Articles
Retail
How Supply Chain Strategies Impact
E-commerce Success
E-commerce has emerged as part of a company’s omni-channel marketing program. Achieving success requires not only an agile, lean supply chain, but also a strategy to get there. Many e-commerce companies sell a variety of products, and each type of product establishes different strategic needs. For example, functional products require lean and flexible network strategies, […]
Read More
Why Retailers Need the TPP
In recent months, the acronym “TPP” has made international headlines, and has been a somewhat unexpected cause of dissension and acrimony among governments and citizens. The Trans-Pacific Partnership, more commonly known as TPP, is a trade agreement that aims to deepen economic ties among 12 countries along the Pacific Rim by reducing tariffs and stimulating […]
Read More
Accurate Product Data Drives Supply Chain Systems
Retail and consumer goods organizations spend a lot of money to deploy supply chain applications that will help them operate more profitably while delivering the ideal experience to shoppers. But the fact is software investments do not deliver on their potential unless the data they’re using is accurate. Accurate product data comes from well-crafted, consistent […]
Read More
Trends—October 2016
Response to ELD Mandate: Yours, Mine, and Hours The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (FMCSA) deadline for truckers to install Electronic Logging Devices (ELDs) is nearly one year away, on Dec. 18, 2017. Small fleets, however, seem to be taking this mandate less seriously than their larger counterparts, according to a survey of 400 carriers […]
Read More
Three Returns Strategies for Improving Omni-channel Retail
Omni-channel retail involves much more than efficient order fulfillment. An easy returns policy is just as important—so much so that it can be the deciding factor for a purchase. That said, it’s one thing to enact a favorable returns policy, and quite another to execute it efficiently. Thanks to omni-channel expectations, shoppers want the ability […]
Read More
Global Logistics—September 2016
Cheat Sheets Wrinkle Target’s Supply Chain Target’s supply chain got a wakeup call when supplier Welspun Inc. allegedly provided a fraudulent product. The retailer recently ended its contract with the India-based textile company, claiming that Welspun supplied Egyptian cotton sheets made from a lower-quality cotton between August 2014 and July 2016. Target’s allegations drove Walmart, […]
Read More
Using Tunnel Scanning to Meet
E-commerce Challenges
The recent increase in the number of consolidation warehouses operated by e-commerce companies that receive orders from many different suppliers in relatively small quantities creates challenges from an ID reading perspective. The small size of their typical order means that consolidation warehouses usually do not have the leverage over their suppliers that would enable them […]
Read More
Retail Logistics: When Fast Isn’t Fast Enough
To keep customers happy, retailers play a daily game of beat the clock. For some retailers, smart supply chain management strategies and 3PL partnerships keep the orders flowing. For others, well…time may be up.
Read More
Working at People Speed
Elon Musk describes the manufacturing operation for the new Tesla as so complex that no humans will participate in building the car. "You really can’t have people in the production line," says Musk. "Otherwise, you’ll automatically drop to people speed." Drop to people speed? Will supply chain impatience—a term I coined to define an inexorable […]
Read More
GOOD QUESTION | Has supply chain impatience gotten out of hand?
Absolutely. While it is nice that consumers can get more things faster and cheaper than ever before, it puts tremendous pressure on retailers to keep profits up. Retailers start moving up sales for each season: back to school, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. It’s getting so bad that I predict the Christmas 2018 season will be […]
Read More