SCMv2.0

RFID Bill in Assembly Judiciary Committee

" California Assembly Judiciary Committee today approved two bills, SB 433 and SB 1078, which would put a three-year moratorium on the use of RFID in driver's licenses and student identification cards, respectively. Both bills had previously been approved by the Senate. SB 433 is now headed for the Assembly's Transportation committee, while SB 1078 goes to the Education Committee" [via]

However, I remember that the GAO has a report that cautions the state governements on RFID privacy issues for citizens.

Crtical Supply Chain

"Same-day fulfillment and extended order times will be provided, thus eliminating, at least partially, the use of regional warehouses. In addition, customers will be given real-time, next-flight-out and courier visibility, event notification, monitoring, recovery and proof of delivery" [via]

FedEx Corp. announced Tuesday the launch of a new supply chain service called FedEx Critical Inventory Logistics.  This is interesting, but at what price will this be leveraged into the market. High Tech folios know what what the productions lines consuption is very early in the Process an Production planning cycles. High Tech industries cant afford their Siemens Backoff and Screen machines to go dry for lack of components. So i am failing to see extactly what value is being brought here. If its see critical, then these high tech's will just ship it with a Person a "hand carry". Same day fulliflment is difficult, unless you know stock levels at the down stream providers.

Anyhow, this is the talk of in the markets and I wanted to rant my thoughts too :)-

Eco Friendly Package delivery

"The UPS trucks using eco-friendly combustibles have made over 100 million miles of package delivering, since the beginning of their mileage count, back in 2000.

UPS considers introducing 50 hybrid electric vehicles in 2007, providing a 35 pct boost in fuel efficiency compared to trucks replaced.

The number of pollution-efficient trucks UPS uses will rise to 12,100 by year's end. "

[via]

This means a lot of more eco friendly trucks by the end of 2010. Unless, the major players get serious with eco friendly delivery, the ice caps will melt :)_ On a more serious note. I think that UPS is heading the movement with hybrid trucks. However, FEDEX is already (IMHO) doing some major research in ethonal.

Fedex Upgraded

Analysts at Robert W Baird maintain their "outperform" rating on FedEx Corporation (FDX.NYS). The target price is set to $128. The company to issue its EPS growth guidance for FY07 at 10%-15%, in-line with its long-term target. [via]

Is MSFT Serious in the RFID space ?

This is good news for MSFT and the RFID space. I noted the chatter here eariler. Now, they are more formally announcing their Value Props.

"In an attempt to play a more direct role in supply chain and business-to-business e-commerce processes, Microsoft Corp. yesterday said it will upgrade its popular BizTalk Server integration middleware product, allowing it to integrate more easily with radio frequency identification (RFID) and electronic data interchange (EDI) technologies." [via]

MSFT is a late entry into this space. But they are contenders for the small and Medium business Entiries and manufactors. Hugh markets here. Vertical stretchs into a couple of B$ value for next 5 years. I wonder, why MSFT does not have a consultancy team for SCM and RFID's ? After all, SaaS is now becoming the next wave paradigm.

Strategically, just having a platform is not enough in todays market place !!

Watch a GPS Phone Being Delivered via UPS Live!

"This is just amazingly cool! Mike Pegg, of GoogleMapsMania, and I are presenting some of the best Google Maps and Google Earth applications at next week's Google Geo Developer Day at the Googleplex (a special invite-only) for Where 2.0 conference.

Here's the really amazing part: Tim turned the phone on when he dropped it off at the shipping office a little while ago, so you can watch the phone as it's being delivered to Mike live right now! View the phone track by going to this Google Maps mashup. Select the "Get History" option to see the track in Google Maps where the phone has been today (it started off on 06/07/2006). You can then choose "View history in Google Earth" to see the track overlayed in the aerial photos of Google Earth. " Via :gearth

This mega kewl. Think of the application area via Truck GPS assosiated along with a a package with an RFID tag ?? This will make history !!

FEDEX gets It Badly

I think that FEDEX get bummed on this round. usatoday is reporting that a Cali court has awarded $61M !!

A Superior Court jury awarded $61 million to two FedEx drivers of Lebanese descent who claimed a manager harassed them with racial slurs for two years.

Edgar Rizkallah, 43, and Kamil Issa, 36, both of Pleasanton, said in the discrimination lawsuit they were called "terrorists," "camel jockeys" and other epithets in 1999 and 2000 by Stacy Shoun, terminal manager for the Oakland FedEx Ground facility where the two men were contract drivers.

$50 million in punitive and $11 million is compensatory. Somehow, I think that this is fair value to be paying out. No, I am not a laywer and neither know the Defendants. However, I respect FEDEX as a good player in the markets. I am pretty sure, that this is more hype that anything else and FEDEX gets  a bummer deal. Yeah, they will appeal. However, this is an eyeopener in terms of Work Practices and penalty systems being enforced by the statues of law. Off course Cali is 'Sue" country !!

UPS and Rolls Royce partnership

Rolls-Royce signs engine services deal with UPS for the U.S. firm's 40 RB211-535-powered Boeing 757 aircraft for 15 years.  I posted earlier FEDEX partnership with Pratt

Anyone know what DHL's contracts are , then please leave me a comment :)-

UPS are the only MatchMakers for Whale Sharks

UPS seems to be the only Whale Shark Matchmakers in the world.  Just think of it, the logistic's and scope of such an effort. These are not packages , these are large living creatures !!

The Georgia Aquarium's two male whale sharks, Ralph and Norton, received a special delivery from UPS (NYSE:UPS) today - two females, named Alice and Trixie. UPS previously transported the two males to Atlanta 366 days ago.  The two females were flown more than 8,000 miles on a specially configured UPS B-747 freighter from Taipei, Taiwan, through Anchorage to Atlanta.

Whale sharks are the largest fish on earth, and UPS is the only airline to ever fly the species across the Pacific..

Eariler I posted on how did the whales  Nico and Gasper  fly !!

DHL and Cyberjaya

DHL is now reaching critical threshold in infrastrcuture investments for the Far East Asia and Asia Markets strategy.   DHL's additional investment of RM50mil in the IT (information technology) Services Centre Cyberjaya (ITSC Cyberjaya) reflects its commitment and confidence in Malaysia and the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC).

Cyberjaya represents a key part of the global IT infrastructure that drives DHL's global express and logistics business. It is one of four global data centres that make up DHL's IT services group, with the responsibility for the design, development, implementation and the service delivery management of its IT solutions worldwide. The IT services group, which includes three other global data centres located in the US, Czech Republic and Germany, also provides centralised technical and application support functions.