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Logistics IT: Opening the Flood Gates

Eight years ago, Barbara Barnhill, transportation supervisor for Elizabeth Arden, excitedly shared her story with Inbound Logistics. She had started a revolutionary program that was racking up annual million-dollar savings by taking control of her inbound transportation. She did it using the latest technology—a fax machine. Today, fax machines have given way to web and […]

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Supply Chain Planning in a Global Environment

Last month’s column examined LogicTools Inc.’s LogicChain and LogicNet supply chain applications. This month, we talk with the person behind those applications—David Simchi-Levi, LogicTools CEO and president. In addition to running LogicTools, Simchi-Levi is a professor of engineering systems at MIT and the author of two books, including the prize-winning Designing and Managing the Supply […]

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Economic Recovery: Grains of Sand

It is as if grains of sand had been sprinkled in the mechanism of the American economy in the aftermath of Sept. 11, a skilled writer in Business Week wrote recently. But sand eventually grinds machinery to a halt, so perhaps that was a little overstated. While the costs of 9/11 are great, there is […]

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Logic Tools Addresses Network Design, Decision Support

The key to doing good business when providing supply chain solutions is to have a handle on network design and decision support. This means having support systems in place that have the functional clout and services required to sustain these applications. Network design and decision support are strategic components of any company’s long-term and tactical […]

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Improving Employee Efficiency Through Education

Providing superior customer service is a fundamental goal of every successful business. The manner in which employees provide value-added service is key not only to maintain, but also to attract, additional business. To be successful service providers, companies need to focus on variables such as improving employee efficiency and productivity through focused training and education […]

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Navigating the Virtual Marketplace

Within the logistics online marketplace operates an aggregation of companies acting on behalf of shippers that purchase transportation from a diverse group of logistics services providers. These providers include trading exchanges; logistics solutions providers; trucking, rail, ocean, and air carriers; and companies specializing in ancillary logistics services such as supply chain event management. Over the […]

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Logistics Education: Homegrown Distance Learning

Today’s business logistics professionals need to continually upgrade and improve their supply chain skillsets. Besides the expected benefit of administering logistics responsibilities more effectively, the effect on your paycheck’s bottom line will be dramatic. Yet who among us has the luxury to stop work and take off for the nearest college campus, whatever the personal […]

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The Search for e-Business Enlightenment

A zen approach to logistics? It’s not as far-fetched as you might think. In an industry where the quest for perfection is persistent, if fleeting, an enlightened approach to e-business and supply chain management has some merit. In their book The Seven Steps to Nirvana (McGraw-Hill, 2001) Mohan Sawhney and Jeff Zabin draw on this […]

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Creating New Avenues for Cost Reductions

To significantly reduce logistics costs, look beyond network optimization and rate reductions from your carriers. Transportation providers have limited opportunity left to cut costs, yet significant savings opportunities—in managing inbound inventory, reducing static inventory, and increasing supply chain velocity—often go untapped. The challenge in achieving these benefits is to replace traditional thinking with a new […]

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