Our guest on this week's episode is Matthew Hart, founder and CEO of Soter Analytics. This is the season of gift giving. And many of those gifts are online retail orders that have to be delivered by parcel carriers. Along with increasing volumes comes the risk of more injuries to delivery workers, especially among part-time or seasonal workers not used to increased physical activity. How can these potential injuries be prevented? Our guest offers some insight on protecting workers while keeping them even more productive.
From the warehouse to the road, logistics operations are ripe for technology solutions that make it easier for shippers and carriers to get orders where they need to go. New entrants to the market are answering the call. In a December article, Victoria Kickham takes a close look at three companies are providing specific solutions for transportation, warehousing, and labor-related challenges.
There is a new king of last-mile deliveries. Ben Ames discusses how one major retailer has surpassed both UPS and FedEx in the number of parcels it delivers and what it means to the industry.
CSCMP's Supply Chain Quarterly also offers a podcast series called Supply Chain in the Fast Lane. It is co-produced with the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals. The current series features Transportation Tech. Go to your favorite podcast platform to subscribe and to listen to past and future episodes.
Articles and resources mentioned in this episode:
Podcast is sponsored by: PERC
Other links
Our guest on this week's episode is Matthew Hart, founder and CEO of Soter Analytics. This is the season of gift giving. And many of those gifts are online retail orders that have to be delivered by parcel carriers. Along with increasing volumes comes the risk of more injuries to delivery workers, especially among part-time or seasonal workers not used to increased physical activity. How can these potential injuries be prevented? Our guest offers some insight on protecting workers while keeping them even more productive.
From the warehouse to the road, logistics operations are ripe for technology solutions that make it easier for shippers and carriers to get orders where they need to go. New entrants to the market are answering the call. In a December article, Victoria Kickham takes a close look at three companies are providing specific solutions for transportation, warehousing, and labor-related challenges.
There is a new king of last-mile deliveries. Ben Ames discusses how one major retailer has surpassed both UPS and FedEx in the number of parcels it delivers and what it means to the industry.
CSCMP's Supply Chain Quarterly also offers a podcast series called Supply Chain in the Fast Lane. It is co-produced with the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals. The current series features Transportation Tech. Go to your favorite podcast platform to subscribe and to listen to past and future episodes.
Articles and resources mentioned in this episode:
Podcast is sponsored by: PERC
Other links
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 00:01
Preventing last-mile injuries. Tech companies answer the call. And a new delivery king is crowned.
Pull up a chair and join us as the editors of DC Velocity discuss these stories, as well as news and supply chain trends, on this week's Logistics Matters podcast.
Hi, I'm David Maloney. I'm the group editorial director at DC Velocity. Welcome.
Logistics Matters is sponsored by PERC, the Propane Education and Research Council. Propane is the safe, reliable energy for material handling. Propane-powered forklifts can improve air quality inside your facilities for a healthier, more productive workforce. See how propane can give your productivity a boost at propane.com/forklifts.
As usual, our DC Velocity senior editors Ben Ames and Victoria Kickham will be along to provide their insights into the top stories of this week. But to begin today: 'tis the season a gift giving, and many of those gifts are online retail orders that have to be delivered by parcel carriers. Along with increasing volumes come the risks of more injuries to those delivery workers. How can those potential injuries be prevented? To find out, here's Ben with today's guest.
Ben.
Ben Ames, Senior News Editor, DC Velocity 01:18
Thanks, Dave. We're in the midst of the winter peak shopping season, which means that all the major 3PLs and parcel delivery companies are hiring tens of thousands of temp workers so they can staff up to handle all the e-commerce purchases we buy for each other as holiday presents. But that means that those workers need to lift and sort and carry and deliver every package, one by one. And just as it does over the rest of the year, that means that some employees will get injured, which can slow down deliveries, can cost the company in worker comp fees, and most importantly, hurts the individual. Our guest today is here to talk about delivery driver injuries and what to expect this holiday season. He's Matthew Hart, the founder and CEO of Soter Analytics. Welcome, Matthew.
Matthew Hart, Founder and CEO, Soter Analytics 02:05
Thanks for having me, Ben.
Ben Ames, Senior News Editor, DC Velocity 02:07
Great you could be here. Matthew, to begin with for those of our listeners who may not be familiar with Soter Analytics, could you give us a quick description of what the company does and how it fits into the logistics ecosystem?
