SANTA CLARA, California, June 28, 2023 – Roambee, the global real-time supply chain visibility and intelligence provider, today announced that it’d been selected as the winner of the “Best AI-based Solution for Supply Chain” designation in the sixth annual AI Breakthrough Awards program conducted by AI Breakthrough, a leading market intelligence organization that recognizes the top companies, technologies, and products in the global Artificial Intelligence (AI) market today.
Roambee's cutting-edge AI-powered platform leverages verifiable IoT sensor information to provide unparalleled supply chain intelligence, enabling accurate predictions of business KPIs. With its advanced sensor data analytics, this platform empowers organizations to deliver the right product at the precise time, in the correct place, and in optimal condition.
Roambee's platform seamlessly integrates real-time IoT sensor inputs with a diverse range of data streams, including carriers, port operations, airport operations, rail operations, traffic, and weather. This extensive data collection is then transformed into invaluable predictive and contextual business signals, insights, and forecasts, such as replenishment triggers, security, and quality compliance predictions. This allows enterprises to effectively address supply chain challenges, automate operations, foster sustainability, and effectively implement successful future growth strategies.
“Our AI platform is founded on premium, firsthand information derived from IoT sensors, enabling it to deliver predictions for supply chain or business KPIs that are 100 times more accurate compared to other Supply Chain AI solutions,” stated Sanjay Sharma, CEO of Roambee. “Roambee's AI endeavors are centered around establishing a strong foundation of practical forecasts at a time when most supply chain tools prioritize Generative Pre-Trained Transformer (GPT) models, primarily used for text summarization, content generation, and search, which may not faithfully represent reality. The recognition of our AI Breakthrough reinforces our commitment to enhancing the dependability and usefulness of supply chain data for enterprises.”
The mission of the AI Breakthrough Awards is to honor excellence and recognize the innovation, hard work, and success in a range of AI and machine learning-related categories, including Generative AI, Computer Vision, AIOps, Deep Learning, Robotics, Natural Language Processing, industry-specific AI applications and many more. This year’s program attracted more than 3,200 nominations from over 20 different countries throughout the world, with winners including AMD, OpenAI, Microsoft, Bosch, Qualcomm, Palo Alto Networks, SoftBank Robotics, Honeywell, Mercedes Benz, and an impressive list of top companies and startups in the industry.
“At a time when enterprises are looking to build sustainable, autonomous, and resilient supply chains, Roambee’s AI-enabled analytics platform, sensor-based visibility, and innovation provide enterprises with accurate visibility data and intelligence. Congratulations on winning the ‘Best AI-based Solution for Supply Chain’ award,” said James Johnson, managing director of AI Breakthrough. “Most supply chain software platforms, planning tools, and monitoring and tracking solutions lack timely, actionable, direct-from-source data. To truly empower firms to automate their supply chain planning and execution with confidence, there is a critical need for AI solutions built on verifiable visibility. Roambee’s AI-powered platform stands as a proven innovation in this field, delivering unparallel accuracy and reliability in providing the necessary data and insights to optimize supply chain operations.”
About Roambee
Roambee is a supply chain visibility & intelligence provider enabling on-time, in-full, in-condition delivery of shipments and assets anywhere in the world. 300+ enterprises are improving customer experience, service levels, product quality, order-to-cash cycles, business efficiencies, sustainability, and automating logistics with Roambee’s real-time insights & foresights. More than 50 of them are the top 100 global companies in the Pharma, Food, Electronics, Chemicals, Automotive, Packaging & Containers, and Logistics sectors. Roambee’s innovative AI-powered platform, and end-to-end monitoring solutions, deliver reliable business signals built on item-level, firsthand IoT sensor data and non-sensor inputs. The outcome is 70% better multimodal ETAs, OTIF deliveries, 80%+ cold chain compliance, and more, including 4X+ ROI on supply chain asset performance.
About AI Breakthrough
Part of Tech Breakthrough, a leading market intelligence and recognition platform for global technology innovation and leadership, the AI Breakthrough Awards program is devoted to honoring excellence in Artificial Intelligence technologies, services, companies and products. The AI Breakthrough Awards provide public recognition for the achievements of AI companies and products in categories including AI Platforms, Robotics, Business Intelligence, AI Hardware, NLP, Computer Vision and more. For more information visit AIBreakthroughAwards.com.
