Articles
Logistics
You Say You Want a Co-Evolution?
In human evolution, scientists theorize that primitive man existed 3.8 million years ago. Progress was slow until 200,000 years ago, when modern man made his appearance. Then came a spark of progress: animal domestication, farming, global expansion, refined toolmaking, and more. What we today call the third-party logistics (3PL) sector followed that same evolutionary process. […]
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Turning Back the Pages: 20 Years of Top 100 3PLs
Where were you in 1996? Working your way up the transportation ladder? Starting a career in the logistics field? On the outside looking in? Still in high school? Grade school? Every once in a while it’s fun to throw it back—to an earlier time and reflect on where we come from, where we’ve been, cause […]
Read MoreOvercoming LTL Shipping Challenges
Less-than-truckload (LTL) transportation involves moving shipments that won’t fill a 48- or 53-foot semi-trailer. LTL could be half of a full shipment, a single pallet, or a single box. LTL shipping creates many challenges, and understanding how to overcome them is key to efficiency. Adam Robinson, marketing manager of third-party logistics (3PL) provider Cerasis Inc., […]
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Terri Anderson: Care and Feeding of the WMS
Terri Anderson is production warehouse management systems manager at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, a global learning company specializing in Pre-K to 12th grade content, services, and technology. She has held this position, based in Indianapolis, since 2004. Responsibilities: Configure, enhance, and test the company’s warehouse management system (WMS); liaison between distribution centers and the technology group; […]
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Trends—July 2015
ShippingPass vs. Prime: The Fight for Last-Mile Rights Walmart and Amazon are a study in contrasts, from corporate culture to omni-channel strategy. One promises everyday low prices; the other prioritizes selection and speed. But all things being different, they are chasing the same thing—customer satisfaction. Both retail leaders have found a common battleground when it […]
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Global Logistics—July 2015
TPP: Fishing for Accountability Buried within the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) are provisions that will help protect global fisheries—and consumers—from widespread fraud in the seafood supply chain. It’s a pet project of the Obama Administration, which specifically created the Presidential Task Force on Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing and Seafood Fraud in June 2014 […]
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Working With the Right Enterprise Logistics Provider Makes Good Companies Significantly Better
In any economy, the key for manufacturers, distributors or retailers is competitive advantage. When companies lack competitive advantage—or worse yet, experience competitive disadvantage—a difficult economic environment amplifies the pain. Principal reasons many good companies have struggled with this issue are limited exposure to best practices, technology, tools, training and internal resource capacity. Companies are increasingly […]
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What “Digital Business” Means for your Business
Q: You recently attended your 11th Gartner Supply Chain Executive Summit. This year the key theme was Digital Business, a core ingredient for supply chain transformation success. What is Digital Business? A: Digital Business is a concept that encompasses the people, processes, and enabling technologies of the supply chain of the future. It all starts […]
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6 Global Supply Chain Challenges To Ignore at Your Own Risk
Along with the many benefits that come from sourcing outside the United States, such as low-cost manufacturing, several issues must be properly managed to ensure a successful supply chain. Finding a rock-bottom price in China or India is not the problem, but landing great costs while avoiding distance, timing, quality, and language problems can be […]
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3PLs Can Deliver Big Benefits to Small Companies
No group has benefitted more from the explosion of e-commerce than small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs). Still, the perception is often that SMBs deal only in personal, face-to-face interactions between customers and business owners in a brick-and-mortar store. While that personal touch is still very much alive, e-commerce has fundamentally changed and expanded the number […]
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The Human Touch: New Ergonomic Initiatives Sustain Employee Efficiency
Today’s global supply chains must support constant market changes while also sustaining productivity. In order to achieve this, supply chain leaders are executing several strategies, including implementing ergonomic initiatives that minimize risks for production employees on the job. In production environments, ergonomics plays a direct role in employee performance, which translates into production sustainability. Ergonomics […]
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Supply Chain + Marketing = Successful Consumer Promotions
More consumer-facing companies are using promotions as a way to attract and retain customers, try new product concepts, and meet consumer demand.Examples include limited-time food offerings in restaurants, holiday-inspired product colors, and co-branded promotions at big box retailers and grocers. These promotions give marketers, product developers, and salespeople an additional avenue to express creativity and […]
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4 Ways to Ensure Your Valuable Shipments Arrive Safely
Every shipment contains something of value to the sender and receiver. That package may have an extraordinarily high monetary value with little emotional equity, or incredibly high emotional value for the recipient but little financial worth. For example, let’s take a shipment containing temperature- or time-sensitive pharmaceuticals for patients in a new drug trial. The […]
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Ready to Reduce Your Footprint? Start by Taking These 5 Steps
For resource-intensive organizations, conservation and environmental initiatives are more than feel-good activities. Environmental stewardship can ease regulatory and compliance burdens, reduce effort and waste, and increase profit margins. Yet, many companies still struggle to justify green efforts. Implementing an environmental initiative in your business can be more than just an exercise in sustainability. The program […]
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Benchmarking Transportation Processes With TMS Data
Many businesses that ship products use transportation management systems (TMS) for visibility and control within their supply chain operations. The introduction of cloud-based TMS has also opened the door to many small and mid-sized companies to find great tools that fit their budgets. While using TMS capabilities to support everything from carrier rate management, shipment […]
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Start Now to Leverage the Benefits of the Panama Canal Expansion
The expansion of the Panama Canal, scheduled between late 2015 and early 2016, is one of the most important infrastructure projects of the past century. The upgrades mean that massive post-Panamax ships will traverse the waterway, leading to a significant shift in trade patterns and increased global trade. Global companies typically grow 15 percent faster, […]
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The Shape of ‘Things’ to Come
What the Internet of Things means for the supply chain—now and in the future.
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Going Beyond the Call of Duty
When our nation’s heroes transition from active service to the private sector, logistics companies enlist them in long-term, successful careers.
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Readers’ Choice Top 10 3PL Excellence Awards 2015
3PLs have the tools, people, knowledge, and experience to help supply chains run more efficiently. Which 3PLs did our readers vote the best of the best?
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