Articles
Commentary
Saving Green While Going Green
While good for the environment, supply chain sustainability can also be good for the bottom line if incorporated into a company’s supply chain strategy. In the past, most companies were concerned primarily with forward logistics processes, and, to some degree, returning product to suppliers. Today, companies also focus on reverse logistics processes, not only from […]
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Global Trade: The Certainty of Uncertainty
During times of economic growth and prosperity, global trade impacts the supply chain and how you match demand to supply. But what is the impact on the practice of supply chain management in today’s uncertain world? One thing is certain: Many government policies are disruptive to global supply chains and to the businesses and consumers […]
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What Fictional Character Would Make a Great Logistician?
MORE TO THE STORY: Comments from LinkedIn Professor X, the leader of the X-Men, would be a great supply chain leader. He is the brains behind a successful organization. He is a strategic thinker and influencer. The professor and his team make use of technology that enables them to achieve their goals. Marcia Connors Operational […]
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What Is Your Fleet Trying to Tell You?
Each day, every vehicle in a fleet generates hundreds of pieces of data. Everything, from miles driven and fuel consumption to the repairs conducted and driving habits, generates data points that together, compile the overall view of a fleet. While this data can be extremely valuable to fleet managers, it also presents a daunting challenge. […]
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You Are Never Too Cool for School
When I was in college pursuing an English degree (it doesn’t matter how many years ago), I learned the rules of grammar, how to punctuate a sentence correctly, and the difference between it’s and its. I could diagram a sentence like no one else. And those skills were enough to lead me to my dream […]
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What’s the first thing you would do to address the truck driver shortage?
The first thing that needs to be addressed is driver pay. Other industries offer higher wages for workers with similar skillsets, so we need to ensure that driving is economically competitive in the marketplace. Secondly, we need to tap into the next generation and let them know that transportation is a viable profession. Steve Pitt […]
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Corporate Citizenship Starts With the Supply Chain
In recent years, a noticeable paradigm shift has taken place in the business world. Driven by the realization that business and society can no longer intersect at the crossroads of profits first and society second, business is adopting a new order that puts the interests of society on a level that is at par with […]
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Tapping the Power of Performance Management
In today’s workplace, performance improvement and the role of performance management are increasingly important. Organizations are under more pressure than ever to become more efficient and improve business strategies to remain competitive. Consider, for instance, a manufacturer with five warehouses that decides to implement a new enterprise resource planning system. The goal is to increase […]
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Leverage Dashboard Technology to Improve Decision-Making Capabilities
As a logistics professional, you’re familiar with the value of high-quality data. Experienced supply chain practitioners recognize that the value of data is directly related to its utility: Raw data without context or consequence is virtually meaningless. With even more tracking systems contributing to a dramatic increase in the volume of available data, companies are […]
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Getting Fleets Mobile Ready
Many transportation fleets are now embracing mobile technologies, and there are clear reasons why. Today’s smartphones and tablet computers put more computing power in the palm of a driver’s hand than what was available in the earliest NASA computers that put man on the moon. Furthermore, the ongoing R&D investments by chip and device makers […]
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Fine-tuning the Modern Distribution Center
Not long ago, people changed their own oil and did other maintenance on their vehicles. To be sure, some auto buffs still enjoy the thrill of DIY on their cars, but many are content with letting experienced professionals handle the job. After all, vehicles and the technologies behind them are a lot more complex than […]
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Is Your Business Prepared for the Worst?
Disasters and tragedy happen every day. From fires and theft to severe weather events, we experience disruptive incidents on a regular basis. So how prepared is your business to withstand a crisis? How well have you incorporated risk analysis and crisis preparation into your business operations? Effective risk assessment depends on using our imagination to […]
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Shedding Light on DIM Weight Returns
Volume shippers who send most of their goods to customers via parcel carriers know that a pound is not always a pound. Dimensional, or DIM, weight is a significant issue that can add up to millions of dollars in shipping expenses. For e-commerce shippers, customer returns are inevitable. Without a clear understanding and plan for […]
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Serialization: It’s the Real Thing
To help combat counterfeiting, the premium beverage industry is taking advantage of serial numbers on product packages to uniquely identify products for increased connectivity throughout packaging operations and the supply chain. Premium beverages such as expensive wine, whiskey, and cognac have become an increasingly active market for counterfeiters in China, India, and Russia. It’s easy […]
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Greening Your Supply Chain With B2B Automation
Today’s businesses are under increasing pressure to develop more sustainable supply chains, typically part of a broader Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative. With reducing carbon emissions a cornerstone of many CSR-related programs, developing greener logistics and supply chain networks is key. Replacing manual, paper-based processes with fully automated systems that use electronic business-to-business (B2B) transactions […]
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Eight Ways to Find and Retain Qualified Supply Chain Talent
The burgeoning need for talent to operate today’s complex supply chains has begun to garner significant attention. Not only are supply chain management roles expanding at a rate outpacing qualified new graduates, but supply chain is also rapidly becoming more complex, creating the need for existing personnel to dramatically retool their skill sets. These trends […]
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Building Strong Supplier Relationships: Procurement Takes the Lead
As external forces change the expectation of procurement to be more than just the cost police, it’s up to procurement professionals to embrace the role as strategists and advisors. As a leader, it is important to cultivate and maintain good supplier relationships to ensure profitability. Companies struggle in relationships with suppliers for many reasons. For […]
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How to Stand Out in a Crowded Marketplace
Whatever your business, the success of any company depends on its ability to define its value proposition, and then execute the vision precisely and consistently throughout the organization. Defining a company’s core value proposition requires patience, as well as a deep understanding and appreciation of your customers’ needs and your core competencies. Nearly 30 years […]
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The Supply Chain of the Future?
We have achieved a good measure of being able to match demand to supply, and have aligned enterprise operations to support that purpose. But now that we have achieved that goal, we begin again—with a new global supply chain metastructure that is always on, never off. Consumer impatience drives supply chain impatience. For example, Adidas […]
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The Supply Chain of the Past
The publisher talks about a coming global supply chain metastructure, citing an Adidas “speedfactory” where robots manufacture running shoes. Is this the supply chain of the future? Maybe. But let’s take a look at an imaginary supply chain of the past Meet Gan McManus, the hero of Strikepoint, a logistics novella we originally published in […]
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