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The “2024 Year in Review” report lists the various transportation delays, freight volume restrictions, and infrastructure repair costs of a long string of events. Those disruptions include labor strikes at Canadian ports and postal sites, the U.S. East and Gulf coast port strike; hurricanes Helene, Francine, and Milton; the Francis Scott key Bridge collapse in Baltimore Harbor; the CrowdStrike cyber attack; and Red Sea missile attacks on passing cargo ships.
“While 2024 was characterized by frequent and overlapping disruptions that exposed many supply chain vulnerabilities, it was also a year of resilience,” the Project44 report said. “From labor strikes and natural disasters to geopolitical tensions, each event served as a critical learning opportunity, underscoring the necessity for robust contingency planning, effective labor relations, and durable infrastructure. As supply chains continue to evolve, the lessons learned this past year highlight the increased importance of proactive measures and collaborative efforts. These strategies are essential to fostering stability and adaptability in a world where unpredictability is becoming the norm.”
In addition to tallying the supply chain impact of those events, the report also made four broad predictions for trends in 2025 that may affect logistics operations. In Project44’s analysis, they include:
More technology and automation will be introduced into supply chains, particularly ports. This will help make operations more efficient but also increase the risk of cybersecurity attacks and service interruptions due to glitches and bugs. This could also add tensions among the labor pool and unions, who do not want jobs to be replaced with automation.
The new administration in the United States introduces a lot of uncertainty, with talks of major tariffs for numerous countries as well as talks of US freight getting preferential treatment through the Panama Canal. If these things do come to fruition, expect to see shifts in global trade patterns and sourcing.
Natural disasters will continue to become more frequent and more severe, as exhibited by the wildfires in Los Angeles and the winter storms throughout the southern states in the U.S. As a result, expect companies to invest more heavily in sustainability to mitigate climate change.
The peace treaty announced on Wednesday between Isael and Hamas in the Middle East could support increased freight volumes returning to the Suez Canal as political crisis in the area are resolved.
ReposiTrak, a global food traceability network operator, will partner with Upshop, a provider of store operations technology for food retailers, to create an end-to-end grocery traceability solution that reaches from the supply chain to the retail store, the firms said today.
The partnership creates a data connection between suppliers and the retail store. It works by integrating Salt Lake City-based ReposiTrak’s network of thousands of suppliers and their traceability shipment data with Austin, Texas-based Upshop’s network of more than 450 retailers and their retail stores.
That accomplishment is important because it will allow food sector trading partners to meet the U.S. FDA’s Food Safety Modernization Act Section 204d (FSMA 204) requirements that they must create and store complete traceability records for certain foods.
And according to ReposiTrak and Upshop, the traceability solution may also unlock potential business benefits. It could do that by creating margin and growth opportunities in stores by connecting supply chain data with store data, thus allowing users to optimize inventory, labor, and customer experience management automation.
"Traceability requires data from the supply chain and – importantly – confirmation at the retail store that the proper and accurate lot code data from each shipment has been captured when the product is received. The missing piece for us has been the supply chain data. ReposiTrak is the leader in capturing and managing supply chain data, starting at the suppliers. Together, we can deliver a single, comprehensive traceability solution," Mark Hawthorne, chief innovation and strategy officer at Upshop, said in a release.
"Once the data is flowing the benefits are compounding. Traceability data can be used to improve food safety, reduce invoice discrepancies, and identify ways to reduce waste and improve efficiencies throughout the store,” Hawthorne said.
Under FSMA 204, retailers are required by law to track Key Data Elements (KDEs) to the store-level for every shipment containing high-risk food items from the Food Traceability List (FTL). ReposiTrak and Upshop say that major industry retailers have made public commitments to traceability, announcing programs that require more traceability data for all food product on a faster timeline. The efforts of those retailers have activated the industry, motivating others to institute traceability programs now, ahead of the FDA’s enforcement deadline of January 20, 2026.
Inclusive procurement practices can fuel economic growth and create jobs worldwide through increased partnerships with small and diverse suppliers, according to a study from the Illinois firm Supplier.io.
