International ports

U.S.

Agri-Food Central Ltd.

GE Transportation will spend $231 million to upgrade two factories to meet North American and foreign demand for locomotives, mining equipment and other products including marine engines.

U.S. agriculture industry officials are stepping up efforts to restore barley exports to Japan after a steep and rapid downturn in shipments in recent years.

Several large shippers say they are now providing rolling forecasts of their demand outlook to improve coordination with ocean carriers following supply and demand disconnects in recent years.

North American railcar owners pulled 11,087 more units out of sidings and other storage areas in September, for the largest drawdown of the idled car fleet since March.

“If it was easy, everyone would be doing it,” the logistics director for a large U.S. health care products importer and exporter said recently.

Wal-Mart said it has learned to treat each supplier uniquely and when to let vendors run their own transportation since taking control of inbound logistics from its suppliers 18 months ago.

Coal producer Alliance Resource Partners’s up to $525 million investment in a Southern Illinois mine being will generate shipments of 6 to 6.5 million tons annually

Home Depot, reaping new benefits from its massive, multi-year supply chain overhaul, will use Fidelitone for parts and distribution services under a new contract between the third-party logistics prov

France’s state-owned SNCF Fret lost a major contract with a long standing customer to private operators, jeopardizing the rail cargo operator’s plans to end years of heavy losses and rebui

Logistics provider Kuehne + Nagel established a thrice-weekly highway service linking Shanghai and Guangzhou and said it is adding depots and offices as part of a

Union Pacific Railway said international intermodal volume has been recently weak, but customers expect to compress the peak season for boxed loads into September and October.

Raj Penkar, a longtime executive at UPS Supply Chain Solutions, will join Sears Holdings as senior vice president and president of supply chain, overseeing the global logistics and distribution unit a

Asset-based logistics models will outperform pure third-party-logistics operations in fast-growing emerging markets in the coming years, said APL Logistics’s president.

Wal-Mart is “guardedly optimistic” about the rest of 2011 but sees a trend toward a “flatter” peak season for holiday shipments, said Kelly Abney, the retailer’s vice pre

Rail service has slipped because of bad weather and cost-cutting that have left railroads without enough train crews to operate trains or switch railcars frequently, shippers told an investment bank c

Saddle Creek promoted Mike DelBovo, a 14-year company veteran, to the new position of president of transportation at the contract logistics operator.

McDonalds’ plan to add more than 700 restaurants in China by 2013 signals the growing market for cold chain logistics providers.

Avnet’s e-commerce arm unveiled features allowing customers to track their inventory in bonded warehouses and create customized order reports, as the major electronic distributor beefed up its s

Big Lots is comfortable with its inventory levels being down more than 70 percent year-over-year, considering the “fragile” consumer market.

APL Logistics is taking a “cautious” outlook for the rest of the year and into 2012, despite a strong first half-year performance and growth in emerging markets and automotive logistics.

Toll Group’s net profit in the fiscal year June 30 rose 1 percent year-over-year to $281 million, as the Australia-based logistics firm was hurt by an economic slowdown in its home country, part

Despite rising costs for manufacturers in coastal regions, China has vast potential for logistics companies and forwarders as government incentives open up interior regions, said a senior shipper repr

RailAmerica said 34 of its customers in the first half of the year announced plans to build, expand or reopen facilities, generating more than 25,000 annual carloads for the short line operator within

Wal-Mart Stores says it reduced the impact of rising diesel fuel prices this spring by some two-thirds through transportation efficiency programs in its distribution network.

Home improvement retailer Lowe’s, facing higher shipping costs and weakening sales, is ramping up a dramatic increase in online sales operations and shipping more goods directly to customers fro

CEVA Logistics’ profit rose 24.6 percent to $115 million from the same period a year ago, as increased freight management business offset softening freight volumes.

MIQ Logistics acquired British third-party logistics provider The Logistics Corporation to expand its operations in the U.K. and Europe.

Railroad executives might not agree precisely on how much the economy is recovering from its springtime slump, but one thing was clear from the early returns on railroad earnings: They can price for h

The regulator of economic disputes between railroads and their freight shippers has slashed its filing fee structure, meaning rail customers can file a major challenge to freight rates for $350 instea

Donald J. Bowersox, one of the pioneers in the science and practice of logistics and supply chain management, died Monday in Traverse City, Mich. He was 79.

Panalpina, the Swiss global forwarder and logistics group, vowed to outperform market growth in air and ocean freight and logistics, achieve a “remarkable” increase in productivity and hit

Inventory management has a dark secret: Forecasting isn’t only worthless; it also exacerbates the very problem it was designed to solve.

Food products shipper Campbell Soup is making a series of supply chain moves in the U.S., Australia and Russia to consolidate plant operations and cut staff.

Caterpillar, a major global manufacturer of industrial, agricultural and transportation equipment including for trucking and rail markets, said it is "experiencing sporadic production disruptions at m

The earthquake and tsunami that killed thousands and devastated a swath of Japan is promising a deeper impact on the country’s economy and global supply chains, and triggering what experts say m

The northern Chinese Port of Dalian, which handles about 4.5 million 20-foot equivalent units a year, could be closed for about a week following the explosion Monday of a pipeline that resulted in a m

After being dethroned briefly by a global financial crisis that, Europe aside, is abating, customer-centered initiatives are returning to the top of the supply chain food chain that is turning away fr

Almost three months after the Jan.