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Supply Chain by the Numbers
   
 

- Dec. 12, 2024

   
 

Supply Chain by the Numbers for December 12, 2024

   
 

Diesel Pirces Way Down. More Indictments in Strange Truck Accident Fraud. Delivery Cost Accounting Scandal at Macy's. AMRs to See Torrid Growth, ABI Says

 
 
 
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$3.25

 

That was the average per-gallon price at the pump for diesel fuel across the US the week ending Dec. 9, down 8 cents from the week before to the lowest level since the week of Sept. 27, 2021, according to the Energy Information Administration this week. Will the fall in diesel and consumer gasoline stay low, or perhaps fall even further? Another organization, the International Energy Agency, said this week it expected the oil market to be comfortably supplied next year, even as it revised its demand outlook for next year up slightly. OPEC cut its demand growth forecast for 2024 for the fifth straight month on Wednesday and by the largest amount yet. So barring a geo-political crises – of course a real possibility given the war in Ukraine, the conflicts in the Middle East and more – prices should stay moderate in 2025.

 
 
 
 
 
 

63

Amazingly, that is the total number to date of individuals that have either been charged or pleaded guilty to charges in connection with the ongoing FBI investigation - known as “Operation Sideswipe” - into a scheme to stage crashes with tractor-trailers. That news as this week an indictment in New Orleans named two law firms, two individual attorneys and multiple participants in a sweeping conspiracy that included fraud, obstruction of justice, witness tampering and murder, adding to the total. This was the latest development in a years-long federal investigation into a series of staged accidents with heavy trucks dating back as far as 2011

 
 
 

24.1%

 


That is the projected annual rise through 2030 of units sold globally of so-called Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs), according to a new report from ABI Research. Accordingly, AMR sales revenue for mobile robots will also grow from $18 billion to $124 billion by 2030, a CAGR of 23.6%, the research firm added. While those numbers should make AMR makers happy, they are much higher than forecasts we’ve seen from other sources. ABI’s research finds that while today AMRs are generally deployed for distribution applications, they are increasingly being applied in manufacturing, last-mile delivery, agriculture, and healthcare, helping to fuel the growth.

 

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$151 Million

That is the amount of delivery costs that one Macy’s employee is alleged to have charge to the wrong accounts for more than three years. That in the news as last week, the retailer announced it would delay the full release of its third-quarter earnings, scheduled for Nov. 26, until Dec. 11 to complete an investigation into the employee’s activities. During this same time period, Macy’s accounting statements recognized around $4.36 billion in delivery expenses—suggesting that somewhere between 3% and 3.5% of those expenses were fictitious. The employee had responsible for small package delivery expense accounting and had intentionally created erroneous cost entries, Macy’s also alleged. Why did he or she do it? It does not appear the employee directly took take any money, but rather was initially just trying to hide a mistake he or she made and it snowballed from there.
 
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