Articles
Distribution

E-Commerce: The Great Retail Equalizer
From small, local businesses to national giants, merchants fashion e-commerce strategies to attract and delight consumers in an ever-more competitive market.
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Keeping Your DC in Peak Shape:
It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas
Whether your temporary peak periods are linked to holidays or seasons, these tips will keep your distribution center merry and bright.
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Florida: Logistics & Distribution—The Future is Here
Florida’s state-of-the-art seaports and airports, and strong highway and rail networks, have helped establish a strong and growing logistics sector.
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Updating Einstein?
Einstein said the faster an object moves, the slower time seems to pass. Well, not for me. The increased speed at which products now move through the supply chain seems to have the same impact on my calendar. I can’t believe half the year is gone, and in the blink of an eye it will […]
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Direct Hit
E-commerce has forever changed the way people shop. Now businesses of all sizes must reassess their supply chains to go direct to the consumer with faster-than-fast delivery and free shipping.
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Distributors Step Up Their Game
Changing business models—especially the rise of e-commerce—are prompting many distributors to enhance their services. Game on.
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Solved: Kane Thinks Outside the Box for Distribution of Insulation Products
Dow Building Solutions gained faster, more reliable distribution to customers at a reduced cost with help from KANE.
Read MoreStudy: Traditional Industrial Distributors Face Mounting Risk
Asset-light e-marketplaces and other non-traditional shopping channels, combined with shifting demographics, are upending industrial distributors’ inventory-heavy model more rapidly than previously thought. As a result, distributors must quickly adapt and address threats with everything from sharper mobile offerings to upgraded customer service, a UPS white paper shows. According to the UPS Industrial Buying Dynamics […]
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Paul Nugent: Feed the Flow
Paul Nugent is director of logistics for Kitchen and Bath Americas with Kohler Co. While Kohler is best known for plumbing products, the company also manufactures furniture, cabinetry, tile, engines, and generators. Responsibilities: Create and execute distribution and fulfillment operational strategies for manufacturing plant warehouses, logistics centers, and customers. Also responsible for operations, network design, […]
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Warehouse Management & DC Optimization: Measuring What Matters
Selecting the best metrics at your company’s distribution centers requires the right tools, careful study, and constant collaboration.
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Customized App Puts Bat Distributor in the Big Leagues
When a paper-based process slowed a baseball bat distributor’s growth, the company took a swing at a digitized system, and hit a home run.
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Enabling a Faster-to-Market Solution
Fast growth in ever-expanding global markets, and the need to serve its retail and online clients in Asian markets, drove home furnishings retailer Cath Kidston to approach SEKO for a solution.
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Jonathan Parks: Planning is Key, to Say the Leased
Jonathan Parks is vice president of global logistics and distribution with Rent-A-Center, which offers name-brand furniture, electronics, appliances, and computers through flexible rental purchase agreements. He started with the company in 2010 and has held this position since 2015. Responsibilities: The design, management, and continual optimization of distribution and logistics operations. Experience: Positions in logistics, […]
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Aaron Leach: A Bird’s Eye View of the Supply Chain
Aaron Leach is senior director of supply chain with Wayne Farms, LLC, in Oakwood, Ga. He has held this position since 2013. Wayne Farms is the sixth largest vertically integrated producer and processor of poultry in the United States. Responsibilities: Inbound and outbound logistics, warehousing and inventory control, and supply and demand planning. Experience: Director […]
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Hardware Upgrade Unwraps DC Improvements
Kelli’s Gift Shop Suppliers gets a present: a mobile device that improves inventory control and boosts DC efficiency.
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Optimizing the Product Portfolio
Customer expectations are higher than ever, and the most successful distributors continue to accommodate their customers through multiple channels designed to attract and retain them. Despite all the business emphasis on community, engagement, and relationship, the importance of offering the right variety of products remains—and it cannot be overlooked. In this environment, the constant pressure […]
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Getting Distribution Centers in Peak Season Shape
While the annual peak shipping season begins in August and lasts through the winter holidays, the work for supply chain and logistics distributors certainly doesn’t end come the new year. In fact, the National Retail Federation’s monthly Global Port Tracker report indicates that cargo volume for January 2017 is forecast at 1.53 million Twenty-Foot Equivalent […]
Read MoreUsing a Systems Integrator for DC Automation
Implementing materials handling automation within a distribution center requires an experienced systems integrator, which acts as a matchmaker to ensure the software communicates fully and freely with the facility’s equipment. Systems integrators are also responsible for the deployment’s speed, progress and outcome; they are the keepers of schedules and standards, the maestros who ensure that […]
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Bert De Winter: Springing Forward with Innovation
Bert De Winter is director of EMEA logistics with HP Inc., and based in Amstelveen, the Netherlands. He has been with HP (and previously, Compaq) for 29 years. Responsibilities:Operational and profit and loss management of EMEA inbound and outbound transportation flows, distribution centers, warehousing, and customs; regional procurement and management of transport, customs brokerage, and […]
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How to Optimize Demand Chain Management
In a perfect world, distribution centers (DCs) would disappear. Retailers and manufacturers would match incoming orders to customer demand so precisely that all products would stay in motion all the time. At most, an importer would operate a crossdock to process incoming goods for the outbound trip. This super-lean scenario poses major opportunities to reduce […]
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