Articles
Checking In
Democratizing Global E-Commerce?
Many small and mid-size enterprises (SMEs) report friction due to inflation and COVID. One way to rise above those headwinds is to expand both consumer and business-to-business e-commerce sales. But many SMEs don’t have the spend or techno skills to form a winning strategy to compete with the e-commerce big players who dominate the market […]
Read More3PLs Show Off-the-Chart Growth
What accounts for the explosive growth of the 3PL sector this past year? The results of our 2022 3PL market surveys—through the Top 10 3PL Excellence Awards voting and Top 100 3PL Providers questionnaires—are striking: 84% of 3PL respondents showed significant growth in gross sales year over year, with 90% reporting profits are up. Nearly […]
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Chick-fil-A Strikes Oil
Have you ever gotten a whiff of french fries as you pass an 18-wheeler on the highway?
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Reshoring? Not So Fast
Reshoring might sound like the solution to the United States’ supply chain woes, but here’s why it is not a cure-all for current and future disruptions.
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Artificial and Human Intelligence: An Unbeatable Combination
Investment in logistics technology—$26 billion in the past seven years—is white hot right now. Here’s a small sampling of the types of solutions that venture capitalists arefinancing: An artificial intelligence (AI)-driven demand-prediction engine that helps lifestyle brands forecast how many units of a particular item will sell. The mission? To better match global inventory levels […]
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Rowenta Irons Out Inventory Challenges
Where do I go when it is too painful to watch TV? To my garage workbench. As it happens, my daughter had a project for me. Her pricey Rowenta iron was staining and scorching clothes. I can’t fix what’s going on in the world, but I’ll try my hand at this! Having broken several appliances […]
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Bullwhip or Just Bull?
Are shipping lines pricing themselves out of business? Blame the bullwhip effect, a distribution channel phenomenon in which demand forecasts yield increasing swings in inventory. Let’s take that idea a bit further. Financial pressures on publicly traded companies drive short-term policies that please The Street analysts to satisfy investor expectations. Yielding to those pressures sometimes […]
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You Won’t Get Fooled Again
Sometimes a kick in the pants is a step forward. The past two years have certainly been kicking it, and not in a good way for many of you. Stress of the type we are still going through can be incentive to change business practices. Incremental changes are a normal part of standard business practices. […]
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Robots Do Yardwork, Too
Efficient warehouse operations provide the levels of service that customers demand as America’s economy scales up. In many instances, yard operations impede that efficiency. Safety, driver facilities, cooperation, and consideration for truckers’ time are ongoing challenges. One driver tells us that a yard he regularly serves is "like a moonscape." The confluence of e-commerce growth […]
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Unleash Short Sea?
The ports around the Great Lakes would love to help offset some of the pain of the horror show called the "shipping crisis." Guess what. They can’t by law. Thank the Harbor Maintenance Fee (HMF), a well-intended policy perfect for the 1980s, along with related regulations, for sidelining port capacity around the Great Lakes. The […]
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