All Feature articles – Page 87
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Digitalisation: for better or for worse, you can't just ignore it
Disruption or continuous improvement? That is the question over what digitalisation, autonomy and electrification will do to automotive logistics. Will new players swipe away older ones as though deleting undesirables on an app, or will technology improve efficiency and customer reach?The stock market drives the bleaker outlook for some. With ...
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New UK customs system may not be ready in time for Brexit
The UK Audit Office has warned in a report this week that while progress has been made in designing and developing the new Customs Declaration Service (CDS), there is a risk its full functionality and scope will not be in place by the time the UK leaves the EU in ...
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Stronger than ever
ECG president Wolfgang Göbel sees plenty of things to celebrate this year – even if political turmoil and gridlock are getting in the wayLast issue, I wrote that 2017 was on track to be ECG’s busiest year yet. In this edition I am happy to say that continues to be ...
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UK extends financial support for export trade to supply chain SMEs
The UK’s Department for International Trade (DIT) has said it will provide government-backed financial support to supply chain companies involved in exporting goods from the country, including those from the automotive sector.The UK’s export credit agency, UK Export Finance (UKEF), which works alongside the DIT, plans to help both exporters ...
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Chinese consortium bids $11.6 billion for Global Logistic Properties
Singapore’s Global Logistic Properties (GLP) has received a S$16 billion ($11.6 billion) takeover offer from a consortium of Chinese investors, in what would be the biggest private equity buyout of an Asian company by enterprise value.GLP, which owns and operates a global portfolio of 55m sq.m of space, announced a ...
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FedEx admits TNT hasn’t fully recovered from June’s cyber-attack
Global courier company FedEx has admitted that its subsidiary TNT Express is continuing to suffer from the effects of last month’s cyber-attack. The firm is still processing some transactions manually, it said, and some data may never be fully recovered.“All TNT depots, hubs and facilities are operational and most TNT ...
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Kumar replaces Ramakrishnan as head of SCM at Honda Cars India
PR Ramakrishnan (pictured) has retired from his role as general manager of supply chain management at Honda Cars India after almost 10 years in the company.Honda Cars India has not officially confirmed it but Automotive Logistics understands his replacement to be Udit Kumar, who moves from his role as divisional ...
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Nafta document shows US wants to retain tariff-free trade
A summary of the US’s objectives in upcoming negotiations over the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) has highlighted a clear desire to retain tariff-free trade arrangements with Canada and Mexico.Though the summary highlights a reduction of the country’s two large trade deficits with its North American partners as the ...
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Mexican ports report boom in vehicle traffic
Mexico's ports saw a 42% increase in finished vehicle traffic in the first five months of this year, figures from the country's Transport & Communications Ministry (SCT) have shown.During the period, total finished vehicle throughput reached 667,881 units, compared to just 470,350 units in January-May 2016.Ports in the Gulf of ...
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Mercedes-Benz names Untertürkheim as fourth battery production facility
Mercedes-Benz has revealed that its Untertürkheim plant in Germany will be its fourth global battery manufacturing facility.Currently, the six-facility plant in the Neckar Valley, near Stuttgart, produces internal combustion engines, transmissions and axles. The OEM already plans to develop the plant to manufacture electric vehicle powertrain components, however, including electric ...
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Different digital paces
The headline above might well have read ‘industry and logistics 4.0’, ‘the industrial internet of things’, ‘factories of the future’, ‘smart supply chains’ or ‘manufacturing 2025’.Or we might have turned to one of a growing number of acronyms used to outline the car industry’s future, like Mercedes-Benz Car’s CASE or ...
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Michelin opens £10m distribution centre in Stoke-on-Trent
Michelin has opened its £10m European distribution centre (EDC) in Stoke-on-Trent in the UK.The 53,500 sq.m facility, which will also host a national distribution centre (NDC) for Michelin’s tyre service company, ATS Euromaster, has been redeveloped to include 26 loading bays.Together, the two sites can handle more than 5m tyres ...
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Kuehne + Nagel fights off margin pressure in the first half of 2017
Earnings at Kuehne + Nagel (KN) in the first half of 2017 remained unchanged compared to the last year at 356m Swiss francs ($372m) – despite an 8.2% increase in net turnover to 8.8 billion Swiss francs. Gross profit during the period rose 3.7% to 3.38 billion Swiss francs.The company’s ...
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Hiraguri replaces Ballard in logistics role at Toyota Motor Europe
Jonathan Ballard has left Toyota Motor Europe (TME) after 25 years with the company. He was most recently director of production control – manufacturing support, logistics at the company.Toyota said Ballard had left on June 26th for personal reasons.“We regret this decision but thank Jonathan for his contribution to Toyota ...
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Smart packaging: The quest for greater precision
Packaging is one area in the automotive supply chain in which greater connectivity and ‘internet of things’ (IoT) devices have the potential to make significant improvements. Many of the chronic issues that accompany the management and flow of equipment, including missing or incorrect containers, damage to parts, as well as ...
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GAC China to provide logistics services for luxury car imports
Chinese car importer, Shandong Hi-Speed Qingdao West Coast Port, has chosen GAC China, the logistics and shipping services provider, to handle receiving, loading and freight services for luxury European vehicle imports to Qingdao and Hong Kong.GAC China said it would be handling 3,000-4,000 cars shipped from the ports of Hamburg ...
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Project cargo: Achieving mission impossible
Project cargo logistics is a term that covers a wide range of activities, from the movement of unusually large or heavy loads to the management of time-critical ones. In basic terms, it can be defined as the coordination, planning and management of particularly challenging logistics projects.In the automotive sector, examples ...
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Jaguar Land Rover confirms E-Pace production will not be in UK
As part of the launch, a stunt driver completed a world-record barrel-roll jump over 15.3mJaguar Land Rover (JLR) has said its new Jaguar E-Pace compact SUV, launched on Thursday, will be produced in Austria and China – making it the first of its cars not to be manufactured in ...
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Middle East and Africa: Ford opens up the highways
An army marches on its stomach, Napoleon is reputed to have said, in perhaps one of history’s earliest endorsements of the wisdom of sound logistics infrastructure. These days, as those in the automotive industry know, good logistics in the marketplace is often the key to winning business and meeting the ...
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Suzuki gets its delivery priorities in order
A prolonged period of strong sales growth in the UK means Suzuki now imports more than double the number of vehicles it did five years ago into the country. This expansion has put pressure on the company’s finished vehicle supply chain. It has also come at a time when customer ...