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Materials handling clockspeed Damco unveils new digitized service for freight forwarders this month ProMat 2017 expands into two halls; ready to hold record number of exhibitors, attendees Q&A: Dr. Zvi Schreiber, Freightos founder and CEO Supply Chain Managers Ready Themselves for New Ocean Cargo Carrier Alliances More Technology News Transforming Supply Chains into True Global Trade Networks Available On-Demand. Watch Now. All Resources Clockspeed. If you’re not familiar with the term, it was coined by Charles Fine, an MIT professor, to define rapidly evolving industries – those with a fast clock speed that he likened to fruit flies that are born, mature and expire in a very short time. He argued that “in business today, all advantage is temporary. In order to survive-let alone thrive-companies must be able to anticipate and adapt to change, or face rapid, brutal extinction.“ Based on my week at Promat in Chicago, I’d argue that the clockspeed of our industry has been accelerating in an unprecedented fashion over the last three to five years. As one industry veteran put it the other day, there was a ten-year period where we more or less saw many of the same products and solutions at show after show. Achievements were often a measure of speeds and feeds – the rate at which the equipment could move materials through a DC. This Promat, I had more conversations about algorithms and software, like the one I had with Dematic, than about the mechanical functionality of the equipment. At the 30,000 foot level, I break the industry developments down into three bullets. New alliances: The biggest news in the last year of the industry has been the mergers and acquisitions of Retrotech, Egemin and Dematic by Kion; Intelligrated by Honeywell; and Toyota’s acquisition of Bastian and Vanderlande. But it doesn’t […]