Articles
Commentary
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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Robots: Walmart Advances, Amazon Retreats
When faced with anticipated fall-off in consumer purchases, Walmart leans into new robotic solutions. The retailer also re-tasks existing store infrastructure by attaching market fulfillment centers (MFCs)—compact warehouses inside, or tacked onto, retail stores to help fulfill pickup or delivery orders. It gets inventory closer to the customer and amps delivery velocity to serve consumers […]
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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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Becoming a Successful Female Mentor in Male-Centric Industries
Countless published articles talk about the importance and value of mentorship, and we heard many of these voices during Women’s History Month in March. Many of these articles strike home at the essence and reasons why mentorship is especially critical for professional women in the workforce.
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The Trucking Industry By-the-Numbers: The Long Haul
As the engine of the U.S. economy, the trucking industry carries around 11 billion tons of freight per year, keeping goods moving and the supply chain humming.
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The Future of the Supply Chain is Cloudy
We hear a lot about the cloud these days. The cloud (public or private) refers to software and services that run on the Internet instead of locally on your computer. There is a good chance that the majority of business data will eventually reside in the cloud.
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You Can Add Value to Your Brand Through Last-Mile Delivery
Retailers in a post-COVID world know better than anyone that growing their business by diversifying what they offer is a surefire way to solidify customer loyalty. In today’s highly competitive retail environment, delivery as a brand extension is a critical differentiator.
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IL Good Question: If you could invent one tool to help you do your job better, what would it be?
Readers reveal the yet-to-be-invented tools that would be supply chain game-changers as well as the most recent innovations starting to make their jobs easier.
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Are Bad Deliveries Ruining Your Last Mile? Here’s How to Flip the Script
While the chaos of supply chains has been tamed from its pandemic peak, new disruptions are being forecast and the holiday shopping season will only compound those issues.
Read MoreShipping Containers: What Do the Cans Tell Us?
What can we learn from the movements of shipping containers, or cans? Plenty. Here’s how they provide clues about future global trading patterns.
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Why IoT is Not the Answer
Global supply chain disruption is not caused by a lack of data—more than 10 billion Internet of Things (IoT) devices deployed worldwide add more data every second to already overflowing data stores, yet disruption persists. More IoT is not the answer. The real challenge is creating effective connections between numerous stakeholders performing a range of functions, across multiple enterprise platforms and in different jurisdictions.
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How You Can Respond to Lingering Port Congestion Problems
We’re not experiencing a traditional peak retail shipping season this year. If you’re a shipper and hoped the decreased volumes would transfer to the ports, hopes are fading that you’ll see relief there.
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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 MoreInflation Innovation Stagnation
Achieving demand-driven enterprise status would have been impossible without the innovative technology-driven processes brought to bear on how we source, ship, and fulfill product, all while meeting evolving customer needs and demands.
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5 Ways to Prepare for Supply Chain Disruptions
If we’ve learned anything during the past two years, it has been about market disruptions—even to the point of the disruptions being disrupted. While accurate crystal balls are tough to come by, let’s explore five trends and how they may provide clues to solve for continued supply chain disruptions.
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Prioritizing Meaningful and Safe Work
We must create a supply chain—link by link—with working conditions where everyone, from the warehouse employee to the end consumer, wins.
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Building Industry-Focused Solutions
Based on the magnitude of challenges that industries face, we need something that incorporates innovation and takes us from just-in-time to just-in-case strategies. It’s time for supply chain reimagination.
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Debunking 7 Misconceptions about Logistics Performance Metrics
Key performance indicators (KPIs) are an essential part of sound supply chain management — at least that’s what 83% of your peers think.
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Real-time Data Isn’t the Only Thing Supply Chains Are Missing
Before the polar vortex in Texas, the biggest logjams at the Port of LA, and the start of the Great Resignation, McKinsey found that major production disruptions were estimated to occur every 3.7 years. In the months since, it has become clear these incidents are far too common to be referred to as black swan […]
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Manufacturing Supply Chains: Solving Workforce Challenges with Output-Based Staffing
The COVID-19 labor shortage has made hiring and retaining top employees more important than ever as companies scramble to staff up. Employers are hustling to fill enough positions to return to full output, while employees can pick and choose between jobs competing to offer the best benefits and pay. Better wages and quality of life […]
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