Logistics Contingency Planning
Can your company weather a logistics disaster such as a terrorist attack, airport closure, or worker strike? These sudden disruptions can strand you—along with your customers’ freight. Here are tips on planning for a crisis, and handling emergency shipping when a major disruption happens, from Joel Childs, vice president of marketing, FedEx Custom Critical. 1. […]
Read MoreNavigating the Rigors of NAFTA
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has been the catalyst for many small- to mid-sized U.S. importers to expand their comfort zone and test the waters with new suppliers and customers. While many large or multi-national importers have processes in place to determine and track eligibility for NAFTA and other special trade programs, smaller […]
Read MoreNetwork Software: Finding the Perfect Fit
A shift is occurring in the way logistics software is delivered. Companies have spent billions of dollars customizing, implementing, and maintaining supply chain software to improve efficiency and service. Yet, despite this investment, projects are often discontinued as software too quickly becomes shelfware. High failure rates and delayed ROI can be attributed to costs associated […]
Read MoreSeeing’ Safe Ports: Connect to Protect
The emergence of new global logistics challenges in the wake of Sept. 11 has prompted the U.S. government to effectively secure our borders. But, of the 5.7 million containers arriving in the United States each year, less than two percent of all shipments offloaded at U.S. ports are inspected prior to arrival. Limited human resources […]
Read MoreWeb Portal Builds Concrete Relationships
Striving to stay competitive despite lower operational costs, St. Lawrence Cement Company turns to a web portal to facilitate order processing and delivery.
Read MoreAre You a Logistics Laggard?
Logisticians get saddled with lots of responsibility when things go wrong—the shipment is late, the shipment is lost, the carrier filed Chapter 11, the ports are closed. Now we learn that we are not practicing “socially responsible logistics.” Talk about piling on! “The logistics discipline appears to be more of a laggard with respect to […]
Read MoreWarehousing for the 21st Century
Companies explore merge-in-transit, crossdocking, and pool distribution in the never-ending quest to increase speed to market, improve service and inventory turns, and reduce costs.
Read MoreLogistics 101: Back to Basics
Logistics can confound the newly initiated and veterans alike. So take out your notebook, sharpen your pencil, and take this Inbound Logistics short course on the fundamental concepts driving logistics theory and practice today.
Read MoreRouting Guides: Inside the Matrix
Successful implementation of a routing guide feeds off constant communication among vendors, carriers, and consignees. Find out how you can help foster better shipping compliance among your supply chain partners with a dynamic routing guide.
Read MoreTurning Invoices Into Intelligence
Don’t let bankruptcies in the freight payment industry overshadow the potential power of turning freight invoices into actionable information.
Read MoreKaren Caswelch: Quality In High Gear
When Karen Caswelch joined Allison Transmission as director of purchasing last year, she had no corporate purchasing experience. But her record in operations and quality management made her supremely qualified to carry out her number-one mission. “The ultimate mandate,” Caswelch says, “is to keep the plants running. And you’ve got to keep them running with […]
Read MoreCRM Plays Crucial, Often Confusing, Role in SCM
The importance of customer relationship management (CRM) within the supply chain is vitally important. This column offers my take on some important integration issues. The customer and the customer’s customer have been a critical part of the supply chain since its inception. The customer is quite clearly what the supply chain is all about. Having […]
Read MoreAdding a Dash of SALT to Logistics
Speech technology developers cook up a new recipe for web applications.
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