How to Integrate AI Into Your Supply Chain

How to Integrate AI Into Your Supply Chain

Artificial intelligence is making inroads across the spectrum of logistics operations, perhaps faster than many in the industry are aware. AI is being integrated behind the scenes in a wide range of applications designed to make them—and the people who use them—exponentially more efficient. You’ll find it in various logistics applications such as route optimization, […]

Companies Prepare for Fallout from East Coast Port Strike

Companies Prepare for Fallout from East Coast Port Strike

Disruptive strike actions have begun at major U.S. ports on the East and Gulf Coasts such as New York-New Jersey, Savannah, and Houston, exposing ports across the United States to work stoppages, shipping and cargo processing delays, and worsening backlogs. Three main scenarios could unfold.

Hats Off to Core Carriers!

Hats Off to Core Carriers!

Want to brim with confidence when selecting a core carrier? When weighing this critical decision, consider a range of complex factors before you tip your cap to any one trucking company.

WMS 2024: Solutions Unlock Warehouse Efficiencies

WMS 2024: Solutions Unlock Warehouse Efficiencies

Looking for inventory visibility? Seeking order accuracy? A warehouse management system (WMS) can help your company gain operational insights and tackle the ecommerce boom. Here are three leading providers that can get your warehouse running at peak levels.

NOTED: Supply Chain Highlights

NOTED: Supply Chain Highlights

MANA Nutrition broke ground on a new 320,000-square-foot warehouse in Pooler, Georgia, four miles from the Port of Savannah. The facility, scheduled to open in the first quarter of 2025, will enable the company to double its current production while adding new storage capacity.

IN BRIEF: New Services and Solutions

IN BRIEF: New Services and Solutions

Lufthansa Cargo started operating freighters from Munich for the first time on July 6, 2024. An A321 freighter connects Munich with Istanbul Airport twice a week, complementing the existing belly network from Munich. The new freighter connection is planned every Saturday and Sunday.

VERTICAL FOCUS: High-Value Shipments

VERTICAL FOCUS: High-Value Shipments

Shipping high-value items requires special care and attention to ensure their safe arrival. By following these tips, shippers can significantly reduce the risk of damage or loss when transporting high-value items.

Value Stream Mapping: Definition, Benefits, and Implementation

Value Stream Mapping: Definition, Benefits, and Implementation

Value stream mapping (VSM) is a powerful tool in logistics and supply chain management. It allows you to visualize material and information flows, helping you identify waste and find opportunities for improvement.  In supply chain management, value stream mapping is essential. You can understand how raw materials and information move through your processes. This includes […]

Inventory Cycle Counting: Definition, Benefits, and How-To

Inventory Cycle Counting: Definition, Benefits, and How-To

Cycle counting is a crucial method in inventory management that helps businesses maintain accurate records without halting their daily operations.  Unlike traditional physical inventory counts, which can be disruptive and infrequent, cycle counting involves regularly auditing small portions of inventory.  The main advantage of cycle counting over traditional physical counts is its ability to provide […]

PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT: Warehouse Robotics

PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT: Warehouse Robotics

LocusHub: Locus Robotics’ real-time, business intelligence engine optimizes real-time coordination of Locus’ AMR fleets. A component of the LocusOne platform, LocusHub uses advanced analytics, AI, and machine learning to provide insights that can maximize productivity, lower costs, and increase warehouse intelligence. LocusHub’s reporting capabilities process operational data to forecast labor requirements, identify optimization opportunities, and give recommendations to warehouse operators.

How ESG Policy Impacts Truckers

How ESG Policy Impacts Truckers

How do ESG mandates impact trucking? Let’s take a look at some examples. Leading global transportation and logistics player DSV, with headquarters in Denmark, just ordered 300 electric vehicles from Volvo Trucks. If those trucks get the job done, DSV plans to order 2,000 more, making those EVs 10% of the 20,000 total DSV fleet […]

2024 Trucking Perspectives

2024 Trucking Perspectives

In its annual market report, Inbound Logistics looks at the road ahead for the trucking sector, and explores the issues of greatest concern to carriers and shippers.

