Articles

Commentary

Keith Biondo
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You Won’t Get Fooled Again

Sometimes a kick in the pants is a step forward. The past two years have certainly been kicking it, and not in a good way for many of you. Stress of the type we are still going through can be incentive to change business practices. Incremental changes are a normal part of standard business practices. […]

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Paul A. Myerson
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S&OP: Bringing the Outside In

Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) is an integrated business management process through which the leadership team continually achieves focus, alignment and synchronization among all functions. This ensures that supply meets demand while the organization meets general business objectives, including profitability, productivity, competitive customer lead times, and others.

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Girding for Supply Chain Turmoil in 2022

Despite the expectation that this year will be a difficult one regarding supply chain management, strategies exist to ease the burden. Companies can minimize disruption by implementing specific tools and best practices that will enable clearing logistical, transportation, and technological hurdles. Those include modernizing your business’s supply chain management processes—adopting artificial intelligence, for instance—enhancing visibility […]

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Taking a Fresh Look at Brazil’s Transportation Sector

International investors may have had hesitation about moving into new markets amid the myriad changes of the past year. However, as the economy continues to rebound, many are taking a fresh look at one emerging market in particular: Brazil. Indeed, the Brazilian government has been working to establish new regulations that open doors for foreign […]

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How Manufacturers Can Navigate Global Supply Chain Upheaval

Supply chains have been teetering on the brink of downfall for many years from issues such as labor shortages, and the pandemic has only highlighted this problem further. When lockdowns started around the world, many empty shipping containers remained where they were. However, in early summer 2021, many countries loosened restrictions around COVID, unleashing pent-up […]

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Keith Biondo
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Robots Do Yardwork, Too

Efficient warehouse operations provide the levels of service that customers demand as America’s economy scales up. In many instances, yard operations impede that efficiency. Safety, driver facilities, cooperation, and consideration for truckers’ time are ongoing challenges. One driver tells us that a yard he regularly serves is "like a moonscape." The confluence of e-commerce growth […]

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Anne Sexton
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6 Reasons You Should Control Inbound Logistics

If the pandemic has taught us anything it’s this—supply chains are brittle. If raw materials or parts don’t get to where they need to be on time, manufacturing plants grind to a halt, orders are not fulfilled, customers are unhappy, and the bottom line suffers. A pandemic—and its knock-on effects of shortages—is not something companies […]

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The Role of IoT in Keeping Vaccines Safe

The pandemic made clear the need for equity in access to vaccines. In fact, G7 leaders met earlier this year to discuss just that. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “leaders recognized that no country can be safe until every country committed to develop and distribute effective tests, treatments, and vaccines around the world.” […]

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Phil Schmidbauer
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Pulling Levers and Finding Value in Transportation

Value is not always easy to measure. It’s the same when discussing transportation costs. Lowest cost is not always the best, as poor quality can cost you much more. Corporate supply chain managers need to understand which levers to pull so they can get the best value for every transportation dollar spent.

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CJ Singh
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Is the Healthcare Supply Chain Ready for the Netflix Effect?

Have you ever marveled at how Netflix seems to know what you want to watch, when you want to watch it, and sets expectations with a high percentage of likelihood that you’ll enjoy their recommendation? What if we could apply that same degree of accuracy to the healthcare supply chain? Armed with the right information, we could know who needs which supplies and when, down to the patient level. The result would be a more resilient supply chain and better patient outcomes.

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Keith Biondo
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Unleash Short Sea?

The ports around the Great Lakes would love to help offset some of the pain of the horror show called the "shipping crisis." Guess what. They can’t by law. Thank the Harbor Maintenance Fee (HMF), a well-intended policy perfect for the 1980s, along with related regulations, for sidelining port capacity around the Great Lakes. The […]

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