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Tag: warehouses

  • How the Trump administration plans to speed up deportations with new holding centers – WTOP News

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    As detention efforts by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency continue, a new report details the Donald Trump administration is working to develop large-scale holding centers to speed up deportations.

    WTOP’s Ralph Fox talked with Washington Post reporter Douglas MacMillan on the Donald Trump administration’s new deportation plans.

    As detention efforts by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency continue, new reports are detailing that the Donald Trump administration is working to develop large-scale holding centers to speed up deportations. This is according to internal ICE documents reviewed by the Washington Post.

    One location being considered is a facility with the potential to hold 10,000 people in Stafford County, Virginia.

    This plan would change the current system — where people are moved around to whichever facility has open beds — into a staged pipeline built around “processing sites” and massive “warehouses” intended to speed removals.

    In his report, Douglas MacMillan said the Trump administration aims to build seven large-scale holding centers that can hold as many as 80,000 immigrants in warehouses at a time.

    One senior ICE official told the Post the move is “similar to an Amazon Prime warehouse, but for people.”

    Newly arrested detainees would spend weeks at intake locations before being transferred into one of the facilities designed to hold anywhere between 5,000 and 10,000 people each.

    The Post noted acting ICE Director Todd M. Lyons said at a conference back in April that “the administration needs to treat deportations like a business.”

    The transcript below has been lightly edited for clarity.

    • Ralph Fox:

      What’s the plan and ultimate goal here?

    • Douglas MacMillan:

      All year, the Trump administration has been increasing the capacity for this country to hold immigrants, and they have reopened former prisons. They’ve opened detention camps on military bases. It looks like now they’re shifting the priority a little bit towards trying to make this system more efficient.

      The Trump administration wants to begin deporting people more efficiently, more rapidly. And to do that, they feel like they need to set up kind of a hub and spoke system where they’re going to book people into a processing center where they’ll be held for a few weeks, and then they’ll be sent to one of these kind of mass camps that they hope to renovate at least seven large industrial warehouses to act as sort of the hubs of this system all around the country.

    • Ralph Fox:

      And that could have an effect on our area as well. Yes?

    • Douglas MacMillan:

      Yes, they are planning. One of these seven facilities is planned for Stafford, Virginia, and it’s an industrial center. They seem to be targeting areas that are just outside of major metropolises and near kind of industrial logistics hubs.

      I think that, you know, they want to be near airports, they want to be near highways and make this whole system kind of more efficient, more streamlined. You know, one quote from a current ICE official from a conference earlier this year is, he said that they want this whole system to act more like a business, and they want to be as efficient as Amazon moves packages. And, he said, ‘like Prime but with human beings.’

    • Ralph Fox:

      And now has Homeland Security actually confirmed that this is happening?

    • Douglas MacMillan:

      We reached out to them and for comment. We shared a lot of questions with them. They did not answer the questions, and they said that they cannot confirm this.

      Usually we will get some kind of a statement denying things when things are wrong. So they didn’t do that. Our reporting is based off of an internal draft document that they were planning to send out to industry partners last week.

      So we believe that this is very much kind of in the works and about to kind of be put into action. We don’t know if they’ve actually procured, obtained any of the actual buildings yet, but we think that that might be the next step of this process.

    • Ralph Fox:

      And there’s been stories, a number of stories, of people not knowing where loved ones are for days. They just disappear, sometimes weeks under the current program. This looks to get people out of the country even faster. Is there possibly more accountability, as far as that’s concerned, or, maybe less?

    • Douglas MacMillan:

      Yeah, it’s hard to say. I mean, on the one hand, if they’re trying to make the system more efficient, maybe they would have, be able to track people better.

      But I think at this point, it’s hard to believe that anything this administration does will make it things easier or better or more transparent or accountable for immigrants and the people and their friends and family.

    • Ralph Fox:

      And when you look at it globally, a hub and spoke makes sense if you’re trying to move certain things and not speaking specifically about humans. But, do we have an idea what kind of price tag taxpayers could be looking at here?

    • Douglas MacMillan:

      That’s a good question. We don’t have any idea the numbers yet, but we do know they have a lot of money to spend.

      Congress made available over $100 billion to the Department of Homeland Security in their budget bill this year, $45 billion of that is allocated towards immigrant detention. It’s the largest amount this country has ever dedicated towards immigrant detention.

      So, they have almost a blank check to go out and buy buildings and to renovate them. Whether they can do this in a way that is humane and actually respects the lives that they’re going to be holding in these buildings, I think will be a big question, and one that we’ll continue to be looking at in our reporting.

