Commentary
Follow This Roadmap To a Lean, Sustainable Supply Chain
Few companies realize that, when implemented in the supply chain, Lean and Green are not contradictory but can be mutually beneficial. This is a good reason for firms to adopt an integrated Lean and Green strategy.
Renewable Energy Fuels the Future
Renewable energy is becoming an increasingly essential component of sustainable supply chains for many interconnected reasons that address both environmental imperatives and business realities.
Seeing Around the Next Bend
Global supply networks involve many partners and recent shocks have shown how quickly a single disruption can ripple through the system. Traditional visibility stitched together data from transportation, warehouse, and enterprise systems and augmented it with GPS or RFID tags; those tools provide only snapshots of past movements.
Case Studies
Yard Management: Grounds for Improvement
Depending on the amount of attention companies pay them, the yards outside warehouses and manufacturing plants can either be models of efficiency or a source of delays. A supportive yard management system (YMS) can make all the difference as Westrock Coffee Company has learned. Having gained a YMS during its acquisition of another company, Westrock continues to unlock impressive gains in efficiency, real-time visibility and operational control.
Lush Gets a Store-Level Inventory Control Makeover
Lush, the cosmetics company known for its fresh and handmade products, has experienced tremendous growth. Across the globe, it boasts more than 850 store locations, including more than 250 in North America.
Mastering the Last Mile of Premium, Perishable Food
For the past decade, Crowd Cow has partnered with ethical farms, fisheries and other food producers from around the world to source sustainable, quality beef, seafood, pork, and other items. By sourcing from small farms and managing the processing, Crowd Cow can bring its products to many consumers who otherwise might not have access to them. At the same time, Crowd Cow offers many of its suppliers a customer base they might struggle to reach.
How-To
10 Tips for Improving Yard Visibility
Transportation and warehouse activities may be well tracked, but once a trailer enters the yard, visibility breaks down. Improving visibility is not a data problem but an operating model problem, requiring a system governing how work is planned, executed, measured, and improved—making visibility actionable rather than merely descriptive.
10 Tips for Deploying AI in Your Supply Chain
Artificial intelligence can transform the supply chain. Because the infrastructure already exists, adoption can be quick—though it can be challenging to know where to start.
10 Tips for Improving Carrier Collaboration
In an era of constant disruption, businesses face unprecedented logistics challenges. To navigate these complexities, companies must strengthen collaboration with carriers.