Securing Your Loading Dock
Securing your warehouse starts at the loading dock. A secure loading dock protects your warehouse, and expedites the flow of incoming and outgoing trailers. Walt Swietlik, customer relations manager for Rite-Hite Products Corporation, Milwaukee, Wis., offers these tips to help button up your loading dock. 1. Realize the loading dock is more than a dock. […]
Read MoreBouncing Back When Disaster Strikes
When natural disasters strike, businesses often must frantically search for essential items to deliver to beseeching customers. Adept use of sophisticated information tools can help retailers and suppliers “weatherproof” their supply chains. Diverting shipments, moving inventory to forward locations, and anticipating potential spikes in demand, can help moderate the effects of natural disasters. The following […]
Read MoreCreating an Agile Transportation Enterprise
Due to an increasing number of enterprises involved in global logistics, and a growing number of logistics processing points, supply chains have become less agile. In response, manufacturers and retailers are developing demand-driven supply chains, in which suppliers manufacture products in the shortest possible time using the least amount of inventory. To achieve this goal […]
Read MoreHitting the Infrastructure Snooze Button
Folks in our business didn’t need the Minneapolis I-35 bridge collapse to serve as a wake-up call; we talk about maintaining infrastructure constantly. Just one morning before the collapse, I exchanged e-mails with Doug Grane, president of Central States Trucking, who, in a recent guest editorial, wrote: “Most trucking company owners would agree that as […]
Read MoreManaging Domestic Supply Chains
How consumer goods manufacturers leverage domestic supply chains for fast cycle times that global outsourcing can’t match.
Read MoreTemperature-Controlled Logistics: Provide or Perish
Whether shipping fruit, seafood, flowers, or any other perishable goods, transportation must be fresh, fast, and error-free.
Read MoreNorbert Ore: The Creative Touch
When Norbert Ore looks back at his career, he recalls with special satisfaction a phase that started in 2001, when a job switch took him from Chesapeake Corp. to Georgia-Pacific (GP) LLC, Atlanta. His new position, the one he still holds today, was group director, strategic sourcing and procurement. Even for a supply chain veteran […]
Read MoreSeeing the Value in ‘Seaworthy’ Packaging
Q: My company is a logistics service provider. We recently shipped a container of machine parts to Brazil under an arrangement that included the packing and stuffing of six crates. We received instructions from the customer that the packaging needed to be “seaworthy,” and we hired a subcontractor to perform the packaging and stuffing. When […]
Read MoreComplex Technology Optimizes Basic Concepts
As supply chains continue to increase in scope and complexity, the technology powering those supply chains likewise becomes more complex, specific, and compartmentalized. Some companies, however, are realizing that in the quest for ultimate technology sophistication, they may be overlooking some very basic business concepts. Take working capital, for instance. A business can boast cutting-edge […]
Read MoreRock Around the Stock
Taking its cue from the Q system, Guitar Center’s forecasts and inventory allocation now make beautiful music together.
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