Matthew Hart, Founder and CEO, Soter Analytics 02:18
Yeah, sure. So, Soter is a company with a number of technologies, including wearable technology that we own and developed, and vision recognition technology as well. And what our platform does is helps workers in real time analyze and understand the risk that they're exposed to. So, with your example of delivery drivers or warehouse workers, our sensor is helping them measure the different postures and positions and movements that they make throughout their workshift, analyzing it through the wearable device in real time to understand if they're making movements that could lead to an injury. And then what is really important is, it's giving them real-time feedback. So our device will beep and vibrate to them, and let them know that they're making these movements. While it sounds like, you know, this might be putting the blame on the worker themselves, we're not positioning it this way at all, and workers understand this as well. It's really there to help them to, keep them safe as well. And then some of the data that's been collected can be aggregated and go back to the organization as well, so that the organization can, over time, make the work safer and safer. So this is what we do at Soter.
Ben Ames, Senior News Editor, DC Velocity 03:28
Great. Thanks for that. Sounds like a constructive approach. Your background, as I understand it, was originally in the mining industry, which is obviously very different from logistics. What have you seen in the logistics sector that makes delivery driver injuries different from any other line of work?
Matthew Hart, Founder and CEO, Soter Analytics 03:46
Yeah, that's a good question. I wouldn't say that they're particularly different injuries. So, we — I've seen and worked with and worked in, and work with partners that are in many different industries, whether it's healthcare, mining, as you said, oil and gas, logistics, warehousing, manufacturing companies, and particularly when it comes to these musculoskeletal injuries, which we're talking about, or MSDs, they can be known as, we see that injuries, similar injuries happen across all these different industries. And the reason is that the reality of a lot of this work is that it requires people to do physical work in order to achieve the production goals of the company. So, the movements that you make working in a hospital versus a delivery driver versus a mechanic in the mining industry can be actually quite similar to each other, and the injuries can be quite similar as well. Of course the big difference is why people are making those movements — you know, moving a patient versus moving kegs of beer, versus working with heavy tools in those different industries. The reasons people make movements can be different, but the injuries themselves are actually quite standardized.
Ben Ames, Senior News Editor, DC Velocity 04:55
Looking at our particular season, are there any sort of additional stressors that are threatening to raise the injury rate for retail package-delivery workers this particular season, as we are entering 2024?
Matthew Hart, Founder and CEO, Soter Analytics 05:09
This particular season, it's interesting. There's obviously going to be a lot of demand, a lot of packages moving. But I think what is happening is more systematic than that. So, what happens at this time of year is, a lot of new workers come into the workforce. You know, that might not be required by these companies for other periods of time. So we're coming into what is called peak season for these companies. Typically, what we'll see is these companies can increase their workforce by more than 30% over a quite a short period of time. Now, these workers, you know, they might not be used to the work. They might have — they might come from jobs that were more, you know, sitting down or sedentary, coming into quite physically demanding roles. And I don't know if the listeners here, you know, just remember, the first time you did your five-mile run, or you went to the gym for the first time in a long time, and how your body felt in the days after having this this increase, this rapid increase in exercise levels. Well, this is what these workers feel as well. They're coming into a peak time — you know, there's a lot of demand a lot of productivity requirements. They're not ready for it, and their bodies really hurt during this period of time. And this is why we see this uptick in injuries in this period.
Ben Ames, Senior News Editor, DC Velocity 06:23
Makes sense. So, nobody likes injuries. At the same time, you know, all those companies, as you say, you're trying to get the most productivity that they can out of their assets and vehicles and their employees, too. And, of course, that's especially true for this peak season. So, what do you say if parcel delivery companies might worry that practicing better safety might slow them down in that rush?
Matthew Hart, Founder and CEO, Soter Analytics 06:50
Yeah. So, remembering that our sensor is measuring the movements in real time of people, understanding if they're risky, and then giving warnings to people if they are, what we see, the result of this is people change the way that they move. They move with safer moving, you know, instead of — they might not twist through their back as much; they might use better lifting techniques, particularly when lifting really heavy objects. In some cases, they start to avoid awkward static postures as well, depending on what, particularly, their work is. And we see the reduction of risk. Now, what that — what some people think that means is that their productivity will drop as well, because moving safer is more slow. We now, out there in the world, we have tens of thousands of sensors, maybe approaching 50,000 sensors out there in the workplace, and working with so many people that I think I've lost count. But what that means is we've got huge datasets, as well. And when it comes to logistics, when it comes to parcel workers, when it comes to people working in warehouses, we also have the data that shows that when they drop their hazardous movements, they're these ergonomic movements that can cause injury, when they drop that by more than 30% — so, three-zero percent — their productivity increases by 3%. So, it's actually not what you think. It's as you move safer, you actually increase your productivity. On top of that people — we also have this other metric that we measure — people feel less fatigued at the end of the day. So, that also means they go home happier, but also they come to work happier as well, the next day.
