Trucking Technology Alert - Sept. 17
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Both the online report and e-mail are sponsored by @Track Communications, a supplier of wireless communications and dispatch services.
Today's Technology Headlines:
- WHO Wants More Mobile Risk Research
- Penske Embraces Analysis Tool
- Cement Company Improves Delivery Time
WHO Wants More Mobile Risk Research
At a recent conference in Helsinki, Finland, on the bioeffects of electromagnetic radiation, Elisabeth Cardis, chief of radiation and cancer at the World Health Organization said that an upcoming study should provide some concrete answers on whether cellular-phone use is connected to cancer cases.The study, which is expected to take three years to complete, will be carried out by a company called Interphone, Cardis said, and the study will include additional details on lower-frequency electromagnetic fields emitted from cellular phones. Despite publicized suspicions that RF radio emissions from mobile phones cause cancer, no studies have as yet confirmed this suspicion. Wireless Week (09/07/01); Bassuener, Kristy
Penske Embraces Analysis Tool
Penske Truck Leasing and its subsidiary Penske Logistics have acquired analysis software to help customers that depend on Penske's trucks improve efficiency and cut down on delivery mistakes.Penske currently serves over 250 major customers and their suppliers in North America, carrying cargo between distribution centers, suppliers, and manufacturers. Penske's recently acquired data analysis software is the WebIntelligence 2.6 enterprise decision support tool from Business Objects.
WebIntelligence is currently being used by 11 of the transportation company's customers on the extranet, and Penske estimates that its customers are now able to gain access to information in two hours that would previously have taken them three days to obtain. One unnamed Penske customer for example, has asked that a specified set of metrics be reported on a weekly basis. Compiling the information from a number of different systems was previously very time-consuming, because it had to be done manually before WebIntelligence was acquired. InternetWeek (09/10/01) P. 14; Koller, Mike
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Cement Company Improves Delivery Time
Monterey, Mexico-based Cemex, a 100-year-old player in the cement industry, realized as early as 1985 that to be successful selling a commodity product it would have to fundamentally retool its business processes and augment them with the latest technological innovations in an effort to better serve its customers.Cemex determined that its customers wanted cement delivered on time, within a tight timeframe, a demand the cement industry as a whole was not known for meeting. On-time deliveries are made more difficult for Cemex and other cement makers by last-minute--but often unavoidable, for a number of reasons--changes requested by customers, which prompted Cemex to also become far more flexible in its operations.
Some $200 million and over a decade later, after investing in satellite communications technology to link its many formerly autonomous cement plants, developing a GPS-based logistics system to keep track of cement deliveries, and most recently an Internet portal that enables Cemex plants, customers, suppliers, and distributors to know in real-time exactly what is happening with any given order, Cemex has reduced its order delivery window from three hours to 20 minutes and delivers within the shorter window 98% of the time. CIO (08/15/01) Vol. 14, No. 21, P. 78; Kaplan, Simone
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