Articles
Checking In
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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3PL Partnerships: From Transactions to Trust
In business context, transactional relationships are often laden with legal conditions—unlimited liability, implied agency, utmost good faith. Even with assurances that a partner will do the right thing, it all comes down to costs and consequences. For many years, the supply chain operated in a similar fashion. Third-party logistics providers (3PLs) demonstrated their value by […]
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Green Leadership for Lean Times
Current economic conditions are cooling enthusiasm for green initiatives in some quarters. But not in Bentonville, Ark., where Walmart recently released its 2012 Global Responsibility report. Someone once said, "as Walmart goes, so goes the nation." I don’t know if that’s true, but despite lean times, the retailer is providing leadership in supply chain sustainability. […]
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Warehousing ‘Outside the Box’
Historically, warehousing was viewed as a function that exists inside “four walls.” Visibly, that’s true. But when you consider all the different parts and impulses that influence a distribution operation, it can no longer be cornered so conveniently. That’s why our May 2012 issue spotlights warehousing and distribution wall-to-wall—and beyond. For example, it’s easy to […]
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IT: Advantage @Light Speed
A professor at a well-known university recently remarked at a logistics conference, "Information technology is not a source of competitive advantage. It makes good systems better, and bad systems worse. It allows companies to do stupid things at the speed of light." Maybe. But IT can be a change agent that will almost always open […]
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The Fifth P of Marketing
Why are the four Ps of marketing—Product, Price, Promotion, Place—important to logistics practitioners? Collaborating with suppliers and being tightly wired to customers and their demand signals helps craft the right Product. Reducing inventory, touches, and supporting infrastructure helps keep any Product’s Price lower. And when your Promotion materials arrive where they need to be, and […]
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A Lost Art?
Strength of will. Toughness. The refusal to be deterred from the goal no matter what impediments stand in the way. Do we have much of that in our culture today? In our leaders? In our own businesses? Retracing the Trails of the Iron Horse takes us back to a simpler time in America’s past, where […]
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The Art of Integration
When supply chain disruptions occur, as they did last year during the Thailand floods, Japan earthquake and tsunami, and more, integration grows more important and grabs more attention. But the readers of this magazine have been practicing a higher form of integration for quite some time—demand-driven logistics. You try new modal mixes, new technologies, blending […]
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Delivering the Final Smile
It’s dangerous to take a "hands-off" approach to customer service. That’s the conclusion of a recent CAPS Research report authored by Mei Li, PhD at Lehigh University. Relying only on carriers and service providers to drive the final customer service experience, warns Dr. Li, puts you at risk of having service failures that can trash […]
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@Home With Demand-Driven Logistics
I recently got into a discussion with a reader about the most important developments in logistics during the past decade. “Mainstreaming of the term ‘logistics’ by UPS ranks right up there,” he said. “Civilians” just don’t understand what you do, the complexity of the challenges you face, or the intelligence, dedication, and hard work you […]
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Intermodal: A Means, Not an End
Intermodal transportation has always been an integral part of the supply chain. Around U.S. ports, it’s a capacity aggregator and transshipment accelerator for imports and exports flowing through congested hubs. On the domestic side, intermodal is a freight economizer, reducing transport costs by rationalizing long-haul bulk moves between road, barge, rail—and occasionally air. For many […]
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Freight at Rest is Freight at Risk
Today’s stressful economic conditions are driving thieves to steal everything that’s not nailed down—from railroad tracks to copper wiring. Truckers and their customers have had to deal with the cargo security issue for as long as the five-finger discount has been around. As part of our special Trucking Safety issue, we asked motor freight carriers […]
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A Career That’s Never Boring
Supply chain professionals are increasingly being asked to drive change outside their daily responsibilities of expanding to new countries, overcoming current economic challenges, and satisfying customers while keeping inventory and transportation costs low. Here are two examples. A recent article described the closing of Chrysler Plant 6 in Windsor, Ontario. This could be one more […]
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Using a 3PL: Are You Getting Your Money’s Worth?
If you are using a 3PL for truck brokerage alone, you could be leaving money on the table. Why? Because logistics providers have evolved and developed an array of solutions that bring extra value to their customers. Fuel price increases, stringent regulations, higher taxes, sustainability issues, and government labor intervention add costs to transportation. All […]
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