    • Ralph Fox:

      And again, just to confirm, at least half, or nearly half of these people that have been deported so far have no criminal convictions or pending criminal charges. Is that right?

    • Douglas MacMillan:

      That’s right.

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    Valerie Bonk

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  • Energy crisis looms for US warehouses

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    An annual survey conducted by industrial real estate investment trust Prologis revealed supply chain managers are becoming increasingly concerned with reliable energy sources for the warehouses they operate.

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    Of the 1,816 senior executives polled across the globe, 89% said they experienced an energy-related disruption to operations over the past year. The outlook among the group is that energy reliability could be the “next major supply chain crisis.”

    “Almost nine in 10 companies experienced energy disruption in the past year, from price volatility to weather-driven outages,” a Monday report said. “Executives are consequently worried about power reliability, with seven in 10 saying they fear outages more than any other disruption.”

    Mass adoption of AI technologies and the required buildout of data centers to support them will likely drive a 10% to 50% increase in power requirements over the next five years, 76% of the respondents said.

    Eighty-three percent said energy procurement could reach crisis level, however, less than a third currently have backup systems in place. Interestingly, 90% said they would pay premium rates for warehouses with dependable power sources.

    “Energy is the new fault line in global supply chains,” said Susan Uthayakumar, chief energy and sustainability officer at Prologis. “A majority of companies faced energy disruptions last year, and most expect their power needs to surge in the years ahead. The companies that solve for energy resilience will be the ones that stay ahead.”

    The report flagged other trends that are reshaping supply chains.

    Production and distribution are moving closer to the consumer, with 77% of companies already on a path to “regional self-sufficient networks,” and six in 10 expecting a more localized supply chain by 2023.

    “Geographic realignment is accelerating toward localized production, aligning around major cities as high consumption centers and labor bases,” the report said. “After decades of chasing the cheapest global labor, companies are reversing course.”

    Also, 70% of companies have implemented advanced or transformational AI technologies to improve operations.

    While 82% of survey respondents expressed optimism for 2026, they also acknowledged changes in business practices, such as adopting new technology, implementing risk monitoring systems and increasing inventory levels to prevent stockouts.

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  • Bill on buffer zones around Inland Empire warehouses goes to governor

    Bill on buffer zones around Inland Empire warehouses goes to governor

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    Gov. Gavin Newsom holds the power to complicate the lives of industrial developers in the Inland Empire and the rest of California after the 11th-hour passage of a bill that would require buffers between big warehouses and residential neighborhoods.

    The bill passed the state Assembly and Senate hours before a deadline of the recently concluded legislative session, the Los Angeles Daily News reported.

    Newsom has until Sept. 30 to sign the bill, veto it or let it expire without his signature, a move known as a pocket veto.

    The legislation lands squarely on the hottest segment of commercial real estate, which has seen a boom in the development of warehouses and other logistics centers since the pandemic gave a boost to online shopping and the fulfillment operations the trend requires. 

    It calls for several hundred feet of buffer space between new warehouse developments and residential areas. Future development would be largely restricted to major thoroughfares, and would have to meet various landscaping requirements. In some cases, the law would require the deployment of zero-emission technology and ban trucks from idling their engines.

    The sponsors of the Assembly version of the bill were Eloise Gómez Reyes, a Democrat from the Inland Empire town of Colton, and Juan Carrillo, a Democrat from Palmdale, in the Antelope Valley. Both areas are centers of logistics, with links to freeways and rail lines. Both of the legislators have touted the bill as a necessary safeguard for constituents in residential neighborhoods in their districts.

    Business groups have opposed the legislation as unfriendly to business and likely to cost jobs.

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    TRD Staff

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  • The Secret to Heftier Profits and Happier Employees Lies In This Industry | Entrepreneur

    The Secret to Heftier Profits and Happier Employees Lies In This Industry | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Labor shortages across the U.S. are impacting businesses of every size across all industries, with a whopping 9.9 million job openings and only 5.8 million unemployed workers available to fill the roles, according to the latest data from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. While many factors are contributing to the labor shortage, at the heart, the problem is structural, with declining U.S. birth rates and the drop in net immigration resulting in a lack of available workers.

    Warehouse operations have been hit particularly hard by the labor shortage, complicated further by the extremely high turnover rate in the industry. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), 216,000 people in the transportation and warehouse industry quit their job in April 2023. With 351,000 hires in the month, this exodus translates to a 3% quit rate, second only to the retail (3.5%) and leisure and hospitality (4.6%) sectors. Figures like these shine a spotlight on the retention and hiring challenges that business leaders across industries are facing.

