How to Determine Whether Your Freight Broker Is Legitimate
Wouldn’t it be great if you did your business trusting all of the parties involved without a shadow of a doubt? Sometimes this is indeed possible – when you’ve worked with the same partners for years, and you’ve managed to build a work environment of mutual trust and cooperation. Most of the time, however, it’s […]
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Regulation as an Opportunity
Manufacturers are facing an increasing number of regulations in a variety of areas from increasing food safety to meeting specific ground-level ozone policies. The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act of 2010, signed into law in 2011, is just one example of recent legislation. Resulting from widespread cases of tainted eggs and peanut butter, the sweeping […]
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Six Key Areas Every Purchasing Expert Should Address
There was a time when purchasing was a relatively straightforward task. You found the best price at the best terms and negotiated a contract. Signed. Sealed. Done. Sorry to say those days are long gone. When considering the company’s needs, you need to look very closely at the current economic conditions and trends, and base […]
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By the Numbers: Tracking Carrier Performance
How well is your trucking company working for you? Metrics offer insight into carrier performance and benchmarks for improvement goals.
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3PL Partnership Provides The Total Package
Intertape Polymer Group’s transportation strategy was getting a bum wrap, until an outsourcing partnership enabled greater inventory control and profit margins that stick.
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Choosing Enterprise vs. Software-as-a-Service TMS
Q: What platform options are available to companies investing in transportation management systems? A: Transportation management systems (TMS) come in two essential forms. The traditional form is enterprise software—applications installed on servers that you buy and maintain. The more recent—though hardly new—form is Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), which is provided and maintained by a vendor on the […]
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A National Standard for Hiring ‘Safe’ Motor Carriers
Q: Is there confusion over what constitutes a safe carrier when screening and contracting for shipments? A: Most definitely. Unfortunately, the courts are deciding safety standards for carriers, and their opinions vary widely from state to state. This puts contractors—shippers, brokers, forwarders, and receivers—in an awkward position, particularly when something goes wrong, such as a […]
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Boost Your Workforce’s Value Through Training and Mentoring
Q: What is a company’s most important and most often neglected resource? A: People are the number one resource a company has. Too often they are also the most neglected when it comes to improvements. Companies spend significant resources on trucks, trailers, and technology, but sometimes invest very little in their human capital. Keep your […]
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Freight Audit and Payment Services: Stacking Up Savings
Analyzing shipment data can reveal trouble spots and identify opportunities to cut costs. Freight audit and payment services provide the supply chain analytics and expertise to give shippers an edge.
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A Mobile Cure for the Warehouse Blues
Companies are under constant pressure to improve warehouse efficiency and reduce errors. Mobile communications technologies help them rise to the challenge.
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2014 Trucking Perspectives
Inbound Logistics’ exclusive trucking market research report delivers shipper and motor carrier insights into trucking challenges and trends.
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Steering Transportation Management Strategies
In a market where carriers can call the shots, smart transportation management is more important than ever. Here are some strategies driving success.
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Transportation Modeling: Is There Ever an Average Day?
Most large shippers spend a great deal of time and money collecting, analyzing, and maintaining the data used to drive daily transportation planning and execution. When codified and integrated into the shipper’s transportation system, this data becomes the organization’s transportation policy. This policy is comprised of lanes, modes, rates, service levels, capacity, and a multitude […]
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Are You Ready for the Capacity Crisis? Oh, It’s Here
Funny thing, predictions. We gravitate toward them, some of us armed with a dollop of healthy skepticism. But when respected analyst John Larkin announced in 2010 that the trucking industry was facing the "mother of all capacity shortages," people listened. We haven’t quite reached the "mother" level yet, but the evidence says it’s not far […]
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Product Returns: 5 Myths Busted
Retailers and manufacturers often avoid dealing with product returns until returned inventory clogs up the warehouse or write-offs hit their P&L. When the returns problem gets big enough to force action, they attempt to deal with it as quickly and cheaply as possible. Executives often avoid returns issues because they believe in one or more […]
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Nearshoring: Mexico – Is It Time?
Mexico presents an attractive option for U.S.-based companies moving all or a portion of their supply chains closer to home.
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Global Logistics—September 2014
Eruption Disruption: What’s Your Plan? It’s déjà vu all over again. The bubbling Bardarbunga volcano compelled Iceland authorities to raise their aviation warning to orange—the second-highest level—as the possibility for another widespread ash cloud grows more likely. It was a little more than four years ago when an ash cloud from the island’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano […]
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Trends—September 2014
HCS Updates: Asked and Answered The Occupational Safety and Health Administration‘s (OSHA) 2012 Hazard Communication Standard (HCS) is sure to elicit a supply chain reaction from chemical manufacturers, distributors, and end users. The updates to HCS 1994, OSHA’s previous convention, feature some cosmetic changes—"material safety data sheets" are now referred to as "safety data sheets"— […]
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Tamsen Fricke: Finding the Sweet Spot
Tamsen Fricke has served as operations manager at Divine Chocolate USA in Washington, D.C., since 2013. Responsibilities: Imports, inventory management, national distribution, 3PL management, quality control, customer service, operations strategy, and regulatory compliance. Experience: Account executive, Latinflor/Flortec; account executive, Panatlantic Logistics S.A.; senior inside sales coordinator, U.S. government client liaison, government service program manager, Panalpina. […]
Read MoreNegotiating Rail Freight Rates
The best way to improve railroad contract negotiations is to understand the market and the opportunities to increase competition for your traffic. Jay Roman, president of Escalation Consultants Inc., Gaithersburg, Md., offers the following advice for reducing rail freight rates. 1. Shake off the rail monopoly power syndrome. Shippers sometimes hesitate to try to reduce […]
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