Articles

Checking In

Keith Biondo

Visions of Customer Service

Tighter links are being forged between customer service and logistics in the retail supply chain. As competition between traditional and online shopping choices heats up, expedited transportation offerings and blended supply chain networks play a pivotal role. Simply put, delivery speed and logistics agility provide the customer service levels needed to win. The main advantage […]

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Felecia Stratton

Shining the Light on Pioneers and Prospects

During its annual conference in October, the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) commemorated its 50th anniversary. Important milestones like this breed nostalgia. Understandably, then, much of this year’s conference in Denver focused on honoring pioneers who helped shape our industry. While it was interesting to look back, many conversations I had with CSCMP […]

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Felecia Stratton

All Aboard a Modal Conversion

Intermodal is crossing over. In August 2013, U.S. domestic traffic averaged 257,795 units per week, the highest weekly average ever recorded, according to the Association of American Railroads. All indications suggest intermodal growth will continue to roll. As over-the-road shippers embrace the efficiency, economy, and sustainability of shifting truck shipments to rail, a conversion is […]

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Keith Biondo

5 Trucking Trends on the Table

Our Annual Trucking Issue offers a buffet of valuable information for you to chew on and digest. Here are five key takeaways that will whet your appetite for more: 1. Sharing of information, shipments, assets, and space is on the upswing. For example, OEMs and auto parts suppliers who were previously reluctant to divvy up […]

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Felecia Stratton

Keeping Track of Time

If your average day is anything like mine, you face an endless barrage of internal emails, corporate memos, newsletters, and once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to refinance a home loan. Spam filters, email notifications, and custom preferences help organize this self-perpetuating info soup, making it easier to manage communications—then act according to priority. Complicating matters is the reality […]

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Keith Biondo

Business Process Improvement? Flexibility.

In his futile search for the Fountain of Youth, Ponce de León walked right past untold riches. If you are not evaluating your third-party logistics providers for their ability to drive strategic improvements in your enterprise, you may be doing the same thing. Thirty-three percent of respondents to our annual 3PL Perspectives market research survey […]

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Felecia Stratton

Finding Supply Chain Feng Shui

Business process improvement is especially important in today’s economic climate. Businesses are sensitive to fixed costs when the economy is swinging like a pendulum. There’s shared recognition that they have to stick to their principal business to grow out of the recession; and logistics execution and supply chain excellence is too important to ignore. That’s […]

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Felecia Stratton

Getting Green, Going Lean

Creating a viable and sustainable green strategy can be a challenge for companies that want to be good corporate citizens, but also remain competitive. If customers are focused on price, how conscious is your green conscience when you need to drive out costs—at all costs? It’s a valid question in today’s economy as companies deliberate […]

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Keith Biondo

We Need Jobs…Let’s Raise Taxes?

Balancing a budget is an exercise in best judgment. Add politics to the equation, and logic flies right out the window. One example: the Minnesota legislature is finalizing its $38-billion state budget, which includes a 6.5-percent sales tax on warehouse services. A wide-ranging tax hike on warehouses will have far-reaching implications. None good. A warehouse […]

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Felecia Stratton

Navigating New IT Pathways

Logistics information technology is many things, but static isn’t one of them. In the supply chain, cloud computing opened new ways for logistics managers to deploy best-of-breed solutions, capture and disperse information, and execute change. Mobile communication enables practitioners to seed the cloud from anywhere, then feed off that shared data. Social media offers a […]

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Keith Biondo

America’s Hardened Arteries

Over there: They plan to build an island where none exists. And a modern port. And road and rail connections. In five years. Over here: We study for more than two decades whether or not to dredge the Savannah River. Over there: They measure port operation productivity in multiples of what we have here. "Compared […]

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Felecia Stratton

Learning on the Job

Today’s supply chain is vastly different than 10 years ago—and positively futuristic compared to 1981, when this magazine first espoused a novel approach to managing transportation and logistics. The pace of change has been swift and sweeping. Technology innovation and proliferation have broken down functional silos and torn asunder geographic boundaries and constraints. Shrinking computers […]

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Keith Biondo

Supply Chain Force Multipliers

For years, I’ve wanted the Logistics Planner issue theme to focus on the concept of using inbound logistics as a force multiplier. When I entered the conference room for the Planner issue strategy meeting this year, I was ready to make my case. But when I presented my idea to the editorial team, I was […]

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Felecia Stratton

The Great Equalizer

Tension and drama always permeate the conference room when the Inbound Logistics team gathers to decide the theme of the Logistics Planner issue. This year was no different. While we did agree to focus on how demand-driven logistics, or supply chain management, drives competitive advantage, we couldn’t agree on how best to present that idea. […]

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Felecia Stratton

What Sandy Showed Me

As the editor of Inbound Logistics, my job is to provide information about keeping product moving from source to selling point. In my nearly 30 years in the industry, I have read, written, and edited many articles about supply chain disruptions. But words are just words. It was quite different to experience disruption with my […]

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Keith Biondo

Retailers Rebalance Time vs. Cost?

For retailers and their value chain partners, practicing inbound logistics provides two competitive advantages—the ability to keep prices low, because matching demand to supply optimizes inventory-to-sales ratios and creates other economies; and the agility to use time as a competitive advantage by serving customers faster and more completely. In the past, retailers emphasized keeping costs […]

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Felecia Stratton

The Future of Predictive Analytics Looks Certain

One recurring talking point at the Council of Supply Chain Management Professional’s (CSCMP) September 2012 conference in Atlanta was the importance of predictive analytics. This subset of statistics captures patterns within large volumes of information to predict supply chain behavior and events—in effect, forecasting future demand based on past demand. The emergence of cloud networking […]

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Felecia Stratton

Cutting Through the Noise

Any noise in the trucking industry is better than the alternative. The rumble of engines coming to life, and air horns sounding off with more certain frequency, are welcome signs as the economy waffles between recession and recovery. Still, a growing din in Washington threatens to drown out these echoes of progress. The U.S. Federal […]

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Felecia Stratton

Supply Chain Therapy Strikes a Balance

There’s nothing like a spur-of-the-moment urge, then splurge, to improve temperament. Retailers today are all too willing to facilitate “retail therapy” and oblige customers by making it easier than ever to satisfy their random impulses. Advertising—subliminal or overt—is quick to connect happiness with material possession, regardless of what kind. Then the supply chain takes over. […]

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Keith Biondo

3PL Partnerships: From Tactical to Strategic

It was déjà vu all over again as I sorted through the responses to this year’s Top 10 3PL Excellence Awards survey and 3PL Perspectives research. Like last year, and the year before, and the year before that, a sizable percentage of survey respondents said they select logistics partners based on their ability to secure […]

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