The firm’s “2024 Supplier Diversity Economic Impact Report” found that $168 billion spent directly with those suppliers generated a total economic impact of $303 billion. That analysis can help supplier diversity managers and chief procurement officers implement programs that grow diversity spend, improve supply chain competitiveness, and increase brand value, the firm said.
The companies featured in Supplier.io’s report collectively supported more than 710,000 direct jobs and contributed $60 billion in direct wages through their investments in small and diverse suppliers. According to the analysis, those purchases created a ripple effect, supporting over 1.4 million jobs and driving $105 billion in total income when factoring in direct, indirect, and induced economic impacts.
“At Supplier.io, we believe that empowering businesses with advanced supplier intelligence not only enhances their operational resilience but also significantly mitigates risks,” Aylin Basom, CEO of Supplier.io, said in a release. “Our platform provides critical insights that drive efficiency and innovation, enabling companies to find and invest in small and diverse suppliers. This approach helps build stronger, more reliable supply chains.”
Logistics industry growth slowed in December due to a seasonal wind-down of inventory and following one of the busiest holiday shopping seasons on record, according to the latest Logistics Managers’ Index (LMI) report, released this week.
The monthly LMI was 57.3 in December, down more than a percentage point from November’s reading of 58.4. Despite the slowdown, economic activity across the industry continued to expand, as an LMI reading above 50 indicates growth and a reading below 50 indicates contraction.
The LMI researchers said the monthly conditions were largely due to seasonal drawdowns in inventory levels—and the associated costs of holding them—at the retail level. The LMI’s Inventory Levels index registered 50, falling from 56.1 in November. That reduction also affected warehousing capacity, which slowed but remained in expansion mode: The LMI’s warehousing capacity index fell 7 points to a reading of 61.6.
December’s results reflect a continued trend toward more typical industry growth patterns following recent years of volatility—and they point to a successful peak holiday season as well.
“Retailers were clearly correct in their bet to stock [up] on goods ahead of the holiday season,” the LMI researchers wrote in their monthly report. “Holiday sales from November until Christmas Eve were up 3.8% year-over-year according to Mastercard. This was largely driven by a 6.7% increase in e-commerce sales, although in-person spending was up 2.9% as well.”
And those results came during a compressed peak shopping cycle.
“The increase in spending came despite the shorter holiday season due to the late Thanksgiving,” the researchers also wrote, citing National Retail Federation (NRF) estimates that U.S. shoppers spent just short of a trillion dollars in November and December, making it the busiest holiday season of all time.
The LMI is a monthly survey of logistics managers from across the country. It tracks industry growth overall and across eight areas: inventory levels and costs; warehousing capacity, utilization, and prices; and transportation capacity, utilization, and prices. The report is released monthly by researchers from Arizona State University, Colorado State University, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rutgers University, and the University of Nevada, Reno, in conjunction with the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP).
As U.S. small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) face an uncertain business landscape in 2025, a substantial majority (67%) expect positive growth in the new year compared to 2024, according to a survey from DHL.
However, the survey also showed that businesses could face a rocky road to reach that goal, as they navigate a complex environment of regulatory/policy shifts and global market volatility. Both those issues were cited as top challenges by 36% of respondents, followed by staffing/talent retention (11%) and digital threats and cyber attacks (2%).
Against that backdrop, SMEs said that the biggest opportunity for growth in 2025 lies in expanding into new markets (40%), followed by economic improvements (31%) and implementing new technologies (14%).
As the U.S. prepares for a broad shift in political leadership in Washington after a contentious election, the SMEs in DHL’s survey were likely split evenly on their opinion about the impact of regulatory and policy changes. A plurality of 40% were on the fence (uncertain, still evaluating), followed by 24% who believe regulatory changes could negatively impact growth, 20% who see these changes as having a positive impact, and 16% predicting no impact on growth at all.
That uncertainty also triggered a split when respondents were asked how they planned to adjust their strategy in 2025 in response to changes in the policy or regulatory landscape. The largest portion (38%) of SMEs said they remained uncertain or still evaluating, followed by 30% who will make minor adjustments, 19% will maintain their current approach, and 13% who were willing to significantly adjust their approach.