Ben Ames, Senior News Editor, DC Velocity 08:29
Great points. So how should logistics providers address some of these challenges? I'm assuming that most established delivery firms that employ delivery drivers have some sort of safety rules already in place. Perhaps that's not true. But what sort of steps should prospective people who are practicing these steps take to kick it up a notch and provide an even safer workplace?
Matthew Hart, Founder and CEO, Soter Analytics 08:56
Well, very self-serving but, um, work with companies like Soter, where you can, you know, give give real-time feedback to workers and help them support the workers themselves through this challenge that they're going through. But I think when you — a lot of companies, you know, especially with sort of old-school thinking, what they do with these big groups of workers is they try to onboard them and train them as quickly as possible, and what that typically means when it comes to safety is that they're showing them you know, either sitting them down in a room and showing them presentations, or, more often these days, it's online presentations. So, imagine you're about to go to the gym, you're about to do the biggest workouts of your life over a three-month period, and you watch a 30-minute video, or even less maybe, on how to be safe in the gym, you know? It just doesn't work, and clearly it's not a very good control. By integrating training and support into the day-to-day lives of people, you know, that can go much longer than the 30 minutes before they start the job, that can go day after day after day, all over the two or three months that people ask for, you can actually support the worker over their entire life journey — lifecycle — with your company. Now, that might be three months, but, you know, some of these workers might be sticking around for, you know, years and years and years on end, and the more that you can help support them over their journey with your business, the better results you're going to have.
Ben Ames, Senior News Editor, DC Velocity 10:20
Makes great sense. Matthew, really appreciate your joining us here and talking through some of these really important practices.
Matthew Hart, Founder and CEO, Soter Analytics 10:30
Thanks, Ben. Thanks for having me.
Ben Ames, Senior News Editor, DC Velocity 10:32
Our guest this week has been Matthew Hart, the founder and CEO of Soter Analytics. Back to you, Dave.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 10:38
Thank you, Matthew and Ben. Now let's take a look at some of the other supply chain news from the week. And Victoria, you wrote a story for our December issue about how tech firms are helping to meet logistics challenges. Can you share some details?
Victoria Kickham, Senior Editor, DC Velocity 10:52
Absolutely, Dave, happy to. So, we always take a look at some of the latest technologies taking hold across the logistics industry in our end-of-year issue, and, as you indicated, this year is no different. There's so much to write about when it comes to tech, so I decided to take a close look at three companies that are providing some pretty specific solutions for transportation, warehousing, and labor-related challenges. All three are relatively new entrants to the logistics and supply chain industry, so it's also a look at some startups that are targeting the industry with new technology.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 11:25
That sounds like a very interesting approach. Who did you profile and what are their solutions?
Victoria Kickham, Senior Editor, DC Velocity 11:31
Well, the first is a startup called Axle Technologies that has developed an API — that's a[n] application programming interface — for ELDs, and those are electronic logging devices, and they're used in the cabs of trucks to track federally mandated hours of service. Our listeners will be familiar with that topic. But those devices also gather a lot of other information, things like real-time vehicle location and fuel usage. And essentially, the API brings together all of that data from across the trucking industry into one platform, so carriers and their business partners can easily share information. Without it, aggregating data from the hundreds of different types of ELDs on the market is nearly impossible. And Axle was founded in 2022. The second company is an artificial intelligence firm, Gather AI, founded in 2018, that's delivering drone technology for warehouse inventory management. Among their benefits: the warehouse drones help cut back on labor by automating cycle counting in large warehouses. Think of those large, you know, huge air cargo facilities and 3PL warehouses that have really high-reaching, densely packed aisles. So, this tech makes it easier to account for all the pallets stacked in those aisles by replacing the manual process with drones that fly through the aisles taking images of the data-tracking information on the pallets. A worker can manually count between 45 and 60 pallets per hour, but the drones can count between 300 and 450 pallets per hour; that's according to Gather AI. So, this tech offers a considerable increase in productivity. The third company I talked to was workforce-management software company Hyer, which has developed an on-demand labor app that connects the network of pre-vetted and insured gig workers to companies looking for help, all in real time. We think of it — or, they said to think of it as the Uber for retail and warehouse work, and it connects people with experience in those areas to companies looking for employees to fill spots for seasonal work and other spikes in demand. About half of Hyer's work is with retail clients, but the company's leaders say they're seeing growing demand in warehousing, especially since the pandemic. About 16% of its business is with warehousing, manufacturing, and distribution companies, for things like pick, pack, and ship, all those kinds of duties. And Hyer was founded in 2019. That's it in a nutshell. As you mentioned, Dave, the full story is in our December issue, which is online now and will be out in print very soon.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 14:06
Those sound like really interesting technologies, and, again, our listeners can go to DCVelocity.com right now to read the full story. Thanks, Victoria.
