January, 2016

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2016 Supply Chain Trends: 7 of 12 Trends that Will Drive Supply Chain Management in 2016

GlobalTranz

As we head into a new year it is a good time to take a look at the coming year and see what it may hold in the way of trends. We kick off today a month-long focus on trends in the following categories: Manufacturing, Manufacturing Technology, Supply Chain, Logistics, and Transportation Management. We have already covered the top 6 trends for 2016 in manufacturing.

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Improving on Strategic Sourcing

Logistics Viewpoints

These days, sourcing has become a common discipline in supply chain and transportation management. There is an organizational expectation that transportation modes will be sourced and cost will be taken out of the network with some regularity. However, meeting these expectations while maintaining service year-over-year has become more challenging. To get more out of the market, we need to change the approach, as it is no longer enough to simply conduct a “bid” for transportation […].

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2016: The Start of the Third Act?

Supply Chain Shaman

Six years ago, on a snowy January afternoon, I wrote my first post for the Supply Chain Shaman. It seems so long ago, but I still remember the fear I felt hitting the publish button for the first time. The blog was uglier then and less polished, and I have learned a lot about blogging over the years; however, my focus is the same. My goal is to write insights for the supply chain visionary.

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Ex Machina: AI and the Future of Supply Chain Planning

ToolsGroup

There’s been a lot of discussion lately about the future of artificial intelligence and its impact on human beings. It recently gained heightened attention with the movie “Ex Machina,” where an AI creation outsmarts its maker, escapes the closed experimental environment, and enters the real world ( ex machina is Latin for “out of the machine”). The movie popularizes concerns expressed by technology pundits like Elon Musk and Bill Gates, and philosopher Nick Bostrom.

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4 Ways To Drive Supply Chain Excellence in the Food Industry

The Supplier Relationship Management Playbook is your guide to building effective supplier partnerships that drive supply chain excellence. This playbook equips supply chain professionals with strategies for managing compliance, tracking performance, and fostering collaboration to reduce supply chain risks. Inside, you’ll find: Strategies for Compliance: Best practices to help meet regulatory standards.

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6 reads for supply chain & logistics leaders to drive transformation

DELMIA Quintiq

It’s a new year, which means an endless list of resolutions, determination to tackle new challenges, and plans that will change throughout the year. For supply chain and logistics leaders, the time has come to lead transformation in your business operations and achieve a healthier profit margin. Is your supply chain future ready? Here are six posts that help you find out.

More Trending

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3 Logistics Technology Trends in 2016: Automation Leads the Way

GlobalTranz

Innovations in technology are changing how the world does business, and technology is dramatically changing how entities in the logistics industry function in nearly every aspect. From increased affordability and efficiency of the transportation management system (TMS) to the application of Bluetooth technology for superior tracking of product movements, 2016 will be the year in which technology becomes an integral, if not the exclusive, part of the shipping process.

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Logistics and Supply Chain Trends to Monitor in 2016

Logistics Viewpoints

Writing about trends is tough. Many trends are slow moving trains. Sometimes few people question that the trend is underway, they just want to know when it will impact them. The other thing about making predictions, is ideally a prediction should be specific enough and testable enough that after the fact someone can look back and see whether it was right or wrong.

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Become Data Driven: Embrace the Iconoclast in Your Organization

Supply Chain Shaman

i·con·o·clast. īˈkänəˌklast. noun. A person who attacks cherished beliefs or institutions. Writing–the process of words flowing from the mind to the fingers–is fascinating to experience. I write at least 3,000 words a day for some publication. Sometimes the words flow fast and furiously, and my arthritic fingers struggle to keep pace; while at other times, like last week, the thoughts don’t flow at all.

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Should I Consider Outsourcing Supply Chain Processes?

ToolsGroup

If your New Year’s resolution is to lose some weight, consider outsourcing supply chain processes. We will describe how to choose a partner, but first let’s take a look at why to consider outsourcing at all. In an economy where only the fittest survive, shedding non-core business processes is one of the most time-tested ways to cut costs while improving performance.

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15 Modern Use Cases for Enterprise Business Intelligence

Large enterprises face unique challenges in optimizing their Business Intelligence (BI) output due to the sheer scale and complexity of their operations. Unlike smaller organizations, where basic BI features and simple dashboards might suffice, enterprises must manage vast amounts of data from diverse sources. What are the top modern BI use cases for enterprise businesses to help you get a leg up on the competition?

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Experts Suggest How to Slash Supply Chain Risk Properly

Supply Chain Opz

Developing supply chain risk mitigation strategy can be a time consuming task. To tackle risks timely, we invite experts to explain what strategy really works. 1. Christopher Tang, Distinguished Professor, UCLA Anderson School and Editor-in-Chief of the INFORMS journal Manufacturing and Service Operations Management (M&SOM) As supply chains become more complex, companies find their supply chains more vulnerable to both foreseeable uncertainty risks and unforeseeable disruption risks.

