Articles
Supply Chain Management

How to Navigate Your Supply Chain During Market Swings
Market conditions play a crucial role in shaping challenges professionals face when managing their organization’s supply chains. While bear markets are known for their economic uncertainty and declining stock prices, bull markets are characterized by investor optimism and rising asset values. Both markets present unique hurdles that supply chain professionals must adeptly navigate.
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10 Tips for Boosting Ecommerce Efficiency
There are endless opportunities for smart businesses to capitalize on the growing ecommerce trend. Processing high volumes of small parcels, however, requires flawless operations at every step of the supply chain to ensure maximum profitability.
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TAKEAWAYS: Shaping the Future of the Global Supply Chain
What does the current landscape of corporate sustainability efforts look like? Here’s a glimpse at top challenges for emissions reduction initiatives and other supply chain trending topics.
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Enterprise Resource Planning: Definition, Benefits, and Challenges
Struggling with managing your business operations efficiently? You’re not alone – about 25% of organizations implement Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) to increase their efficiency. This article will guide you through the myriad facets of ERP, its benefits, vulnerabilities, applications, ERP meaning, and much more. It will also show you how to define ERP and highlight […]
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Asset Management is Everyone’s Job
When it comes to keeping the supply chain as efficient as possible, asset management is a vital priority that mustn’t be overlooked. Keeping careful track not only of goods, but of the shipping containers and platforms needed to transport these goods, should be everyone’s responsibility.
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Vertical Integration: Definition, Examples, and Advantages
Companies can choose many business strategies to meet their supply chain and logistics needs. Each approach has advantages and disadvantages. The best method depends on a company’s specific needs, goals, and circumstances. Vertically integrated corporations, like those in the booming field of vertical aerospace, are giants with a grip on multiple stages of their production […]
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Bullwhip Effect: Example, Causes, and Impact on Supply Chain
The supply chain ensures that raw materials, parts, and finished products are delivered to customers promptly and efficiently. However, the supply chain is a complex system that various major factors, such as changes in demand, production delays, or supply chain disruptions, can easily disrupt. The bullwhip effect is one of supply chain management’s most significant […]
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Uniting a Fragmented Supply Chain Ecosystem to Harmonize Operations
Recent history has exposed the glaring weaknesses in our supply chains networks. One issue and it all comes crashing down like a house of cards. Resulting in expensive quick fixes to save the day. It’s time to build supply chains that are resilient, customer centric AND cost-effective. That’s what senior management is demanding. How do […]
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Your Supply Chain Reality in 5 Years: What ChatGPT Can’t Tell You
We asked our readers: How will supply chain management transform in the next five years? Here are the three major transformations supply chain managers can anticipate. 1. Adoption of advanced supply chain technology will be a major source of competitive advantage for companies. Platforms that improve human decision making and asset management will be areas […]
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IN BRIEF: New Services and Solutions
Products The new EFFER iQ.950 HP heavy loader crane from Hiab, part of Cargotec, lets operators perform a wide range of vertical and horizontal lifting jobs safely and precisely at high speeds. The multipurpose crane’s dimensions and weight make it suitable for installation on several trucks. The nestable Retail E5.3 order picking pallet from Cabka […]
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Supply Chain Education Kindles New Skills
Eager to turn the page on disruption and upheaval, supply chain programs bookmark critical skill sets and help prepare future leaders and logisticians.
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Collaboration and Connectivity Have to Come Before Technology
Supply chain disruptions are at an all-time high, so it’s no surprise that technology designed to solve problems is plentiful. It should be. With pressure on everyone in the supply chain, we need tools like digital bookings, automated invoicing, and instant integration of data into transportation management systems. Let’s give thanks for technology, because nine times out of 10, it makes a difference.
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Near Sourcing: Definition, Benefits, and Drawbacks
Near sourcing is a business strategy that has become increasingly popular in recent years. It involves shifting production and services closer to the point of sale or consumption rather than relying on global supply chains. It can offer numerous advantages such as reduced shipping costs, faster delivery times, and improved environmental sustainability; however, there are […]
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3 Ways Digital Transformation Enhances Capacity
After consecutive pandemic years, supply chains are a mess. As a result, businesses are running out of stock just as surging consumer demand drives up prices for remaining goods, contributing to record inflation and further disrupting consumer markets.
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Gaining Better Visibility: Where to Start
While the business-to-consumer (B2C) market has embraced sophisticated technology tools to enable a digital transformation across the supply chain, the business-to-business (B2B) industry has been slower to adapt, steadfast in a reliance on spreadsheets, phone calls and email.
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Agile Supply Chain: What It Is, Benefits, and Applications
Supply chains can be complex and sensitive. A company can’t survive without a supply chain because it needs everything from raw materials to the final product. Many companies have established an agile supply chain to manage supply better, move goods quickly, and deliver them on time. This process is fundamental to those who produce physical […]
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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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How to Unlock Opportunity With a Procurement Control Tower
With market volatility and sky-high inflation driving shifts in the price of oil and other commodities, it’s not surprising to see businesses adjust sourcing and inventory strategies in anticipation of future roadblocks. Plus, with consumer demand softening, many companies that largely over-indexed on orders last year are now sitting on a surplus of supply.
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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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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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