Direct vs. Indirect Distribution Channels: Understanding the Differences

Direct vs. Indirect Distribution Channels: Understanding the Differences

Distribution channels are essential in business, serving as the routes that products and services take to move from producers to consumers. The efficiency of a distribution channel directly impacts a company’s ability to meet customer demands, manage costs, and maintain competitiveness in the market.  Selecting the right distribution channel is important for making sure that […]

Lean Six Sigma in Supply Chain: Definition, Importance, and Implementation

Lean Six Sigma in Supply Chain: Definition, Importance, and Implementation

Lean Six Sigma blends rigorous quality controls with strategies to cut inefficiencies, making it a top choice for improving supply chain operations.  It roots out waste and enhances product consistency by merging the strengths of Lean methodologies and Six Sigma principles. This approach not only sharpens competitive edges but also ensures products and services meet […]

Alternative Routing: Go Another  Way

Alternative Routing: Go Another Way

In the face of constant supply chain disruptions and unexpected events, shippers must be ready to reroute at a moment’s notice. Finding the road—or waterway— less traveled can sometimes make all the difference for transportation success.

2024 Inbound Logistics Top 100 Truckers

2024 Inbound Logistics Top 100 Truckers

Inbound Logistics’ annual Top 100 Truckers list helps identify carrier partners that can best fuel your diverse and demanding needs, especially in today’s challenging and ever-changing business climate.

Beyond the Rack:  Retail Supply Chain Strategies That Work

Beyond the Rack: Retail Supply Chain Strategies That Work

In the challenging retail sector, supply chain efficiency can be the difference between succeeding and just barely hanging on. From weaving together disparate systems into a single information flow, to ensuring products appear effortlessly on shelves, to fulfilling online orders with lightning speed, here’s how thriving retailers rack and roll.

Contract Manufacturing Explained: Benefits, Tips, and Challenges

Contract Manufacturing Explained: Benefits, Tips, and Challenges

Contract manufacturing plays a key role in modern supply chains. It can enable businesses to focus on core competencies while leveraging specialized expertise and cost efficiencies. This strategic outsourcing approach enhances operational flexibility and positions companies to scale rapidly in response to market demands.

Be Prepared, Post-Pandemic

Be Prepared, Post-Pandemic

The events of 2020 pulled back the curtain on procurement and supply chains. Despite lessons learned, are organizations and procurement teams any better equipped to handle another ‘black swan’ event?

Best Practices for Effective Cold Storage Management

Best Practices for Effective Cold Storage Management

Effective cold storage management requires a combination of precise temperature control, robust inventory management, and strict safety measures. By following these best practices, businesses can ensure the quality and integrity of their temperature-sensitive products.

10 Tips for Ensuring Transportation Sustainability

10 Tips for Ensuring Transportation Sustainability

Eight of 10 supply chain executives are investigating sustainable transportation practices, according to EY. This is an excellent focus area because transportation represents 24% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Here’s how to ensure sustainability.

Warehouses Need Ecosystem Integration to Ensure Supply Chain Survival

Warehouses Need Ecosystem Integration to Ensure Supply Chain Survival

As the dust settles after the pandemic ecommerce boom, the warehouse industry is returning to a new normal. Consumer activity over the past few years catapulted warehouse construction into overdrive to accommodate increased consumer spending. Now, the warehouse industry is adjusting to a new pace of slower demand.

Port Profiles

Port Profiles

These leading U.S. gateways make gains in operational efficiency and offer robust infrastructure to support increased cargo demands.

How a Global Pandemic Led to Supply Chain Finance Adoption in Healthcare – And Why It is Here to Stay

Supply chain finance programs – long utilized in consumer sectors like retail to help suppliers get paid more quickly and allow buyers to extend payment terms – are now a working capital tool for more healthcare supply chains. The continued rapid evolution of supply chain finance solutions offers a new way forward for CFOs in many industries to take direct charge of improving supplier-buyer arrangements.

NOTED: Supply Chain Highlights

NOTED: Supply Chain Highlights

Walmart Canada unveiled a new hydrogen fuel cell-powered electric semi-truck—a first of its kind for a retail fleet on North American roads. Operating with zero tailpipe emissions, the tractor can avoid 97 metric tons of CO2 tailpipe emissions on average.

Last Mile Puts Talent, Technology First

Last Mile Puts Talent, Technology First

Serious changes are happening in the supply chain as the ecommerce market continues to grow. The uptick in more online sales means an increase in the back-end logistics that go into getting a package from an online sale to the customer’s doorstep.

Back(haul) to the Future

Back(haul) to the Future

Backhauling is a logistics strategy in which commercial truck drivers transport a load on their trip back to their origin point. It is the opposite of deadheading, which is when drivers make the return trip with an empty truck.

Leveraging Warehouse Robotics

Leveraging Warehouse Robotics

Maximizing storage density, improving picking dexterity, and gaining prowess through artificial intelligence, these robotic innovations and recent deployments are enabling new levels of warehouse efficiency.

