Articles
Demand Planning
S&OP: Bringing the Outside In
Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) is an integrated business management process through which the leadership team continually achieves focus, alignment and synchronization among all functions. This ensures that supply meets demand while the organization meets general business objectives, including profitability, productivity, competitive customer lead times, and others.
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2022 Supply Chain Predictions
What’s in the supply chain cards for 2022? From limited transportation capacity to skyrocketing material costs to continuing supply chain disruption, learn what’s on deck and how to deal.
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Vertical Focus | Home Improvement
Pre-Orders Build Up Home Improvement Inventory Many manufacturers have discontinued their less-popular products or increased prices across product categories as ships wait off the California coast, truck drivers face long wait times, and rail yards remain backed up. AAA Distributor, however, has all its kitchen cabinetry, shower doors, vanities, and flooring products ready to ship […]
Read MoreLeveraging 3PLs to Ease COVID Business Growing Pains
As the COVID-19 pandemic swept the nation, a second and unexpected problem emerged along with it: A shortage of toilet paper. Panic-buying and hoarding left store shelves empty. New deliveries routinely were sold out within minutes. And toilet paper manufacturers, who had long ago leaned out their operations in an effort to maximize profit, found […]
Read MoreHow to Avoid Fragile Supply Chains
Supply chains breakdown in different ways, and each type of risk needs its own mitigation strategy. External shocks Supply and demand shocks and shifts are one reason why supply chains break down. One example of a supply shock would be a supplier delivering late or not at all, which frequently happened in 2020. A demand […]
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Precision Starts with Visibility
The new must-have supply chain qualities are speed and accuracy—and the cost for not measuring up is unequivocally high. Manufacturers have been given a seemingly simple choice: maintain optimal levels of accuracy, dependability, and responsiveness, or pay the hefty price. Assuming success will be easy is a costly mistake.
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How can brick-and-mortar retail make a comeback?
Retailers are wise to prioritize flexibility rather than putting all their eggs into either in-store or online baskets. The future of retail may be brick-and-mortar for some, however many factors are still at play. It’s not a simple answer. The future is not one-size-fits-all. The ability to be nimble and proactive not only boosts efficiency, […]
Read MoreSupply Chain Predictions for 2021
I think we can all agree that 2020 is a year that we’ll be excited to leave behind. With a global pandemic, and all its associated side-effects, day-to-day life has been a challenge. But with every challenge comes an opportunity, and this has certainly been the case in the world of e-commerce. With millions homebound, […]
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3 Ways to Bolster Your Supply Chain
Organizations across industries have spent decades optimizing supply chains for maximum profit, but the pandemic highlighted almost overnight how little attention these companies have paid to resilience. As production and mobility of goods experienced historic disruptions, demand quickly exceeded supply and forecasts have failed to produce reliable information for months.
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Other Reasons Why Supply Chain Stress Won’t End Soon
Our "new normal" global consumption reality won’t be ending soon. It’s not just e-commerce, virus buying, and the resultant impact on transport lift availability that’s driving shortages. Other factors augment long-term stress on your ability to marshal supplies and source transport to serve customers. Millennials with buying power, and there are lots of them, will […]
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