Articles
Logistics
Flight of Fancy
Back in 2023 Paul MacCready’s famous company, Aerovironment Corp., brought to market an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) that revolutionized expedited and emergency transport services in America. That was seven years ago. Since then, the UAV 2030 AllCargo has captured 38 percent of the critical shipment market. Soaring above traffic, tolls, and crumbling infrastructure, the unmanned […]
Read MoreMike Bates: Location, Lead Time and a Quick Bulkhead Fix
Location might not be everything, but in Mike Bates’ job it counts for a lot. As inbound freight logistics manager for Thurston Foods, Bates wages an endless campaign to find carriers to serve his warehouse in Wallingford, Conn. With few outbound loads available in the area, truckers delivering to the regional food service distributor often […]
Read MoreThe Productivity Evolution
What’s in a warehouse? If you answered “inventory” you may be overlooking one important fact. Today’s warehouse operations are sometimes a nexus of functions and business strategy, creating an ideal setting for new ideas to take root, grow your business, improve your business model. With the stress caused by the slow economy, warehouse pros are […]
Read MoreAndy Gustafson: Logistics for the Rich and Famous
To keep the rich and famous cruising in style, someone has to overhaul the engines, install the saunas, and replace the teak railings on the world’s largest yachts. Andy Gustafson’s job is to make sure the technicians who repair and refit these luxury vessels have the materials they need—whether that means sandblasting sand, electronic equipment, […]
Read MoreThe Power of GC3
DuPont’s TransOval web portal is primed to take globalization to a whole new sphere, with help from G-Log’s GC3.
Read MoreStirring the Pot
I love making chili and am always amazed at that point in the pot where individual ingredients coalesce into something new and wonderful. While cooking up this issue, we saw the beginnings of a similar trend in logistics IT. Business IT solutions running down functional silos to the heart of an enterprise—purchasing/SCM, TMS, WMS—are now […]
Read MoreCarol Carrieri: Life-Support Logistics
Carol Carrieri had a warehouse full of medical supplies. The problem was how to get them into Manhattan. Minutes after she and her staff at McKesson Medical-Surgical’s distribution center in Dayton, N.J., learned of the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center, they started calling customers in New York to find out what they […]
Read MoreNew Product Launches: The Cache to Cash Cycle
Aligning marketing, advertising, and sales initiatives with logistics and fulfillment processes to ensure that new products make their way onto store shelves and into shopping carts demands a collaborative and integrated approach among internal departments and supply chain partners.
Read MoreLewis Dibert: Spinning Red Into Gold
Despite an affable disposition, Lewis Dibert spends his days seeing red. As director of logistics for Red Gold Inc., each day from July through October he moves hundreds of truckloads of tomatoes from fields in five states to be packed into cans at three Indiana production plants. The rest of the year, he brings in […]
Read MoreSilo’s Legacy
In last month’s Reader Profile, Brittain Ladd offers some great advice to people starting out in logistics: “Educate yourself. The best logistics managers are those individuals who are great communicators and who understand the importance of mastering the supply chain, as well as mastering relationships with customers and suppliers.” Besides repeating, that sentiment bears expanding. […]
Read MoreSCM & Logistics: What’s the Difference
Are logistics and supply chain management the same thing? How are they alike? How do they differ? IL readers weigh in with their opinion, and Dr. Edward J. Marien tries to make sense of it all.
Read MoreAlex Reizinger: Stretching His Wings
When Sandy Reizinger first went to work for Ryder Supply Chain Solutions three years ago, he had barely a moment to breathe. Reizinger was part of a team managing transportation for Nortel Networks at its “systems house”—a final assembly and distribution center in Montreal. As logistics coordinator, he built 10 to 12 daily trailer loads, […]
Read MoreFeeling Full: More is More
When choosing the mix of articles, and setting their length, for our annual Logistics Planner issue, I have more freedom than usual. As an editor, I normally face tremendous pressure to keep things brief in recognition of, or perhaps in surrender to, today’s quick reading habits. Each issue, I struggle with a brevity bias, as […]
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Descartes Was Wrong … and Right
Descartes divided our world into two distinct parts—”extended things,” things that are real, existing in the physical world and “thinking things,” thoughts and memories. Descartes was wrong. That’s what New York scientist Timothy Tully says and he is out to prove it. How? By using molecular biology to break down thoughts into physical components. He […]
Read MoreManaging Logistics Change: Doing it Right
Wrapped in a chrysalis of change, business logistics managers are rebuilding internal elements and morphing legacy systems to answer increased customer demands and manage never-ending variables. What emerges is a logistics process that is more agile, able to fly faster and go farther. See how leading companies use change to transorm themselves, with breathtaking results.
Read MoreZero Hour
What happens when disaster strikes and your shipment never makes it? Time stops for a brief moment … then the clock starts ticking and the phones start ringing. What do you do? How should your vendors and carriers respond? Read this gripping fictional account of one carrier dealing with the unexpected. The story may be make-believe, but the consequences are no less real.
Read MoreBrittain Ladd: Doing It Right The First Time, Every Time
Success to me,” says Brittain Ladd, “is educating others on the importance of quality and doing the job right the first time, every time.” As a Six Sigma black belt, Ladd has dedicated himself to eliminating variance—making sure his organization adheres to the highest standards in every detail. Ladd is transportation planning manager for Michaels […]
Read MoreBrian Godfrey: An Explosive Career
Work is a blast for Brian Godfrey. As a logistics supervisor for Dyno Nobel North America, Godfrey is in charge of moving truck, railcar, and barge loads of ammonium nitrate (AN), a fertilizer used as an explosive in mining and construction. He negotiates transportation contracts, traces rail shipments, and routes his goods from manufacturing plants […]
Read MoreAre You a Logistics Laggard?
Logisticians get saddled with lots of responsibility when things go wrong—the shipment is late, the shipment is lost, the carrier filed Chapter 11, the ports are closed. Now we learn that we are not practicing “socially responsible logistics.” Talk about piling on! “The logistics discipline appears to be more of a laggard with respect to […]
Read MoreLogistics 101: Back to Basics
Logistics can confound the newly initiated and veterans alike. So take out your notebook, sharpen your pencil, and take this Inbound Logistics short course on the fundamental concepts driving logistics theory and practice today.
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