Articles
Supply Chain Management
How Strong Trading Relationships Help Win and Retain Customers
The most effective supply chains are built on a firm foundation of cooperation between suppliers and distributors. Strong trading relationships have a significant impact on just about every measure of performance: customer service, transportation and storage costs, risk, forecasting, lead times, and even product development. The best way to ensure that your supply chain is […]
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What’s the Word: the Language of Logistics
Load Balancing To load balance inventory means to distribute inventory across a network of warehouses with the main purpose of positioning inventory closer to the end customer prior to purchase. Retailers load balance inventory to reduce last-mile costs and ensure faster delivery. When leveraging a well-balanced network, it also allows for redundancy in their supply […]
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How Location Intelligence Improves Supply Chain Management
The effects of the pandemic have strained the global supply chain, resulting in manufacturing and shipping delays that impact nearly every business that receives goods or ships products. It’s clear that supply chain management now requires an increasingly digitized strategy. That’s why companies should use real-world data, like location intelligence, to enhance their supply chains. […]
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10 Ways KPIs Combat Disruptions
It’s essential to measure performance to create a competitive advantage and prepare for unpredictable events. Therefore, I have put together my “10 commandments” of key performance indicators (KPIs) to mitigate supply chain disruptions. 1. Make Sure KPIs Align with Overall Business Goals. What are your specific goals? Are those goals limited by staff hours or […]
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Getting Value from Class C Suppliers
Smart purchasing departments focus on their Class A suppliers— the ones they use the most. However, many businesses spend a disproportionate amount of time and money on their larger group of Class C suppliers. Digitizing your supplier relationship management can flip this trend so that purchasing departments instead focus attention where it should be: on […]
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It’s Time to Embrace Supply Chain Chaos
As someone who has worked in supply chain and logistics management for more than one decade, I find a duality in watching all the attention cast on our corner of the economy over the past year. On one hand, it’s nice to see society at large recognize the giant global operation behind making and delivering […]
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The Road to the Circular Economy
As the world realizes that the linear economy is unsustainable, companies are under pressure by regulations, investors, consumers, and employees to lower their carbon footprint and transition to a circular economy.
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Data-Driven Supply Chain Optimization
Q: What is data-driven supply chain optimization, and why is it important? A: Data-driven supply chain optimization applies prescriptive analytics in mathematical programming and operations research (OR) to provide decision support for supply chain decision-making at the strategic, tactical, and operational levels. By properly capturing the decisions to make (decision variables), the performance metric to […]
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Pop Quiz: Supply Chain Educators Answer 6 Pressing Questions
For much of the decade prior to the pandemic, the number of students in supply chain programs couldn’t match industry’s need for supply chain professionals. “The biggest challenge was convincing students it was a real career path,” says Brian Fugate, chair of the department of supply chain management at the University of Arkansas. As the […]
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Thriving on Change, Growth, and Opportunity
Fresh out of grad school, Thad Bedard moved to the San Francisco Bay area hoping to become a professor of American literature. But teaching jobs were scarce. “To make ends meet, I started working as a warehouseman,” recalls Bedard. “I enjoyed the industry. The work challenged a lot of my preconceived notions about business.” He […]
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NOTED: The Supply Chain In Brief
The latest mergers & acquisitions, logistics contracts, sustainability initiatives, humanitarian logistics efforts and more. Good Works The Coca-Cola Company, based in Atlanta, donated $1 million to the Technical College System of Georgia Foundation’s Commercial Truck Driving Program. The donation funds driver training programs and helps ensure more drivers are in the pipeline to fill trucking […]
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What pandemic-era adjustment will have the greatest supply chain impact?
The acceleration of digital twins. The ability to digitally model a company’s manufacturing and distribution network will allow it to quickly assess the impact of large and small disruptions and take appropriate actions. —Allen Jacques Industry Thought Leader Kinaxis The use of data analytics to help suppliers really understand consumer behavior. Suppliers decided to eliminate […]
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Say Yes to the YMS
Companies sometimes overlook how important the yard is to their success. Without proper management, facilitated by a yard management system (YMS), pile ups can lead to delays, fees, and a full shipment of stress.
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Why Procurement Is the Key to Preparing for the Next Supply Chain Crisis
There is no clear sign when the global supply chain crisis will end. It began during the COVID-19 pandemic, worsened with the surge in demand that followed the lifting of national lockdowns around the world, and further deepened amid recent global events. Some corporate leaders contend that the crisis, triggered by these exceptional events, could […]
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Supply Chain Helps Meet ESG Goals
As corporations become increasingly focused on ESG initiatives, their supply chain and logistics partners respond with tools and services designed to help them grow sustainability and other goals.
Read MoreA New Fix for Broken Supply Chains?
Less-than-truckload (LTL) are prone to delays, damages, and inefficiencies, finds new data from Drive Research and Flock Freight.
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Intermodal is Just the Ticket
With rail facility and infrastructure upgrades nailed down and intermodal network improvements on track, these ports and sites are riding high on intermodal’s advantages.
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Driver Shortage: Don’t Fall For It
The talking point that states the trucking industry is facing a driver shortage to explain the state of supply chain is a lie. Don’t fall for it. There has been a “shortage” of drivers for well over 20 years so be sure you are getting honest answers when digging into your supply chain issues.
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Orchestrating a DC Strategy That Won’t B Flat
Distribution center technology and equipment working in harmony can keep any supply chain sharp.
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Managing Working Capital Amid Product Shortages
Distributors can’t seem to catch a break. First they faced a liquidity squeeze when COVID-19 raged onto the scene, triggering a dislocation in the supply and demand for products. Now, as they enter the third year of the pandemic, distributors are grappling with wide-ranging shortages of goods and commodities across the supply chain that show no sign of abating.
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