Bill James | JPods

Education: BS, 1972, West Point, Physics and Nuclear Engineering, NCAA All American Wrestler. Captain of the Wrestling Team.

90-second summary video of JPods

Work experience:

1957, as a small child too short to use a wheel barrel, I could move tons of manure cleaning a barn with a half-barrel hanging from a guideway.
In the Infantry, I used helicopters with suspended payloads to pinpoint deliver logistics.
With JPods, we added robots.

1972-1980: Infantry, Airborne, Ranger. Commanded the Army’s only ski mobile unit in Alaska.
1980-1986, Industrial experience setting up manufacturing capabilities around the US and Europe for Honeywell. Ran a subcontract engineering group responsible for selecting vendors outside Honeywell to be part of our supply chain and for the production of their products. Responsible for all metal components for:
- GAU-8 30 mm cannon ammunition, 700,000 rounds per month.
- Apache 30 mm cannon ammunition, 125,000 rounds per month.
- Bushmaster, 25 mm cannon, ammunition, from development to 25,000 rounds per month.
- AT4 negotiated a contract for $160 million purchase from Sweden and technology transfer to US manufacturing. All non-combustable commonents.
1982, ran for Congress in St Paul, MN against an entrenched 6 term opponent. We were creative in getting people engaged with the Guinness Book of World Record publishing our handshaking record (1984 publication).

1986, founded ASI-Datamyte to implement Statistical Process Control (SPC) for manufacturing processes. We were the first to convert analog gages to digital output with SPC displays, apply them to the factory floor, and network them into “just-in-time” production systems. Bought by Allen Bradley and now back out on its own.
1989, founded JITCorp to apply process controls to the selling process. WebClerk software.
- Business press awarded WebClerk the “Best New High Tech Product of the Year” in Minnesota
- Authored Desktop Hosting (Wiley)
1998, founded JPods to cut urban transport costs (passenger/cargo) by 95% (Metrics). JPods are networks of electrically powered, self-driving cars that travel suspended from an over-head guideway (freeway). Solar-collectors mounted over the guideway gather the energy to power the network.
- US Patent (6,810,817), JPods®, Physical Internet®:
  - Self-driving vehicles on grade-separated guideways: “A method of controlling a transportation System for moving people, freight, and any combination whereof using a distributed network of intelligent devices without requiring the aid of a human driver”
  - Networks are solar-powered: “The method… providing… Solar and wind power generators integrated into the physical Structure of Said transportation System….”
- Patents pending:
- News on how this industry will convert into value 60% of the $2.76 trillion/year traffic costs Americans (metrics)

1999: An overlap between the Internet and Physical Internet®. Apple invited me on two national tours to show how Macs could be used in business. My enterprise software had been “Best New High Tech Product of the Year” in Minnesota. At that time I tried to get Steve Jobs to help build JPods. He loved the idea of the Physical Internet® and mixing digital and physical delivery, but thought Segways could break the regulatory barriers and JPods could not. Eighteen months later Apple released “iPods.”

Transportation and energy networks will digitize to become distributed and collaborative. JPods patent and 40,000 hours of polishing the concepts are at the center of this paradigm shift.

Red Bull TV documentary on the future of transportation. JPods section begins at minute 9:30

Northeastern Association of State Transportation Officials (NASTO) program. Maryland’s Secretary of Transportation invited me to participate in the Plenary Session he named “Meet George Jetson.”

“Here’s your answer” Supply Chain Matrix™
File organization.
WebClerk Preferences
Q&A behaviors
Spare parts video