Archive: Apr 2007

Automating Workflow Management

By automating supply chain workflow, private fleet operators, carriers, and third-party logistics providers can more easily gather and utilize information, and communicate with their suppliers and customers more effectively. It also helps them gain a leg up on the competition. Workflow management software systems (WfM) are helpful, but they can also be challenging to manage […]

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TMS Shopping Made Simple

During my 15 years as a transportation technology professional, I have stood on both sides of the trade show aisle—shopping for and selling transportation management systems (TMS). Navigating the technology marketplace, as I have learned, is no easy task. It can make purchasing a TMS downright frustrating. If you are in the process of selecting […]

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Easing the Pain of Product Proliferation

Product proliferation—the explosion in the number of individual stock-keeping units (SKUs) that has occurred over the past decade—poses a major challenge to supply chain managers and adds millions of dollars to logistics costs. In large part, product proliferation stems from the trend toward mass customization—providing consumers with custom-designed, personalized products at affordable prices. Other trends […]

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IT’s Unexpected Benefits

When you invest in logistics IT, you expect to net the obvious results: implement a TMS and transportation operations run without a hitch; buy a WMS and goods flow smoothly in and out of the warehouse. But when shippers and logistics service providers adopt demand-driven ideas, and implement the technology and/or services to put that […]

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Truckers Get Connected

Boosting safety, productivity, and efficiency, sophisticated wireless technologies link vehicles, drivers, and shipping data to the world.

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Debbie E. Jackson: Life at the End of the ERP Tunnel

Debbie Jackson is starting to get her life back. It has been on hold since late 2003, while she and her colleagues at Johns Hopkins University endured one of the truly harrowing ordeals of business life: a major ERP implementation. As supply chain procurement team lead for HopkinsOne—the initiative to move all the Johns Hopkins […]

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