Articles

Supply Chain Management

Amar Shah, Danielle Moushon, and Sunil Agarwal
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Optimizing the Product Portfolio

Customer expectations are higher than ever, and the most successful distributors continue to accommodate their customers through multiple channels designed to attract and retain them. Despite all the business emphasis on community, engagement, and relationship, the importance of offering the right variety of products remains—and it cannot be overlooked. In this environment, the constant pressure […]

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GOOD QUESTION | What disruptive innovation will have the greatest impact on the supply chain?
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GOOD QUESTION | What disruptive innovation will have the greatest impact on the supply chain?

Supply chain advancement is a methodology that extracts hidden profit by connecting the supply chain to other core processes of a business: strategy, product life-cycle management, and sales and marketing. Companies that advance their supply chains to this next level of decision-making will be better positioned to adapt to changing customer needs. Robert Martichenko CEO, […]

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Global Logistics—October 2016
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Global Logistics—October 2016

Overcapacity Problems Sink Hanjin Shipping Right in the middle of the peak ocean shipping season leading up to the U.S. holiday rush, South Korean ocean liner Hanjin Shipping filed for bankruptcy protection in one dozen countries in late August and early September 2016. Hanjin is the world’s seventh-largest ocean carrier, and handles nearly 8 percent […]

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Neal Walters, Matthew Getz, and Mike Piccarreta
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Reshape and Refresh Your Product Portfolio for a Streamlined Supply Chain

Organizations embrace periods of strategic portfolio expansion as a lever to improve top- and bottom-line growth. But in the wake of product proliferation, portfolio complexity emerges with unanticipated supply chain consequences that can significantly impact customer service, quality, and cost. The accumulation of products spanning multiple life-cycle stages may redirect the organization away from its […]

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Lori Thorp
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Empower Users to Create and Update Labels for Supply Chain Efficiency

The single most important aspect of label design is the ability to convey the correct information, to the correct audience, in a consistent and concise manner. The two keywords here are “correct” and “consistent.” When labels are inaccurate or information is out of date, serious breakdowns in the supply chain can occur. This is often […]

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Matt Engle
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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 […]

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Melanie Nuce
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Black Swan Events: Planning for Supply Chain Resiliency

Major supply chain disruptions, commonly referred to as "Black Swan" events, are high-impact, low-likelihood occurrences that are typically not on your everyday radar. But knowing exactly where your product is in the supply chain is never more important than during these instances. The effects of a hurricane, flood, fluctuating oil prices, political unrest, and port […]

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Jamie Overley
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How to Stand Out From the Crowd

The changing needs of today’s manufacturers, coupled with the intense challenges third-party logistics (3PL) providers face—from greater reliance on just-in-time inventory and the increasing role of technology, to port congestion and the truck driver shortage—have led to a landscape ripe with competition. Arguably more diversified and sophisticated than ever, the 3PL sector is seeing an […]

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John Bermudez
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Supply Chain Execs Shift Focus From Sustenance to Survival

While we usually reserve 1990’s nostalgia for fashion, film, and music, a glimpse back at the technology landscape is just as jarring. Many remember a time before the internet was a necessity, but what about the pre-SCM age? For today’s large manufacturers, distributors, and retailers, supply chain management (SCM) has become such an indispensable area […]

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Aaron Baker
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Physics of a Customer-Centric Supply Chain

The supply chain strategy shift from business cost efficiency to customer purchase location flexibility is similar to the Copernican Revolution. Many companies are becoming customer-centric and putting the customer’s experience at the center of business objectives. Nicolaus Copernicus’ Revolution was the creation of a heliocentric model where the sun—instead of the earth—is the center of […]

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Ryan Kelly
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Optimizing Inbound for Improved E-Commerce Fulfillment

E-commerce is changing warehousing. Consumers want to purchase merchandise at any time, from anywhere—whether it is online, mobile, or in a store. As a result, efficient and reliable omni-channel fulfillment has become an imperative for retailers. To better align business models with the new paradigm, retailers and logistics providers are augmenting their distribution networks to […]

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