Victoria Kickham, Senior Editor, DC Velocity 14:15
You're welcome.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 14:16
And Ben, you wrote this week about how one delivery company has achieved what would have seemed impossible just a few years ago. Can you share the details?
Ben Ames, Senior News Editor, DC Velocity 14:24
I'm glad to, yeah. This was interesting. We're talking about Amazon, of course. It's been, obviously, one of the fastest-growing companies in e-commerce and in fulfillment for years now, and this week, we heard a report that the company has also posted enormous growth in another area, which is last-mile delivery. This was according to a story in The Wall Street Journal; it wasn't a release from Amazon, but the Journal reported that Amazon had delivered more packages to U.S. homes last year than either UPS or FedEx. That's definitely a milestone in the U.S. logistic landscape, but it may not actually be such bad news for those incumbent parcel carriers. That's because Amazon is not really a direct competitor to UPS or FedEx, but rather, it competes with the nation's other Fortune 500 retailers. So, it's true that Amazon, they do have a small-business arm in providing a delivery service for third-party companies, outsourced, but largely the packages that Amazon is delivering are its own inventory. So, to understand what that news means, I spoke to Itamur Zur. He's the cofounder and CEO of Veho, which is a provider of next-day delivery and returns for e-commerce companies, and he said that Amazon is not investing in its growing delivery capability just to gain market leverage, or even profitability, but really to gain increased control over its own delivery network so that it can preserve the loyalty of its online shoppers.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 15:56
Well, consumers, as we know, can be very fickle, especially searching for good deals on different e-commerce sites. But is it that hard to keep their loyalty?
Ben Ames, Senior News Editor, DC Velocity 16:06
Well, Amazon thinks so. According to Zur, he said that Amazon just thinks about logistics differently from everybody else. He said that the other retailers think that delivery is just a cost center, and the package simply needs to get to the right address. But Amazon sees it as a key lever to meet or exceed customer expectations — and ultimately, to make that customer come back again for repeat sales. Zur said that consumers — as we know, you can buy the same products at other stores, and Amazon's website is good, but it's not all that different from anybody else's. So, where's the difference? He says that it's in the delivery experience — what he calls the "moment of truth"" when a customer receives the package they'd ordered. So in his view, he pointed out it's expensive to gain new customers, so the real profit for retailers is made in repeat sales, and that requires loyal customers.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 16:59
And we've seen how Amazon continues to be a game changer in reshaping how supply chains work. Thanks, Ben.
Ben Ames, Senior News Editor, DC Velocity 17:06
They sure are. Yep.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 17:08
We encourage listeners to go to DCVelocity.com for more on these and other supply chain stories. And also check out the podcast Notes section for some direct links to read more about the topics that we discussed today.
And we'd like to thank Matthew Hart of Soter Analytics for being our guest. We welcome your comments on this topic and our other stories. You can email us at podcast@dcvelocity.com.
We also encourage you to subscribe to Logistics Matters at your favorite podcast platform. Our new episodes are uploaded on Fridays.
Speaking of subscribing, check out our sister podcast series Supply Chain in the Fast Lane, coproduced by the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals and Supply Chain Quarterly. Check it out wherever you get your podcasts.
And a reminder that Logistics Matters is sponsored by PERC, the Propane Education and Research Council. Propane is the safe, reliable energy for material handling. Propane-powered forklifts can improve air quality inside your facilities for a healthier, more productive workforce. See how propane can give your productivity a boost at propane.com/forklifts.
We'll be back again next week with another edition of Logistics Matters. Be sure to join us. Until then, have a great week.