Ants provide supply chain tips

Executives at Subway and CVS are boring into anthills to help improve efficiency. The businesses sought out leading supply chain thinker John J. Bartholdi III, director of Georgia Institute of Technology’s Logistics Institute, and they got a nature lesson in the process. Though ant-watching may seem quirky, Bartholdi's ideas are based on mathematics and observations of workers on assembly and distribution lines.

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Thinking outside the Box

Sun Microsystem’s Project Blackbox is a prototype of the world’s first virtualised datacenter built into a shipping container. Designed to address the needs of customers who are running out of space, power and cooling, Project Blackbox works by packaging computer, storage, and network infrastructure capabilities into scalable, modular units outfitted with state-of-the-art cooling, monitoring, and power distribution systems.

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Chinese packaging fortune

Richer than Oprah Winfrey and Harry Potter series author JK Rowling, the first woman to top the Huran Report rich list in China, Zhang Yin is a local household name. Her Nine Dragons Paper firm's packaging products are used by companies like Coca-Cola, Nike, Sony, Haier and TCL. Zhang says the key to her success has been the long-term and steady purchase of high-quality waste paper in large quantities.

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Road management minimalism

In the UK, European engineers are experimenting with ‘less is more’ when it comes to traffic management. They say drivers proceed more cautiously on roads that have nothing but the most essential markings — and that helps cut the number of accidents in congested areas. In Ipswich, as part of a four year project, “Shared Spaces”, three narrow roads in the busy city centre have been stripped of signs, lines and barriers. All that remains are a few discreet illegal parking notices.

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Retail suppliers’ nightmare

A US couple, the Rittenbergs, paid about $1,600 for a camcorder at a Best Buy store in the St. Louis suburb of Ellisville last week. They said when they opened the box, they found a jar of Classico pasta sauce where the camera should have been. Also inside the box was a telephone cord and an electric outlet cover. So far, the Rittenbergs are stuck with the spicy red pepper sauce, though a Best Buy manager says the company is working to resolve the matter.

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DE-LIGHTful sandwich materials

Newcastle based NewRail Centre for Railway Research will participate in a new project to develop lightweight sandwich structures for the marine, rail and freight container industries. DE-LIGHT Transport, a multi-national initiative supported by the European Commission’s Framework 6 programme, aims to develop breakthrough technologies and applications that provide opportunities for parts reduction through design integration, improved surface finish and lower assembly and outfitting costs.

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US Port to test radiation scanner

The US Port of Oakland will begin testing a new radiation scanner on inbound containers. A local firm will equip the terminal with scanners that attach to the hoisting mechanism of towering cranes that serve container ships. The device screens cargo for radiological materials as it is loaded and unloaded, reducing the need to place detectors on busy docks and wharves. If successful, the detectors will give domestic and foreign ports the potential to scan virtually every container arriving in the United States.

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