    Related: The Labor Shortage Is Only Getting Worse. What’s Causing It and How Can I Avoid Losing Staff?

    Focus on happy teams

    In light of the labor supply/demand imbalance and the potentially crippling impact of peak season volumes on warehouse teams already stretched to the limit, meeting the demands of fulfillment operations is dependent on retaining quality workers. But employee retention is a significant hurdle, with an abundance of warehouse vacancies available across multiple industries and low barriers of entry for dissatisfied workers looking to change jobs. How can business leaders cope with this revolving door?

    Keeping existing warehouse staff happy with less stress and friction in their workday is fundamental to retailers’ retention efforts. While labor shortages are forcing organizations to do more with less in the warehouse, streamlining fulfillment workflows to increase efficiency and productivity, savvy business leaders are also looking at ways to optimize warehouse operations with the employee experience in mind.

    By leveraging warehouse management technology to simplify and expedite fulfillment tasks, companies can prevent workload overwhelm, reduce stress and improve job satisfaction for their warehouse teams which, in turn, helps to build loyalty and reduce employee churn.

    Related: 4 Ways to Boost Your Employee Retention in an Uncertain Economy

    Simplifying with tech

    While shipping the right items in the right quantities to the right customer may seem like a no-brainer from the outside looking in, warehouse teams relying on manual, paper-based practices are up against a wall. Given that one of the most common complaints of warehouse workers is unmanageable workloads, it’s a smart strategy to leverage technology that helps employees alleviate workplace stress by completing tasks faster yet with less effort.

    In addition to enabling more efficient workflows to boost fulfillment capacity, the aim of warehouse management systems (WMS) is to simplify and accelerate employees’ day-to-day tasks. When it comes to receiving, merchants without a WMS typically rely on specific staff to determine where to put inventory, which means that, oftentimes, the broader warehouse team does not always know where exactly to go (e.g. floor/area/aisle/shelf/bin) to find what they need for an order.

    With WMS technology that supports barcode scanning, inventory can be registered quickly into locations by scanning the location and the item. Barcoded items can be easily moved to new locations by scanning the item or selecting all items in the location. Armed with a barcode scanner and mobile app — instead of a clipboard — warehouse workers receive a digital pick list and follow guided optimized walking paths throughout the warehouse. Given they can walk several miles every day, reducing “mileage” makes the job easier and less physically taxing.

    In addition, tech-enabled pick methods (e.g. single item batch picking, pick and sort to trolley, multiple orders by item) enable workers to easily handle more volume, faster; for example, multi-order picking can decrease walk time by 85% compared to single order picking.

    Related: Using Tech to Build Supply Chain Resilience in a Changing World

    Job satisfaction linked to better operational metrics

    For businesses in diverse industries, adding a WMS to the tech stack is not just a boon for employee satisfaction, it produces substantial gains on the operational front as well. Organizations can manage their warehouse operations in real time, ensure inventory counts are accurate and synced with online storefronts and marketplaces to reduce the risk of overselling and increase fulfillment capacity with more efficient order picking and shipping. The ability to process more orders accurately and efficiently without hiring more people is particularly valuable in light of ongoing staffing challenges, helping to increase profit margins and drive growth.

    How business leaders are the gatekeepers to warehouse innovation

    For an organization to successfully leverage technology like WMS in the warehouse, top management must realize that supply chain and logistics agility is critical to company performance and take steps to enable innovation.

    Indeed, there’s a clear correlation between the strategies and decisions of top financial performers and those companies whose senior management hold the belief that supply chain and logistics innovation is crucial to success versus those whose senior management feels differently. Ultimately, business leaders across industries are the gatekeepers to technology innovation, and supply chain innovation in particular can make or break a company’s bottom line.

    This is underscored in the research study Supply Chain and Logistics Innovation Accelerates, but Has a Long Way to Go, which surveyed 1,000 global execs in the supply chain arena: “Respondents who said they were better financial performers were 20% more likely to have senior management who believes innovation is important and 16% more likely to have lower employee turnover.”

    In fact, when it comes to warehouse management in particular, 23% of respondents said that WMS technology will be one of the top focus areas for innovation for the next two years.

    In light of warehouse worker shortages, leaders need to prioritize the employee experience in the warehouse to ensure workers are happy, healthy and not looking for the door. They can accomplish this goal — and boost the bottom line at the same time — by opening the doors to innovation in their organization and leveraging warehouse management technology in order to streamline, accelerate and simplify order fulfillment operations. Everyone wins!

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    Johannes Panzer

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