Articles
Global Logistics
Prepare for Impact
The best time to brace yourself for a supply chain disruption is before disaster strikes.
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G75: Inbound Logistics’ 75 Green Supply Chain Partners
If you want your carbon footprint to be as small as possible, and your business to be sustainable, then make sure you are doing business with supply chain partners who feel the same way. Inbound Logistics’ annual 75 Green Supply Chain Partners (G75) focuses on showcasing companies that demonstrate green best practices in their supply chain, […]
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Global Logistics-June 2015
GCC States Warm to Regional Collaboration Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states —Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Oman, and Bahrain—have long been hamstrung by independent-minded sovereigns who prefer to think and act unilaterally. Despite the formation of the trade bloc in 1981, collaboration, especially around transportation and logistics, often goes wanting. It’s why […]
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Global Logistics—April 2015
Larger Ships, Larger Losses? When Maersk Line introduced its Triple-E class of containerships in 2013, it raised the bar for the ocean shipping industry. China Shipping Container Lines and Mediterranean Shipping Company have since brought vessels online that top the 19-thousand TEU threshold. But now France’s CMA CGM SA, the third-largest container line in the […]
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Three Supply Chain Risks and How to Address Them
Companies face three main sourcing supply chain risks: regulatory, brand erosion, and social compliance. Any one of these issues could lead to lost profits, product recalls, and customer erosion. At the same time, the longer the supply chain—with more levels of suppliers, disparate geographies, and other middle men, the more complex and challenging compliance becomes. […]
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How to Forge Successful Value Chain Partnerships
Q: How can value chain partners cooperate to create and share efficiencies? A: With an unprecedented global reach, access to new markets, increased regulation, and huge advances in technology, today’s supply chain environment is more complex than ever. Coupled with increasing customer demands for speed, flexibility, cost efficiency, quality, and customization, it is very difficult […]
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A Supply Chain World Tour
Demand-driven logistics spans the world…in practice and in print. For a host of reasons, U.S. shippers and consignees are taking control of how they pull—and push—global product to market. Shifting demand dynamics, geopolitical volatility, currency fluctuations, government interference, lengthening and deepening supply networks, and cost reduction directives have conflated to consternate even the best supply […]
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Global Logistics—March 2015
Hong Kong: A Space Odyssey Hong Kong is one of the world’s most densely populated cities. Remarkably, only 30 percent of its land is actually developed—a reflection of the area’s mountainous terrain. Hong Kong historically has focused much of its infrastructure development on costly projects to reclaim land from the sea. Accordingly, these constraints have […]
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What is Globalization Doing to the World of Logistics?
Since the early 1990s, global trade agreements have divided the world up into larger and larger chunks of trading blocks where goods can flow virtually unimpeded across national borders that once protected their precious industries from outside competition with tariffs, duties and penalties. The Free Trade Agreement between the U.S., Canada and Mexico was signed […]
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Rethinking the Global Supply Chain
Shifting global dynamics and internal business process changes are compelling manufacturers and retailers to challenge the status quo and reinvent their supply chains.
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Global Logistics—August 2014
Only the Good Drive Young With all the talk about the U.S. driver shortage, it’s easy to forget that similar labor constraints exist elsewhere around the world. For example, recruiting younger people into the trucking industry has become a challenge in the United Kingdom, according to Barriers to Youth Employment in the Freight Transport Sector, […]
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Lauren Corbett: Help is on the Way
Lauren Corbett is program assistant, acquisitions and logistics, at International Relief and Development (IRD), a not-for-profit, non-governmental organization in Arlington, Va. She joined IRD in 2014. Responsibilities: Working with donors to obtain in-kind donations and arranging to ship them to consignees for use in programs around the world. Experience: Teaching assistant, Aldea Yanapay, Peru; intern, […]
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Flexibility Key to Success in Liquor Logistics
The next time you settle down after a hard day with a glass of wine or a mixed drink to help you unwind, take a moment to understand how that alcoholic beverage came to fill your glass. A lot depends on which country you are drinking it in and the many tariffs designed to protect […]
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Global Logistics—October 2014
Game of Drones In the latest installment of the drone saga, German logistics company DHL is using a "parcelcopter" to make deliveries to the North Sea island of Juist, home to around 1,700 people. The company claims this is the first instance of unmanned aircraft transporting parcels in Europe. Joining the ranks of Amazon and […]
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Bridging Performance Gaps with GTM
Q: What is driving investment in global trade management systems? A: From 2003 to 2013, the value of world merchandise trade nearly tripled, with companies from large to small aggressively pursuing emerging markets as a way to grow top-line revenues and reduce costs through low-cost country sourcing. According to a July 2013 SCM World survey, […]
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Uncovering Value Through Performance Metrics
Q: How do performance metrics aid a shipper in getting the most supply chain benefit from their containerized transportation providers? A: Performance metrics help uncover value throughout global supply chains. When these metrics are used properly, value can be found in all areas and go much deeper than the typical price and vessel reliability data […]
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Challenges for Today’s Global Supply Chain: Cost, Profitability and Personalization
When market research firm PWC put out its Global Supply Study in 2013, the concerns of the 500 surveyed executives were mostly what one would expect: profitability, cost management, and customer satisfaction. A fourth concern, however, indicates a shift in global supply chain realities. PWC’s study participants are worried about flexibility – and they should […]
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Tamsen Fricke: Finding the Sweet Spot
Tamsen Fricke has served as operations manager at Divine Chocolate USA in Washington, D.C., since 2013. Responsibilities: Imports, inventory management, national distribution, 3PL management, quality control, customer service, operations strategy, and regulatory compliance. Experience: Account executive, Latinflor/Flortec; account executive, Panatlantic Logistics S.A.; senior inside sales coordinator, U.S. government client liaison, government service program manager, Panalpina. […]
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Global Logistics—September 2014
Eruption Disruption: What’s Your Plan? It’s déjà vu all over again. The bubbling Bardarbunga volcano compelled Iceland authorities to raise their aviation warning to orange—the second-highest level—as the possibility for another widespread ash cloud grows more likely. It was a little more than four years ago when an ash cloud from the island’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano […]
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Global Logistics—August 2014
European Ports Stuffed with Congestion A summer labor shortage and longer processing time for larger ships is creating congestion around European port cities and forcing ocean carriers to levy surcharges on tardy shippers. Europe’s top ports — Rotterdam, Antwerp, and Hamburg — are among several cities dealing with congestion issues. Europe is constrained by space, […]
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