucking Assns.' Agricultural and Food Transporters Conference, along with the American Frozen Food Institute, launched a new online self-assessment tool to help motor carriers evaluate their processes and procedures for complying with the Food Safety Modernization Act.
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...Read the rest of this storyProfessional drivers have a new place to rest and access meals and other services in a new part of North Carolina. The Love's Travel Stop in Mebane opened for business along Interstate 40/85 and Trollingwood Hawfields Road (Exit 152).
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...Read the rest of this storyPhoto: Wabash National
">Photo: Wabash National
">Trailer maker Wabash National Corp. (NYSE:WNC) will acquire truck body maker Supreme Industries, Inc. (NYSE MKT:STS), the two Indiana-based manufacturers announced late on August 12.
The driving factor behind the buy was cited as the impact that the rising tide of e-commerce shipping business is having on the need for more “final mile” deliveries.
“Wabash National has been closely monitoring the transportation landscape as the growth of e-commerce has continued to change the logistics model,” said Dick Giromini, CEO of Wabash National, in a statement.
“We formally entered the final mile space in 2015 with the launch of our dry and refrigerated truck bodies, and we have been aggressively growing our presence and product offering over the past two years," he continued. "This acquisition supports these efforts and accelerates our objective to transform our business into a more diversified industrial manufacturer.”
“Combining with Wabash will enhance our ability to innovate more quickly and create more value for customers,” said Supreme Industries CEO Officer Mark Weber. “We found a cultural fit with Wabash National. Because of their commitment to safety, innovation and customer relationships, I'm confident joining the Wabash National family will benefit our employees, customers and distributors.”
The firms stated they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Wabash National would acquire all of the outstanding shares of Supreme in a cash tender offer for $21 per share, which represents an equity value of $364 million and an enterprise value of $342 million.
Wabash National, launch in 1985 in Lafayette Ind., is among North America's top producers of semi-trailers and liquid transportation systems. Its products include dry van and reefer trailers and truck bodies as well as platform and bulk tank trailers. Founded in 1974, Goshen, Ind.-based Supreme is one of the largest U.S. manufacturers of truck bodies, ...Read the rest of this story
Truck driver Robert Palm knows what it's like to be on the road, away from friends and family when a medical emergency strikes. The 35-year highway veteran was severely injured in a crash in 1997. He was hospitalized again in 2010, far from his home, with a ruptured appendix.
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...Read the rest of this storyImage via Zonar
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">Cummins Connected Diagnostics is now available to customers using Zonar's smart fleet management solution, offering critical information on engine maintenance and repair.
By obtaining data through Zonar's V3 telematics control unit, Cummins Connected Diagnostics wirelessly connects an engine to Cummins for immediate diagnosis of engine fault alerts. Using Cummins' algorithms, Connected Diagnostics prioritizes engine fault information and translates it into clear, actionable recommendations that are sent to operations managers.
With the report, fleet managers can intervene when service is needed immediately or proactively schedule a service event to prevent progressive damage to a vehicle.
"Offering even more of our customers access to Connected Diagnostics through Zonar's V3 device, we're able to deliver the information our customers need to avoid unexpected downtime and maintenance costs, as well as improve efficiencies across their operations," said Sherry Aaholm, vice president and chief information officer at Cummins.
Cummins Connected Diagnostics are available now on vehicles operating with Zonar's V3 solution. Existing Zonar customers can enable Connected Diagnostics with an over-the-air update.
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Related: The Modern Maintenance Manager: The Connected Shop
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Pardon me if I am not excited about Amazon.com's June announcement that it plans to purchase Whole Foods Market. While some people, both inside and outside of trucking, are predicting it will be a game-changer after it closes sometime in the second half of this year, it may not be as big of a deal for trucking as they think.
For starters, Whole Foods captured just 1.7% of the $750 billion grocery market last year. In contrast, Walmart has the largest slice at 17.3%. When you consider that Walmart and seven other companies have a combined market share of nearly half of the U.S. market, it's easy to see that Amazon is getting only a small slice of the nation's grocery pie.
Second, while Amazon is no doubt king of online sales, it has little experience running brick and mortar stores. With its purchase of Whole Foods, it gets more than 460 of them, and 87,000 additional employees. Only recently has Amazon branched out from its online confines, opening just a few dozen small “pop up” stores in malls to showcase its electronics devices, plus less than a dozen bookstores.
Third, while experts have speculated that the deal will be a big boost for the grocery delivery market (helping Amazon broaden its fledgling AmazonFresh and Amazon Go grocery offerings), the fact is that delivering groceries, especially perishables, isn't the same as delivering books and music.
Amazon.com got its start delivering these items to customers and then branched out to most any kind of item you could need (and many you don't.) But these items don't go bad if it takes a while for them to get delivered. Perishable items are another matter. Most of the perishable items Amazon currently offers are fulfilled by third-party retailers. In other words, they leave it to someone else ...Read the rest of this story
Denso Corp. says it's starting a new company, NSITEXE Inc., to design and develop semiconductor IP cores – key semiconductor components for automated driving technology, according to the company.
Advanced electronic controls are needed for in-vehicle technologies such as advanced driver assistance systems and automated driving in next-generation vehicles. Denso's new company will develop high-performance, low-power semiconductors that will be required in these vehicle technologies to process large amounts of data from sensors and external communications at a high speed. The data is used to help the systems make decisions for automated driving functions.
NSITEXE's next-generation processors will be designed to collect and analyze that sensor and communications data to determine what the vehicle needs to do. The semiconductor IP Cores optimized for in-vehicle applications will then be licensed to in-vehicle microcomputer and system-on-a-chip manufacturers for use in driver assistance and automated vehicle systems.
The company will be established in September with an initial capital investment of around $1 million. It will be completely owned by Denso and be headed by Yukihide Niimi as president.
Related: Trucking Industry Debates Driver-Assistance Technologies
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