Articles
Logistics
Waste Eats Away the Bottom Line
Overproduction and waste may push margins in the wrong direction. A recent Avery Dennison report finds that 8% of stock perishes or is discarded before it reaches consumers–inventory losses worth up to $163.1 billion or 3.6% of annual profits. Of the 8% waste, slightly more than half (53.8%) is lost in the supply chain before products reach store shelves.
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AI and ML in Retail: Help or Hype?
Top-performing retailers are bullish on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), with 71% of respondents to a Retail Systems Research report saying AI-enabled analytics will fundamentally change their merchandising forecasting by 2025.
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10 Tips: Matching Inventory To Demand
Demand is a constantly changing variable in any supply chain. Each time the demand tides change, retailers, wholesalers, distributors, and manufacturers must align inventory levels to meet customer expectations. Here are tips for doing it successfully.
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Stay Chill
Shippers face many challenges when maintaining the cold chain for food transportation. Chill out! These solutions can help.
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Devanning: Definition, Process, and Benefits
Devanning is a process of warehouse and logistics management that uses digital technology to systematically unload loose items and shipping containers from a vehicle’s load space. Container devanning involves loading and unloading cargo using a sealed container and heavy-duty equipment like counterbalance forklifts to manage the entire operation. When goods devan at the destination, companies […]
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Reverse Logistics: All You Need to Know About What It Is
If you’re a retailer or e-commerce seller, you need to know about reverse logistics, also known as reverse logistics flow. Reverse logistics is a supply chain management system used to manage the return of products that were originally sent out with an order. Here’s what reverse logistics is, why it is essential, pros and cons, […]
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Acquiring Minds Want To Know
A new report by Barclays Corporate Banking finds that nearly half of all UK logistics businesses are likely to make an acquisition in the next 12 months as they look to expand operations and become more competitive—the highest figure recorded in the survey’s 10-year history.
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VERTICAL FOCUS: Automotive Aftermarket
Here’s a look at supply chain trends in the automotive aftermarket space.
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Supply Chain Strain: How to Navigate Disruption
Now that we’ve been in a pandemic for more than two years, it’s funny to look back at our optimism at the beginning. We expected brief supply chain interruptions and thought that things would be back to normal in a few short months. Then we realized it could drag on for a year or more. But almost three years?
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Why You Should be Spending More on Your Pallets
Sometimes, finding a way to operate more efficiently forces a company to examine processes that haven’t changed for decades. Take the pallet. This simple, but crucial, item ensures stable loads and are essential to moving goods throughout the supply chain. They’re typically made of wood and are inexpensive—maybe about $15 per pallet. This may not seem cost prohibitive, but with up to 2 billion pallets in use in the U.S. alone, businesses must examine ways to reduce this cost without cutting corners.
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NOTED: Supply Chain Highlights
From net-zero carbon initiatives to recent mergers and acquisitions, here’s what’s new and notable in the supply chain.
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What’s the Most Valuable Logistics Brand?
The answer is UPS, according to the 2022 Brand Finance Logistics 25 report. With a brand value of $38.5 billion, UPS has held on to the top spot as the most valuable logistics brand in the world. Since last year’s report, the company’s brand value has increased by 28%.
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Against All Odds, Trade Going Strong
“Resilient” seems to be the key word to describe global trade today. Despite myriad challenges—the aftermath of the pandemic, inflation, the war in Ukraine, a rocky stock market—global trade is persisting at strong levels, according to the latest DHL Trade Growth Atlas, published by DHL and the NYU Stern School of Business. The report maps […]
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Keeping the Supply Chain Running in Ukraine
Since 2020, the business landscape has been full of crises for 3PLs operating in Europe. First a worldwide pandemic, now a war between Russia and Ukraine. Keeping a supply chain operating efficiently is challenging in the best of times, but how can companies best respond during game changing disruptions? Yuriy Ostapyak, a Ukrainian-born U.S. citizen and COO for Logistics Plus joined the Inbound Logistics podcast to discuss his company’s response to these challenges.
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ScottsMiracle-Gro: Getting the Right (Logistics) Players in Place for Its Big Game
Winning means shelves are stocked full of ScottsMiracle-Gro products right when spring arrives. Here’s how ScottsMiracle-Gro improved delivery performance and logistics with a strategic partnership approach.
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Good Question: What phrase would you create to describe a supply chain trend or development?
From the “productization of delivery” (think super delivery) to “dot plot mania,” readers get creative and coin terms describing the latest supply chain developments.
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Home Construction News and Trends
Suppliers, manufacturers, and other vendors up and down the home construction supply chain can expect to feel the pinch, as demand for new housing units stagnates.
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NOTED: Supply Chain Highlights
From philanthropy initiatives to recent mergers and acquisitions, here’s what’s new and notable in the supply chain.
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Inflation Innovation Stagnation
Achieving demand-driven enterprise status would have been impossible without the innovative technology-driven processes brought to bear on how we source, ship, and fulfill product, all while meeting evolving customer needs and demands.
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Real-time Data Isn’t the Only Thing Supply Chains Are Missing
Before the polar vortex in Texas, the biggest logjams at the Port of LA, and the start of the Great Resignation, McKinsey found that major production disruptions were estimated to occur every 3.7 years. In the months since, it has become clear these incidents are far too common to be referred to as black swan […]
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