IN BRIEF: New Services and Solutions

IN BRIEF: New Services and Solutions

Ocean Network Express’ ONE Modern, the first ship on the ocean carrier’s West India North America (WIN) service, called on the Port of Savannah in June 2024, establishing the latest connection between India and Georgia Ports. The new WIN service offers a weekly route from Bin Qasim, Hazira, Nhava Sheva, and Mundra to New York and Savannah. The service is provided by a fleet of nine vessels, all of which are operated by ONE.

A Sense of Fulfillment

A Sense of Fulfillment

Reflecting on ways to sharpen fulfillment operations and keep up with growth? Ease your mind by partnering with experienced providers.

2024 Summer Reading Guide

2024 Summer Reading Guide

Cool down with some hot insights into logistics and supply chain management this summer. Whether you’re lounging on the beach or killing time while traveling, our handpicked book list will keep you informed and entertained.

Sizing Up Project Logistics

Sizing Up Project Logistics

Navigating extraordinary challenges, from coordinating national concert tours to delivering aid in war-torn regions, is all in a day’s work for project logistics providers. How do they get the job done? Strategic planning, innovative problem-solving, and meticulous execution.

How to Find  and Recruit  Supply Chain Talent

How to Find and Recruit Supply Chain Talent

When searching high and low for supply chain talent, companies employ tactics such as using multiple channels to reach candidates, offering opportunities for training and advancement, and focusing on development and retention.

Team Up to Deter Supplier Fraud

Team Up to Deter Supplier Fraud

Despite their best technology and efforts, finance leaders continue to battle the ever-evolving tactics of fraudsters. A key reason is that finance’s fraud management strategies are seldom considered in the context of supplier information. Their peers in procurement, meanwhile, manage supplier information daily but the processes they use aren’t designed to prevent fraud.

Four Steps to Mitigate Risk

Four Steps to Mitigate Risk

Supply chain regulations are in constant flux. In March 2024, the SEC announced new rules regarding climate-related disclosures, and there have been calls to strengthen the enforcement of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. Meanwhile, the EU is also enhancing regulations regarding corporate sustainability, deforestation, ambient air quality, waste, and forced labor.

The Power of Regionalizing Inventory

The Power of Regionalizing Inventory

Regionalizing inventory and spreading stock across multiple locations near consumers can help mitigate rising shipping costs, expedite delivery, and drive a better consumer experience.

Wholesale Distributors Put AI to Work

Wholesale Distributors Put AI to Work

Looming above all the day-to-day business pressures that wholesale distributors face is one overarching strategic imperative: Find ways to grow profitably—without increasing staffing levels. To meet that challenge, companies must attack it from multiple angles.

What’s the Word? The Language of Logistics

What’s the Word? The Language of Logistics

What are the components of supply chain diversification? What’s the difference between GenAI and general artificial intelligence? Here are explanations of some oft-used but not often well-defined supply chain terms.

Supply Chain Metrics: Definition, Types, and Importance

Supply Chain Metrics: Definition, Types, and Importance

Supply chain metrics critically enhance logistics and shipping operations by providing precise, actionable data to streamline processes and optimize efficiency. These key metrics, from inventory turnover to freight cost analysis, empower businesses to make informed decisions that improve overall supply chain performance.

Cold Chain Logistics: Definition, Industries, and Elements

Cold Chain Logistics: Definition, Industries, and Elements

Cold chain logistics is important in maintaining the quality and safety of temperature-sensitive products. By understanding and implementing the key elements of cold chain logistics, businesses can ensure that their products remain safe and effective throughout the supply chain.

How to Build a Sustainable Supply Chain

How to Build a Sustainable Supply Chain

Climate change, resource depletion, and social inequality are pressing issues, making sustainable supply chains increasingly important. By adopting sustainable practices, businesses can reduce their carbon footprint, conserve natural resources and promote social equity while cutting costs through improved efficiency and reduced waste.

6 Steps to Diversify Your Carrier Portfolio

6 Steps to Diversify Your Carrier Portfolio

2023 was one of the most disruptive years in supply chain history… except that it really wasn’t. Even with the UPS/Teamsters negotiations, Convoy unexpectedly going out of business, and Yellow declaring bankruptcy—to name just a few—this level of supply chain disruption is starting to feel like Life.

4 Ways AI Provides Meaningful Impact

4 Ways AI Provides Meaningful Impact

In transportation and logistics, the basis for impactful utilization of the full scope of AI capabilities lies with access to and understanding of data, which often is trapped in paper and manual processes.

