Archive: Aug 2004

Avoiding Transportation Chargebacks

Chargebacks are a fact of life that manufacturers have to deal with. For many of these shippers, how they get the product to their customers’ door is no longer under their control. Consignees and their routing guides are king. If shippers don’t comply with routing guide instructions, they pay, and pay big. Between five and […]

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Truckers Get Aggressive with Cargo Security

The transportation industry has never been without challenges. It is an industry that is extraordinarily complex and vital to the economy. For the last three years, warnings of terrorist attacks via biological, chemical, and strategic weapons have been a fact of life, with the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, a frightening reminder that no industry […]

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Achieving Optimization with Closed-Loop Transportation Management

Today’s transportation managers face conflicting challenges and pressures. Regulatory mandates and security compliance create productivity and capacity issues. Companies are moving toward smaller and more frequent orders. Globalization continues to expand. While all these factors drive up logistics costs, a competitive economic climate puts downward pressure on pricing, even as shareholders seek improved profit margins. […]

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Reducing the Cost of Cross-Border Compliance

In a global economy, the cost, speed, and certainty of crossing borders are all vital to maintaining competitiveness. Falling tariff rates and vanishing trade barriers create the illusion that customs compliance is now simpler. In reality, complex procedures, innumerable conditions set by free trade agreements, stringent security regulations and stricter enforcement, among other issues, result […]

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Flynn’s Folly

I am on my supply chain security rant again, but it’s not my fault. Someone recommended I read a new book that is touted as “riveting, chilling and gripping” by a segment of the media. America the Vulnerable: How Our Government is Failing to Protect Us from Terrorism was written by Stephen Flynn, a retired […]

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Consumer Products Logistics: Driving Shoppers to the Mall

Today’s consumers are demanding. They want lower prices, higher product availability and easier returns. Meanwhile, retailers continue to push inventory and costs back to the manufacturers. Consumer products logistics professionals meet these tough consumer and retailer requirements by developing supply chain innovations and breakthroughs that keep store shelves stocked and customers coming back for more.

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Apple of Your IT: Technology at the Core of Food Logistics

Food retailers and manufacturers are struggling to cut costs as they battle various channel service requirements, customer demands, and excess inventory. Here’s how a steady diet of electronic commerce, data synchronization, electronic product codes and RFID is serving up savings.

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Cargo Crossroads of the World: Alaska

Throughout history, Alaska has been the crossroads of human migration and exploration. When coastal tribes first ventured over from Siberia into present-day Alaska more than 10,000 years ago, they marked the first evidence of human habitation in North America. Since the discovery of petroleum reserves in Prudhoe Bay in 1968, and the completion of the […]

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