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Yard Automation Addresses Three Weak Spots to Build Supply Chain Resilience

While there aren’t many quick fixes when it comes to mitigating global supply chain disruption, supply chain leaders will turn to solutions that directly address the biggest weaknesses throughout the supply chain that have been highlighted as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak: demand, labor, and energy. Automation brings resiliency and velocity to areas of […]

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3 Ways Retailers Can Get on the Fast Track to Digital Transformation

Retailers can use these three practical tips to successfully execute their digital transformation: Make digital moves your strategy centerpiece: Develop a mobile and web commerce initiative right away. Assume people are using your app or web commerce interface for the first time. This is because the number of new users is vastly increasing as a […]

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Five Keys for Turning Challenge into Opportunity

To capitalize on what they’ve learned, transform, and thrive in a post-COVID world, supply chain leaders should focus on the five core pillars: People. Leaders must reassure, clarify, protect, encourage, motivate, recognize, and reward people they manage. Each of these actions can make a fundamental difference in a successful post-COVID-19 transformation. When the crisis hit, […]

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Reopening Fulfillment and Distribution Centers in the Wake of COVID-19

The chaos and disruption from the COVID-19 outbreak is slowly moving toward recovery for businesses. Like most enterprises, fulfillment and distribution centers will not be able to simply “flip a switch” and return to normal operations. The complexity is even greater for networks that span multiple states or countries. Reopening will require a rigorous methodology […]

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Eugene Laney

USMCA: A Bright Light for Shippers

Many businesses around the country are suffering due to the economic impacts of COVID-19. Small and mid-sized businesses especially are being hit hard, with thousands in survival mode. Furthermore, declines in exports and global commerce are affecting the logistics and transportation sectors. However, there may be some light at the end of the tunnel.

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What COVID-19 supply chain pivot impressed you the most? Why?

What COVID-19 supply chain pivot impressed you the most? Why?

One Million Masks, founded by Shafqat Islam, which has built a digital supply chain. Powered by UPS, they have secured hundreds of thousands of PPE units for hospitals. Furthermore, it demonstrates a supply chain that was built in months that otherwise would have taken years. Over the coming months, we will continue to see this type of rapid innovation from savvy organizations.

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Keith Biondo

In Defense of You

You’ve failed at logistics. So says David Segal in his recent article entitled "What Happened to the Great American Logistics Machine?" in The New York Times. Here are the article’s punchlines: The virus is "winning at the logistics game," and "let us acknowledge the obvious: The country is flunking a curriculum that it basically wrote." […]

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What’s the most unexpectedly good advice you’ve received about the supply chain?

Speed is not always the solution. Breaking shipments into inventory replenishment and just-in-time SKUs allows price and transit time optimization. Asia-to-U.S.-East-Coast transit through the Panama Canal versus the Suez Canal differs by 7 to 13 days. Pushing inventory cargo to the slower/lower-cost options provides free warehousing on the water while reducing overall landed cost. —Alan […]

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How Mobile IoT Brings End-to-End Supply Chain Visibility to Life

End-to-end supply chain transparency has proven a difficult-to-attain gold standard, not only by transportation and logistics companies, but by any company that depends on the movement of goods to propel business forward. In the thick of the COVID-19 era and its ripple effects, this need has become even more critical across nearly every sector. The […]

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Automation Is the Key to Warehousing During COVID-19

Supply chain managers don’t have to sacrifice worker safety to maintain production levels during coronavirus—warehouse automation can solve the problem. COVID-19 has infected a great number of essential workers in the United States, leading companies on the front lines to implement new safety processes. While the spread of the virus has been grave enough to […]

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The Value of Global Trade Insights in Navigating COVID-19 Supply Chain Disruptions

The coronavirus pandemic has exposed the fragility of the modern supply chain, as companies struggle to acquire the products and raw materials needed to keep revenue flowing. With many businesses relying heavily on a limited number of trading partners, many located in hard-hit areas like China, the scale of the supply chain disruption has been […]

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Keith Biondo

Staying Productive in Unproductive Times

While driving around my neighborhood, I’ve noticed a lot more people putting items out to the curb. Have you noticed this? I wondered about that for a moment and then realized what was happening. People are using the virus downtime to organize, clean, and take up projects long postponed. The result is an uptick in […]

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Trucking Companies Need to Flex in the Face of Disruption

This is an unprecedented time of disruption and volatility. The pandemic is showing the need to be more diversified. Trucking companies built around a specific customer base shut down when that industry shut down. Oversaturation in one market or customer base means disruptions hit harder. Companies supporting the food and beverage supply chain saw traffic […]

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Paul A. Myerson

The Road Map Out of This Mess

For years, I have been a proponent of operating a lean and agile supply chain, but some now say the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the shortcomings of a supply chain that is perhaps too lean. To be “lean,” however, doesn’t mean maintaining extremely low inventory levels with no coordination or backup plan. It also appears […]

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What Is a Continuous Delivery Experience and How Has COVID-19 Increased Its Importance in the Supply Chain?

As the country and global economy begin to recover, the question on everyone’s minds, is “what will re-entry into the business world look like?” More specifically, how do companies fortify their supply chain, fulfillment functions and relationships with logistics providers to bring everyone back online smoothly? It’s difficult to imagine going back to business as […]

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