IN BRIEF: New Services and Solutions

IN BRIEF: New Services and Solutions

Gather AI, a provider of computer vision-based artificial intelligence solutions for warehouse inventory monitoring, launched two new capabilities: inferred case counting and location occupancy. The capabilities enable warehouses to get automated, digitized counts and location utilization reports.

Inventory Tracking Solution a High-Flying Success

Inventory Tracking Solution a High-Flying Success

The meteoric rise of On, a Swiss sportswear brand, started with a shoe. But not just any shoe. The company’s signature product, with its unique cushioning system and distinctive sole design, has attracted serious runners and casual wearers around the world. Since launching its premium footwear line 14 years ago, On has expanded offerings to include apparel and accessories.

Greg Skrovan: Doing What’s Good for Intel and for the Environment

Greg Skrovan: Doing What’s Good for Intel and for the Environment

RESPONSIBILITIES: Leads the global organization responsible for warranty and reverse logistics strategy, service delivery, customer service and fraud mitigation for all Intel products, as well as more than $1 billion in returns. Oversees management of more than 15 3PL return depots and repair centers. EXPERIENCE: Global program director, circular economy, supply chain innovation and business […]

Modernizing U.S. Infrastructure

Modernizing U.S. Infrastructure

In a strategic effort to invigorate the foundation of the nation’s supply chain, President Biden’s 2025 fiscal year budget initiative marks a substantial commitment to modernizing U.S. supply chain infrastructure. By prioritizing the enhancement of highways and ports, this initiative directly tackles longstanding infrastructure challenges.

Chemical Warehousing: Definition, Types, and Safety

Chemical Warehousing: Definition, Types, and Safety

Understanding the complexities of chemical warehousing is crucial for ensuring safety, regulatory compliance, and operational efficiency. Effective chemical storage solutions help manage diverse chemical properties and mitigate physical hazards.

Medical Warehousing: What It Is, Challenges, and Best Practices

Medical Warehousing: What It Is, Challenges, and Best Practices

Medical warehousing is vital in healthcare logistics, securing the safe and efficient storage and distribution of critical medical supplies. Facilities dedicated to medical warehousing manage everything from pharmaceuticals to medical devices, ensuring these items retain their integrity from the warehouse to delivery.  Effective management in these warehouses is essential for maintaining product safety and supporting […]

Inventory Turnover Ratio: What It Is, How to Calculate and Significance

Inventory Turnover Ratio: What It Is, How to Calculate and Significance

Understanding the inventory turnover ratio provides invaluable insights into a company’s operational efficiency and financial health. It measures how often a business sells and replaces its stock within a given period, offering a clear snapshot of inventory management efficiency.  An optimal inventory turnover ratio measures indicates a company sells goods quickly, suggesting strong customer demand […]

Partnering with Customers and Leveraging Data to Boost Health

Partnering with Customers and Leveraging Data to Boost Health

In May 2023, Kenvue, the company behind iconic brands such as Tylenol and Listerine, spun off from Johnson & Johnson, becoming the world’s largest pure-play consumer health company by revenue. The spinoff also meant Kenvue’s leadership team had to establish strong supply chain operations as a consumer goods company, rather than as part of a pharmaceutical firm.

American Standard: Flushed With Success

American Standard: Flushed With Success

As a leading North American brand, American Standard has been offering innovative products for more than 150 years. One of its products—the humble but essential toilet—is practically synonymous with the company name.

10 Tips for Shipping by Rail

10 Tips for Shipping by Rail

Shipping by rail is a cost-effective and carbon-friendly way to move large volumes over long distances. However, managing rail shipments requires careful planning, coordination, and attention to detail. Here’s how to manage rail shipments effectively.

How to Develop an Agile Supply Chain

How to Develop an Agile Supply Chain

Businesses need to prioritize building supply chain strategies that can effectively navigate today’s increasingly volatile environment marked by supply chain disruptions, geopolitical tensions, and ever-changing consumer demands. Agility, resilience, and outside-the-box thinking have become critical to protect the customer experience—and the bottom line.

2024 Inbound Logistics  Perspectives 3PL Market Research Report

2024 Inbound Logistics Perspectives 3PL Market Research Report

Third-party logistics (3PL) providers are adapting to tougher-than-usual times these days. The industry has seen revenues fall, and demand for 3PL services isn’t growing at the pace we’ve seen in recent years. Also unfolding: Challenges such as inflation, high taxes, and government regulation increase costs for 3PLs. Those are some of the insights that uncoil […]