Supply Chain by the Numbers
   
 

- Aug. 30, 2018 -

   
  Supply Chain by the Numbers for Week of Aug. 30, 2018
   
 

Will Fuel Cell Truck be a Game Changer? More Getting RFID Implants in Wisconsin; New Record for Containers on a Ship; Way too Much Retail Space, ex Macy's CEO Says

   
 
 
 
 

1000

That is the driving range of the planned new hydrogen fuel cell powered heavy duty truck from Nikola Motor Company, a preproduction version of which it says will be unveiled next April in the Phoenix area. That's a long way on one charge of hydrogen, as the fuel cell charges a battery that powers the tractor. Is Nikola confident it has a winning product on its hands? This week, the company issues this statement: "The largest fleets and customers in the world will attend this event, and they will see what no other OEM could deliver – a production-ready, zero-emission semi-truck, with over 1,000-mile range, 20% less operating costs per mile, more horsepower, torque and safety features than any other diesel ever built, and a startup did it." It added in a follow up tweet that it "is about to clobber the competition so hard they won't know how to react. They will be spending billions to save their executive jobs from the shareholders." Is this going to upend the logistics world? Stay tuned.



 
 
 
 
 

80

That's about how many employees of Three Square Market - a technology company that provides self-service mini-markets to hospitals, hotels, and company break rooms – that now have RFID implants in their hands. That's up from 50 out of 250 office workers in total at the company that originally got the implants a year ago, according to a report last week in the MIT Technology Review. All of employees volunteered to have an RFID chip about the size of a grain of rice injected between the thumb and forefinger. The tags make it easier for employees to do things like get into the office, log on to computers, and buy food and drinks in the company cafeteria - all literally with the wave of a hand. Some people have applied the term "transhumanism" to such marriage of the body and technology. The company says that just two employees have had their chips removed - and that was when they left the company.

 
 
 
 

19,038

That was the number of TEU just carried by the Mumbai Maersk container ship vessel, a new world record for most containers on ship, breaking the 19,000 TEU mark for the first time. The record was set as the ship left the port at Tanjung Pelepas, Malaysia, as it set sail for Europe. The Mumbai Maersk, launched earlier this year, sails under the latest Triple-E class vessel design, and has a nameplate capacity of 20,600 TEU. UASC (now part of Hapag-Lloyd) set a previous record all the way back in 2015 when its Al Muraykh was loaded 18,601 containers. Maersk Line's Madison Maersk loaded 18,215 TEU the same year.

 
 
 
 
 

23.5

That's how many square feet of retail floor space there is in the US per capita and "that's too much," says former Macy's CEO Terry Lundgren. Turns out, Lundgren says number two in the world is Australia, with only about 16 square feet of retail space per person, and the in the UK it is only something like 5 square feet - far, far below the US number. "We are way over-stored," Lundgren added. He believes that the US needs to shrink its retail space - and along with that store inventory levels. "When supply and demand gets back in line again that allows for a platform for takeoff on comp store sales growth to continue," Lundgren added in an interview with the Fox Business Network.

 
 
 
 
 
 
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