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YardFlow Expands Yard Automation to 200+ Beverage Giant Sites
YardFlow is expanding its yard automation software to all 200-plus facilities of a beverage giant after an initial 26-site deployment. According to a YardFlow analysis, the shipper moved nearly 5% more freight with the same headcount, which founder Jake Koppinger told FreightWaves represents tens of millions of dollars of incremental profit. The customer is rolling the system out from its largest facilities down to its smallest to achieve standardization, Koppinger said. YardFlow has processed close to 2 million shipments across the 26 sites, and the system runs at 99.9% uptime. The company's core product digitizes the driver journey from gate check-in through dock assignment to check-out and signed documentation, and the customer has also asked for a yard management system that YardFlow built and is now deploying, using machine vision cameras at the gate and on spotters to create a digital twin of the yard.
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ALP opens OMEGA 1 Bangna smart warehouse spanning 260,000 sq m with Zero CAPEX model
Ally Logistic Property (Thailand), or ALP, has launched OMEGA 1 Bangna, a new smart warehouse project on a total area of more than 260,000 square metres in the Bangna-EEC economic corridor, accommodating more than 160,000 pallet positions. Chali Chang, Co-Founder and CEO of ALP, said the project develops the We Invest, You Operate concept through an Infrastructure-as-a-Service business model, under which ALP invests in and manages the building, automation hardware, software and maintenance, while tenants pay for services based on actual usage. This allows operators to access automation without bearing upfront investment, or Zero CAPEX, for racking systems, robotic cranes and automation infrastructure. The project installs a 40-metre-high automated storage and retrieval system, or AS/RS, along with high-speed cranes, which the company says work three times faster than forklifts and manual labour and raise operational efficiency by up to 35% compared with conventional warehouses. It also uses the ALPOS operating system to connect warehouse management, robots and automation on a single data platform, and is designed to LEED Gold standards. ALP is backed by partners and financial institutions in Thailand and abroad, including CapitaLand Investment Limited, Pruksa Holding, Cathay Life Insurance and Malaysia's Employees Provident Fund. In 2022, ALP co-invested in the CapitaLand SEA Logistics Fund, which has total equity of 400 million Singapore dollars. Over the past 10 years, ALP and its partners have invested a cumulative total of more than 2 billion US dollars. In the first half of 2026, the company managed more than 20 warehouses across Asia, with a combined area of more than 1.3 million square metres. It aims over the long term to develop 48 smart warehouses in eight countries, lifting managed area to 8 million square metres with total investment of more than 8 billion US dollars. OMEGA 1 Bangna is now open for operators to inquire and apply to lease space, and ALP plans to expand the model to other strategic locations in Thailand and Southeast Asia.
BD Deploys Vmax 160 Pharmacy Robot at Fairview Health Services
Becton, Dickinson and Company has deployed its next-generation pharmacy automation robot, BD Vmax 160, at Fairview Health Services, marking the first U.S. health system to adopt the system. Fairview, which fills an average of 20,000 prescriptions per week across 25 outpatient pharmacies and mail-order services in Minnesota, is building on an existing collaboration with BD that includes the BD Parata Max 2 high-speed vial filling robot and the BD Incada Connected Care Platform. The Vmax 160 is designed for centralized fulfillment environments, featuring the BD EasyLoad system for overnight inventory replenishment with a reported three-second loading time per tote and 99.8% accuracy, automated labeling that supports requirements across all 50 states, cold-chain support for medications stored between 2°C and 8°C, and smart expiry detection that blocks expired products from being dispensed. Following the announcement, BDX stock gained 2.8% at yesterday's close, though shares have lost 5.8% year to date against the industry's 5% growth, with the S&P 500 up 11.1% over the same period. BDX currently has a market capitalization of $49 billion. Separately, BD said the STANCE trial of GalaFLEX LITE Scaffold surpassed 50% of its maximum planned enrollment with 274 patients treated across 33 U.S. sites, and it completed enrollment of 477 patients across 32 U.S. and European sites in the PREVENT trial evaluating Phasix Mesh for incisional hernia prevention.