Day: September 24, 2018

Amazon: Changing the Face of Logistics Forever

Is the Future of Warehousing all Digitized and Robotic?
With the Growing Presence of Technology, It Makes You Wonder How the Future Will be in Twenty Years.

Are your yard trucks scrambling to catch up with Amazon’s fulfillment strategy? Amazon.com has a reputation for changing the shipping industry with its bold, innovative ideas. How will the trickle-down effect of such changes affect your business?

Rapid Response

Amazon’s dominance in the retail industry is courtesy of its uber-efficient supply chain, which it’s continuously evolving to deliver products in the quickest way possible. Their 2005 introduction of 2-day ‘Prime’ shipping changed the industry, leaving competitors scrambling to keep up. (When they did, Amazon introduced 1-hour shipping.)

Accomplished via sophisticated information technology, a vast network of warehouses, multi-tier inventory management, and unparalleled transportation has Amazon’s supply chain at the head-of-the-pack worldwide.

A Logistics & Retail Giant

Amazon’s supply chain relies heavily on outsourced inventory management: Third-party sellers comprise 82% of sales. However, it doesn’t rely on third-party shipping logistics, insourcing shipping via its own delivery vehicles for same-day/1-hour shipments.

Amazon also offers greater shipping options, including 1-hour, 1-day, 2-day/Prime, first-class and ‘free-super-saver.’ Warehouses are strategically placed with location and size key to success. Each warehouse is ever-closer to metropolitan/city centers: 70 fulfillment centers nationwide and a staff of 90,000 make the most of its ‘pure-push’ strategy for warehouse-sourced sales.

Storage is divided into 5-areas:

– Prime books/magazines

– Pallet/full-case Prime high-demand storage

– Prime high-demand items (less-than-case)

– Irregularly-shaped/low-demand inventory (reverse-storage)

– Modern-demand, small items

Amazing Automation

Amazon Robotics pick/pack without human assistance, speeding shipments. 45,000+ robots bring goods to people for picking. (Next-gen robots will pick, and drone-based delivery testing continues…)

Manufacturing to Support Retail Sales

Amazon’s realization it could provide third-party items more cheaply/quickly to customers have prompted Amazon to enter the manufacturing arena as well.

Scrambling to keep up with Amazon’s shipping standards? Give your operation a boost with yard trucks from DJProductstoday.

Tire Safety Tips Every Semi Truck Driver Should Know

Maintaining Your Vehicle Is of the Utmost Importance When You're on the Road Often.
Maintaining Your Vehicle Is of the Utmost Importance When You’re on the Road Often.

Is your semi trailer mover toting unsafe equipment? Keeping an eye on the condition of the tires on both your trailer and hauler is key to avoiding costly citations, worsened gas mileage, and potentially deadly wrecks. Put these things on every pre-inspection checklist to ensure a safe, efficient arrival at your destination…

Air Pressure Check

Inform yourself about tire air pressure specifications for your tires and load, making sure tire pressures are at the proper setting for your hauler and cargo. Use an accurate gauge, checking when tires are cold (pre-trip), ensuring adequate pressure and avoiding under-inflation. If maintaining air pressure is a problem, inform your maintenance department ASAP. Low pressure is a major cause of blowouts, fires, and other tire issues.

Check Tire Wear and Damage

Uneven tread wear is a sign of improper air pressure and potential alignment issues. Now, not later, is the time to check for and manage air leaks, axle alignment, tire repair and replacement needs.

Tread Check

Low tread depth impacts traction, reducing your hauler’s ability to brake quickly and efficiently. It can also increase the likelihood of hydroplaning on wet roads, and blowouts – especially when you run over road debris. To ensure safety and keep your hauler on the road, ensure a minimum tread depth of 4/32 on every major tread groove of your steering tires.

Mid-Trip Incidentals

When mid-trip, immediately replace missing valve caps to keep gunk out of valve stems and safeguard tire pressure. If you hit/run-over road debris, don’t keep on trucking. Always pull over and check for tire damage and foreign objects.

Looking for new ways to shorten transportation times, reduce damage, and increase safety? Learn more about semi trailer mover from DJ Products today.

What’s Impacting Your Hotel Revenue in 2018?

Has Your Hotel Room Reached its Full Potential?
Has Your Hotel Room Reached its Full Potential?

Is your hotel seeing the amount of revenue growth you were anticipating in 2018? Our hotel supply movement carts are valuable for improving room turnaround times, but there are other important factors that affect occupancy and average daily rate (ADR) increases.

What steps can you take to raise the bottom line? Here are four current trends you can leverage to positively impact your hotel’s profitability.

Resort Fees

While resort fees have long been a standard practice in destinations such as Las Vegas, hotels in urban markets have only recently begun introducing them at their facilities. Resort fees aren’t subject to occupancy tax, which makes them a good way to gain additional revenue without raising room rates.

Labor Costs

The rising costs of benefits, particularly healthcare insurance, are in turn making labor increasingly expensive. Forecasts and budgets have to be drawn up carefully to accommodate these ongoing changes.

Operators are also taking a closer look at labor-intensive amenities that may cost more than they’re worth. For example, some hotels now provide turndown service on request as opposed to an automatic feature.

Guest Experience

Hotels often remodel during upswings in anticipation of the next downward turn in the cycle. When properties are all comparable in terms of updated decor and facilities, customer service and the overall guest experience become the best ways to set yourself apart from the competition.

Business Travel

As companies across the board look for ways to become more profitable, business travel becomes an expense to cut back or eliminate altogether.

Boost Productivity with Hotel Supply Movement Carts from DJ Products

We offer a wide range of hotel supply movement carts that let your staff perform housekeeping tasks safer and more efficiently. Visit our website for more information.

eCommerce Warehouse Needs Are Boosting Commercial Real Estate Investment

Buying Online Is Only Going to Grow in the Future.
Transportation concept. Isolated on white

Are your tugger carts operating on prime real estate? E-commerce has online retailers shopping for commercial space. Duke estimates over the next few years, another 339-million square feet of industrial space will be needed.

Low Space Availability Drives Up Prices, Spurs Development

In an assessment by Morningstar Credit Ratings, trends in the industrial real estate sector point to a strong demand for warehouse space as e-commerce and manufacturing explode. This has resulted in reduced space availability, encouraging developers to create more. For every billion in online sales, over 1-million-square-feet of warehouse space is needed.

Stock from the online retail giant Amazon, with its 70-fulfillment center’s nationwide, is seeing earnings power increase with every dollar of net e-commerce sales growth. Though growth in this sector has posed challenges to the retail sector, it’s been a boon for others, including industrial REITS

This drives demand for logistics landlords who can turn ‘flex’ space into an industrial real estate goldmine. Rental space in this sector is likewise seeing an increase in rental rates and demand as vacancies dry up and e-commerce platforms expand.

Can Anything Stop the E-Commerce Boom?

The biggest threats to the e-commerce industry, and subsequently industrial real estate, outside the obvious – a highly unlikely decline in online purchases, include the very real threat of a decline in manufacturing activity. Given continually escalating tariffs, an outright trade war isn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility.

Should the sector experience a downturn, however, the supply end of the industrial real estate spigot could be turned off relatively quickly, allowing for a quick return to market equilibrium.

Can your tugger carts handle the e-commerce boom? Grow with the burgeoning industry with the help of DJ products today.