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The Cost of Climate Change on Your Supply Chain

Kinaxis

by Alexa Cheater On the heels of the United Nations Paris Climate Change Conference , now seemed like an appropriate time to revisit an often talked about supply chain topic. The impact of climate change on your supply chain operations. Natural Disasters. Tumultuous weather is perhaps the most commonly thought of supply chain risk related to Earth’s climbing temperature.

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3 More Advanced Technology Trends in Logistics in 2016: Welcome to the Hyperconnected Logistics Industry

GlobalTranz

The shipping industry of 2016 is a gross misrepresentation of what was considered “normal” shipping practices in the 1980s or 1990s. This is due in part to significant changes and improvements in how the logistics industry perceives and responds to the demands of a growing customer base. Although the use of transportation management systems , unmanned aerial vehicles, and robotics , is dramatically changing the logistics landscape, several other technologies will become key players in the logist

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How Freight Disrupted Itself: The View From Within A Changing Industry

Freightos

How Freight Disrupted Itself. In the last year, a new dynamic has begun to reshape the freight industry. Unlike some industries that are virtually attacked by external actors, like Uber disrupting the taxi industry, the catalysts of this transformation are coming from within. Coming from within the industry, Dr. Phil Blumenthal has a front-row seat to it’s evolution.

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Transform Your Supply Chain into a Predictive AI-Driven Knowledge System

Fragmented processes and unstructured data pose significant challenges for supply chains. This whitepaper explores how AI and predictive insights revolutionize supply chain management. By analyzing real-time data from disparate sources, these advanced systems offer actionable insights to anticipate potential issues, improve decision-making, and enhance operational efficiency.

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Transforming Consumer Value Chains: Navigating The Power Shift to the Shopper

Supply Chain Shaman

Last week, Wal-Mart announced the closing of 269 stores and the layoffs of 10,000 employees. In addition, Macy’s announced the closure of 36 stores and K-Mart followed suite with announcements of 27 store closings. For December 2015, retail sales were the lowest since 2009. What does this mean? I think three things: Decline in Customer Sentiment.

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SAP HANA and the Future of Supply Chain Planning

ToolsGroup

The data wave is coming. Capturing and leveraging large quantities of data for improved forecasting, demand analytics and supply chain planning is now pretty much a given. The question is moving on to “how”. Many are wondering if SAP HANA will be a good in-memory computing platform for capturing the data that will feed processes such as supply chain planning.

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Internet of Things (IoT) in the supply chain – a jolt of creativity required?

DELMIA Quintiq

A couple of months ago, I went to an interesting event dedicated to creating a digitalized factory of the future. Given that it took place in Japan, I imagined quite an animated discussion around making another leap in the manufacturing of things. What I got, was quite interesting, but not yet the IoT breakthroughs that I expected. From the presentations, it was clear that the investment in IoT hardware, from raw material tags, inventory tags, to equipment sensors – is increasing.

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Big Data and the Supply Chain: One Important Means of Moving Forward

Kinaxis

by Bill DuBois A recent article on CFO points to a topic gaining strong momentum in the business press: the supply chain is the next big thing for big data to address. The authors, Regenia Sanders and Jason Meil, detail why this focus has become so compelling: “Big data can have a measurable impact on driving greater accuracy in planning, ensuring that companies make the right amount of the right product.

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How to Drive Cost Savings, Efficiency Gains, and Sustainability Wins with MES

Speaker: Nikhil Joshi, Founder & President of Snic Solutions

Is your manufacturing operation reaching its efficiency potential? A Manufacturing Execution System (MES) could be the game-changer, helping you reduce waste, cut costs, and lower your carbon footprint. Join Nikhil Joshi, Founder & President of Snic Solutions, in this value-packed webinar as he breaks down how MES can drive operational excellence and sustainability.

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[VIDEO] Logistics Beacons: Using Proximity As A Logistics Oversight Service

GlobalTranz

The global logistics industry generates $9.1 Trillion dollars in revenue. The global Third Party Logistics (3PL) industry generates $750 Billion in revenue as a part of that figure. Further, the U.S. trucking industry alone generates approximately $700 Billion in revenue. Air and sea cargo industries generate $62 Billion each. These are huge numbers that represent the movement of every good across the globe and the reason we are seeing the rise of Logistics Beacons as a way to increase logis

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Still Don’t Know How Many Slaves Are In Your Supply Chain?

