Articles
Supply Chain
Waste Eats Away the Bottom Line
Overproduction and waste may push margins in the wrong direction. A recent Avery Dennison report finds that 8% of stock perishes or is discarded before it reaches consumers–inventory losses worth up to $163.1 billion or 3.6% of annual profits. Of the 8% waste, slightly more than half (53.8%) is lost in the supply chain before products reach store shelves.
Read More
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.
Read More
Five Trends That Will Shape Logistics in 2023
Amidst concern over the economy and ongoing geopolitical issues, 2023 promises to pose challenges to managing logistics and supply chain operations. To help companies prepare for the new year, Anaid Chacón, head of product for Nuvocargo, a digital platform focused on U.S.-Mexico cross-border trade, identifies five trends to be aware of.
Read More
How to Develop a Customer-centric Supply Chain
Supply chain variability creates hurdles to customer satisfaction. Prioritize the consumer experience by integrating flexible technologies and processes in your supply chain design.
Read More
John Brewer: Building a Supply Chain Step by Step
John Brewer is director of distribution and logistics with CKE Restaurants Holdings Inc., the company behind quick-serve restaurant brands Carl’s Jr. and Hardees.
Read More
10 Tips: Matching Inventory To Demand
Demand is a constantly changing variable in any supply chain. Each time the demand tides change, retailers, wholesalers, distributors, and manufacturers must align inventory levels to meet customer expectations. Here are tips for doing it successfully.
Read More
Stay Chill
Shippers face many challenges when maintaining the cold chain for food transportation. Chill out! These solutions can help.
Read More
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.
Read More
Pumpkin Spice Pandemonium
Pumpkin spice mania is a fall tradition in the United States. Here’s how seasonality blended with limited supplies jacks up demand.
Read More
Manufacturers Feel the Disruption Burden
Supply chain disruptions over the past 12-18 months—including shipping delays and parts shortages due to truck driver issues and congested ports—have heavily impacted manufacturers (see chart). That’s the consensus of Deloitte’s new study, Meeting the Challenge of Supply Chain Disruption, which was conducted in partnership with Manufacturers Alliance. (see chart).
Read More
Land Of The Lost And Other Peak Season Challenges
A whopping 92% of merchants surveyed by UPS Capital report costly impacts to their business as a result of lost, stolen, or damaged shipments. Half of merchants say they lost $50,000+ in the past year.
Read More
VERTICAL FOCUS: Automotive Aftermarket
Here’s a look at supply chain trends in the automotive aftermarket space.
Read More
NOTED: Supply Chain Highlights
From philanthropy initiatives to recent mergers and acquisitions, here’s what’s new and notable in the supply chain.
Read More
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?
Read More
What’s the Most Valuable Logistics Brand?
The answer is UPS, according to the 2022 Brand Finance Logistics 25 report. With a brand value of $38.5 billion, UPS has held on to the top spot as the most valuable logistics brand in the world. Since last year’s report, the company’s brand value has increased by 28%.
Read More
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.
Read More
Good Question: What phrase would you create to describe a supply chain trend or development?
From the “productization of delivery” (think super delivery) to “dot plot mania,” readers get creative and coin terms describing the latest supply chain developments.
Read More
Home Construction News and Trends
Suppliers, manufacturers, and other vendors up and down the home construction supply chain can expect to feel the pinch, as demand for new housing units stagnates.
Read More
Acing the Back-to-School Season
These stats on school supplies reveal getting straight A’s in back-to-school supply chains is a yearly test.
Read More
IN BRIEF: New Services and Solutions
From a scalable automated pickup system to a new last mile solution, here are some notable supply chain services and solutions that recently hit the market.
Read More