UK – The British International Freight Association's (BIFA) Young Forwarders Network (YFN) is celebrating a very successful first year of operations. Since launching, the YFN has created six regional networking groups, with more on the way, all run by young forwarders and designed to help early talent and young BIFA members develop their knowledge and professional skills, but in a more social environment.
Carl Hobbis, BIFA’s training development manager reports that over 400 young individuals have attended the 20+ networking events that have been run to date, which gives a clear demonstration of their perceived value by the younger generation in the freight forwarding and logistics sector. The next Heathrow networking event will take place in Staines on March 24, 2020, and will focus on technology in the supply chain, with attendees receiving a presentation from Waldo Remijn, director process & technology excellence, OIA Global. Registration via this link.
UK – North Wales logistics outfit Delivery Solutions (Delsol) has bought Caernarfon based haulier HF Owen Transport and Storage from Harry Owen the retiring owner. The company will continue to trade under the HF Owen name and three members of the founder’s family, including daughter Helen and son Harry junior, will continue with the business along with 10 other staff.
This means Delsol, which is upgrading the Owen vehicle fleet, has its own depot in Caernarfon as well as one in Sandycroft, and now employs over 170 staff and has a fleet of more than 120 vehicles. The company, which celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2019, offers parcel delivery, haulage, storage, pallet distribution, air and sea freight and transport of hazardous chemicals.
UK – Children North East, the region’s oldest independent children’s charity, based in Newcastle is developing its Little Friends project with the support of the Port of Tyne which has donated almost £500,000 in grants over the past 13 years through the Port of Tyne Community Action Fund to the benefit of over 180 community organisations. Over two years offers to around 20 families with young children in the Cowgate area of Newcastle will include activities for children, support for parents and other family members in need of advice or guidance.
In particular the project will support young mums by offering opportunities for their personal development, offering parental education and other training workshops to equip parents with new skills. Parents and their children will also be offered family activities in the school holidays so that low income families have access to free family fun sessions, along with trips into the city to explore free access venues such as parks, museums and galleries.
UK – FRANCE – Getlink (formerly Eurotunnel) tell us that Le Shuttle Freight carried 131,346 trucks in February 2020, a decrease of 7% compared to February 2019, which benefitted strongly from the stockpiling phenomenon in anticipation of Brexit. No impact from covid-19 has been identified at this stage. Since the beginning of the year, more than 260,000 trucks have crossed with Le Shuttle Freight.
UK – Kerry Logistics has moved its air freight division in the UK into a new warehouse/office facility at the Skyport Heathrow site. The logistics outfit has 40,000 square feet of warehousing there operating 24/7. It provides a fully temperature-controlled bonded warehouse including deep frozen storage, pick and pack machinery, vacuum cooling and other operations.
The facility has achieved a rating of AA+ under the new BRC Global Standard for Food Safety Issue 8 with the company saying it is looking to continue its growth in pharmaceuticals and perishables, including shellfish and seafood.
GERMANY – Imperial Logistics International has opened its latest multi-user warehouse, in Werne which provides an under-cover storage area of 22,000 m2, with racking for over 21,000 pallets and 11,000 parts bins already installed, and over 8,500 m2 of floor storage space. In addition, the facility features 24 truck doors, a yard and parking area of 7000 m2, container loading and unloading facilities and a paperless order picking system.
The location of the facility provides easy access to Germany’s A1 and A2 autobahns, and is well-served by courier and express companies and adjacent land is available for potential future expansion. Imperial says for one client alone it is already responsible for receiving, warehousing and processing hundreds of inbound lines, combining components from external suppliers with finished goods from the customer’s own production facilities, and handling inventory control for outbound lines and frequent trailer shuttles to and from manufacturing sites.
WORLDWIDE – Having already seen the cancellation or postponements of Intermodal Asia and the IAPH 2020 World Ports Conference, comes more Covid-19 Coronavirus chaos with several more shipping and logistics related events cancelled. These include the following Digital Ship events with interested parties advised to consult the website for new dates and information
Also cancelled is Foodex, the industry process, packaging and logistics event which was to be held at the NEC Birmingham March 30 to April 1 but will be replaced by Foodex 2021 April 12 to 14 at the same venue next year. Meanwhile CakeBoxx Technologies, the company producing the innovative range of ‘base and lid’ containers has postponed its Operational Demonstration that was scheduled for 26 March in Jacksonville, Florida.
In Australia the Australian Trucking Association (ATA) has cancelled its Trucking Australia 2020 conference, which was to be held in Cairns from 1-3 April. The ATA directors said for thirty years, the ATA has argued that it is good business for trucking companies to implement health and safety measures that go beyond government requirements and therefore could do nothing else but apply the same ethos to their own event.
Meanwhile Informa, which owns a raft of shipping related publications amongst others, and derives 60% of its income from organising events, has cancelled or postponed around 500 of these, worth a reported £425 million to the group. Informa had already seen a drop in share value of about a third since January, falling from over 840 six months ago to under 527 today.
WORLDWIDE – Maritime crisis and corporate communications agencies Navigate PR, Navigate Response, Response Asia, and Helix Media (together known as Navigate) have been acquired by Witt O’Brien’s, a subsidiary of maritime services company Seacor. Navigate specialises in communications for the global maritime sector and is based in the Baltic Exchange in London, Hamburg and Singapore. The group supports the owners and managers of more than 4,000 vessels across several asset classes while representing maritime organisations across a range of corporate communications services.
WORLDWIDE – Ship management group Anglo-Eastern has completed the successful roll-out of DNV GL’s Navigator Port system to its fleet of more than 600 vessels. The software is used daily on board several thousand ships worldwide for management of port documentation, assisting seafarers in navigating the administrative and regulatory complexity of port clearance and passage through controlled waters, with claims it can reduce paperwork by up to 90%
Approximately 1,400 port clearance forms are automatically filled in with ship data, so the required paperwork can be prepared in a few minutes. The system reports directly to maritime authorities, such as the Electronic Notice of Arrival/Departure (eNOAD) to the United States Coast Guard, and the Electronic Pre-Arrival Notification (ePAN) to the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore. In addition, Navigator Port includes a database of information about all the world’s ports and terminals based on publications and data from IHS Markit Ports & Terminals Guide, ADMIRALTY List of Radio Signals (Volume 6) and other sources.
Photo: With the coronavirus sweeping the earth prepare for many more big ticket events to be postponed or cancelled.
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