Talking Logistics

How many slaves are in your supply chain? I asked that question almost three years ago following the collapse of a garment factory in Bangladesh that killed more than 1,100 workers and injured thousands of others. Based on recent reports, it appears that, three years later, the answer to that question remains the same: We don’t know. Last week, the Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply (CIPS), a leading international body representing purchasing and supply management professionals, iss

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Experts Show How to Revamp Supply Chain Organization

Supply Chain Opz

How to improve the efficiency of supply chain organization? Leading experts will tell you how to improve a team and create the positive changes that stick. 1. Ian King, Manufacturing Growth Lead at EEF, the Manufacturers’ Organisation Given the global nature of many of today’s supply chains, understanding cultural differences can be key. Every nation has different practices and ways of behaviour - if we want a successful, well-oiled supply chain we need to tailor our systems and process to suit

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Back to the Future—Best-of-Breed vs. ERP Supply Chain Planning 2016 Update

ToolsGroup

A year ago we wrote a blog comparing best-of-breed and ERP supply chain planning solutions. We reported on how extensive data from three analyst studies, based on user responses, showed that best-of-breed outperforms ERP-based supply chain planning by a significant margin. Now in 2016 we wanted to take a look back at the debate, to see what has happened in the past twelve months.

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How To Select the Right Software for Innovation Management

Finding the right innovation management software is like picking a racing bike—it's essential to consider your unique needs rather than just flashy features. This oversight can stall your innovation efforts. Download now to explore key considerations for success!

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10 Controversial Freight Predictions for 2016

Freightos

10 Controversial Freight Predictions For 2016. There’s been several great predictions for logistics in 2016. We’re taking another approach, and are sharing some predictions that go against the grain. From praising China’s “slowdown” to the benefits of overcapacity (for some), we’re kicking back against some industry givens. Loading. 1.

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Cost Management Biggest Supply Chain Pain Point for Pharma

Kinaxis

by Alexa Cheater Half of organizations playing in the healthcare and life sciences space are feeling the pain of managing overall supply chain costs. At least according to the eighth annual UPS Pain in the Chain Survey. While this survey swings on the logistics end of the supply chain pendulum, there are some good takeaways for those involved in all other areas of supply chain management as well.

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[INFOGRAPHIC] 5 More Supply Chain Trends To Watch Out for in 2016

GlobalTranz

Yesterday we began our two part series on 2016 supply chain trends that will drive supply chain management into the future. We listed the first 7. As with most trends we all have read over the last few years, the focus was on technology. We also took the liberty of making sure we put a focus on efficient sound process in place before new technology is applied.

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Is Workforce Planning the Weakest Link in Your Supply Chain Transformation Journey?

Talking Logistics

While many companies have invested significant time and money over the years to improve their demand, supply, and manufacturing planning capabilities, they have underinvested in workforce planning and optimization, and they’re now starting to feel the consequences. For example, at the Quintiq World Tour Philadelphia conference last October, Southwest Airlines, which has more than 18,000 employees across 90+ airports, discussed how trying to do headcount planning, schedule development, and scenar

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How To Set Up Innovation So That It Aligns With And Enables Corporate Strategy

Speaker: Paul Heller

Most innovation work proceeds independently from company strategy. As a result, the products that arrive in the market are not well aligned with the company’s goals. This challenge is particularly significant in organizations with transformation-oriented strategies, where innovation must directly support growth, scalability, and strategic pivots. In this session, we will discuss why innovation in large companies is so often not aligned with the company’s strategy and what innovation leaders, pro

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Machine Learning Will Change How Supply Chains Function

Enterra Insights

“A few decades ago,” writes Motti Nisani, CEO of emaze, “artificial intelligence was just an exciting topic among engineers and … Continued. The post Machine Learning Will Change How Supply Chains Function appeared first on Enterra Solutions.

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Experts Unfold Top Supply Chain Technology to Watch

Supply Chain Opz

Business environment changes quickly. Then, executives need supply chain technology to stay ahead of the game. But what technologies we should pay attention to? 1. Mike Skinner, Vice President, CLX Logistics Technologies Without question, one of the most significant game changing technologies in the past 12 months and looking forward at the next 18 months is TMS – to which you say “big deal” and I say, “true plug-and-play (SaaS/Cloud) global TMS integrated with global trade and customs execution

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The Titan Challenge

The Network Effect

Online Shopping (Courtesy of Flickr user robbertjnoordzij.). We’ve discussed the Titans in terms of the individual categories of Omnichannel, Customer Centricity and Cross Border Commerce. Now it is time to bring it all together in a list we call “The Titan Challenge” – combined performance in all three categories. The opportunity in crossborder commerce changed dramatically with little notice when Alibaba initiated Tmall Global in 2014, after the Chinese government established free trade zones