Transportation

Axios Solution Gains Momentum

Challenge

Traditional pallets create problems: wood pallets leave a high environmental footprint and are easily broken in shipping (which can cause damage to shipped goods), while plastic pallets are often stolen and are unreliable in extreme temperatures.

Axios Mobile Assets decided it was time to do something different and stepped in to offer a new, easily scaled solution.

Strategy

Axios’ technology-rich composite pallets exhibit one of the highest strength to weight ratios for a non-metallic material. They are made with FDA-compliant materials that have met and exceeded all the required pallet approvals and standards (FM Global, ISPM15, ISO 8611, etc.) Axios pallets have a minimum 10 to 12-year life span in normal usage, and each pallet is 25-40% lighter than wooden counterparts carrying the same loads, creating operational savings from lower cost per ton-mile transport costs.

Axios’ pallets are equipped with four RFID tags, individual identification, and a bar code to provide tracking of the pallet and its contents. Each pallet effectively has its own website – they are truly “connected” devices that provide risk intelligence to the supply chain. This integrated platform offers full track-and-trace, data collection, carbon credit generation, pooling, enabling a measurable ROI. For distributors, this means true chain of custody metrics, safety, accountability and improved, actionable, supply-chain data.

The Axios platform seamlessly integrates into most business and product verticals, requiring no change to vendors’ current logistics processes.

The pallets can also be equipped with embedded sensors to measure temperature, movement, and soon CO2, humidity, the sensors provide real-time  geo-location – all of pallets and their unitized loads which greatly enhances food and pharmaceutical chain of custody and safety. 

Result

With the new pallet solution currently in use at 6 DC’s, offered by Axios to Walmart USA, there have been impressive results in several areas:

-Exceptionally high turn rate: With an average annual run rate of 20 turns per pallet, Axios nearly quadrupled the turn rate of many other pooled pallet programs with the logistics solution tied into the track and trace software.

-More pallet miles: In just four months, the contract logged and accumulated 5.9 million pallet miles.

-Less product damage: The contract produced 1 claim out of 248 truckload shipments (0.4%), an exceptionally low level of product damage due to the 94% top deck coverage and stiffer platform.

-Higher return rates: The pilot delivered an impressive 84% return rate on pallets shipped with 16% still within the customer supply chain– Axios has not lost a pallet from its pool through misplacement or pool leakage.

-Carbon offset: Axios’s pallets produced an estimated carbon offset of 26.6 metric tons the, equivalent of eliminating the annual greenhouse gas emissions from 5.6 passenger vehicles, or 9.5 tons of waste sent to landfill, or 28,571 pounds of coal burned.  Carbon emissions reductions are estimated through the Verified Carbon Standard Methodology approved by the VCS.

For Retailers or Vendors who use millions of pallets and transport their products millions of miles over the course of business each year, significant verified carbon ton reductions can be retired against a business’s annual carbon footprint and in some cases retired through monetization.

There are approximately 2.1 billion pallets in use in North America, with forecasts indicating that sales of new and refurbished pallets will continue to grow through 2017 (US Industry Study with Forecasts, Freedonia Group).

If even a fraction of that number are Axios pallets, the scale of carbon emissions reductions—and operational benefits—would be staggering. No doubt all eyes will be on Axios for future product developments and announcements.

Website Links

http://axiosma.com/