June, 2016

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There’s Blood in the Supply Chain

ToolsGroup

This week’s posting is actually a video rather than a written blog. The National Health Service (NHS), the world’s largest health care organization, has implemented a new supply chain planning system for managing the United Kingdom’s blood supply. Working with the Chartered Institute of Logistics Transport, we created a 4 minute video showing the UK blood supply chain and the new system, which I think you will find interesting.

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How Can We Heal the Global Supply Chain?

Supply Chain Shaman

Today, I unpacked my bags. In the last six months, in my travels, I have presented to supply chain teams in China, Belgium, France, Germany, Peru, Mexico, Netherlands, South Africa, Singapore, and the United Kingdom. To streamline my efforts, I just kept a packed bag in the closet. I strongly feel that if I am going to cover the global supply chain that I need to experience it.

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The internet of (supply chain) things

Kinaxis

by John Westerveld Lightbulbs that change colors from a command on your phone and turn on when you enter the room, thermostats that can figure out when you are in the house and adjust accordingly, refrigerators that e-mail you when you are out of milk, garage doors that let you know when they are open, doors that can be unlocked from your phone even when you are across the country, cars that drive themselves, tags you can put on your keys so you will never lose them again.

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Will Blockchain Technology Revolutionize Supply Chain Applications?

Logistics Viewpoints

Building unbreachable supply chain applications is virtually impossible. So it was with great interest that I listened to how blockchain technology could be used to create robust tendering and visibility that can be wholly trusted.

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The 2025 Annual ProcureCon CPO Report

Procurement leaders are at a pivotal moment. With CPOs playing an increasingly strategic role, it’s time to leverage innovation and technology to drive resilience and efficiency. Download The 2025 Annual ProcureCon CPO Report to uncover key insights to thrive in a dynamic procurement landscape. What’s Inside: How CPOs are driving strategic decision-making and technology adoption The top priorities and challenges for procurement in 2025 Why AI, sustainability, and data analytics are essential for

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Five Steps to Navigating Supply Chain Analytics Data Challenges

Talking Logistics

Having been in the game of supply chain analytics for so long, we’ve noticed that data is the single biggest challenge our customers and consultants encounter. Supply chain data is distributed in myriad enterprise and external databases, access to the data is limited, it’s in many different formats and structures, it’s missing important pieces and it’s in huge volumes.

More Trending

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When SMBs Hit the Inventory Planning Complexity Wall

ToolsGroup

Inventory planning is especially important to small-to-midsize businesses (SMBs). Nobody wants to tie up more working capital than necessary in inventory, but SMBs typically have leaner resources, and a higher cost of capital means it’s more expensive to fund excess stock. And if a company is growing rapidly, capital is not only costly but may even require selling valuable equity.

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Go Horizontal!

Supply Chain Shaman

Functional silos define today’s supply chain organization. The silos compete. They lack alignment. This lack of alignment is an impediment to improving balance sheet results. I am a product of traditional, silo-based thinking. My first job was in manufacturing in the 1980’s. I did not understand warehousing and transportation until reassignment to a logistics role in 1985.

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Is Hyperloop the Next Great Supply Chain Technology?

Kinaxis

by Melissa Clow This guest post comes to us from Argentus Supply Chain Recruiting , a boutique recruitment firm specializing in Supply Chain Management. We’re always trying to stay on top of Supply Chain developments at Argentus. And this sometimes takes us into looking at the emerging technologies that are poised to have a significant impact on the function.

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Ten Years of Logistics Technology Trends

Logistics Viewpoints

Last week I read the Logistics Viewpoints guest post by Chainalytics discussing the pitfalls of decision-marking biases. Although the Chainalytics article focuses on supply chain decision making, these biases can apply to business forecasting as well. Reading this article made me interested in my own potential decision-making biases. I chose to take time on Friday to review some of the research I have conducted during my ten years as an analyst at ARC Advisory Group. […].

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Enterprise ABM Marketing Tools: A Marketers Guide

Savvy B2B marketers know that a great account-based marketing (ABM) strategy leads to higher ROI and sustainable growth. In this guide, we’ll cover: What makes for a successful ABM strategy? What are the key elements and capabilities of ABM that can make a real difference? How is AI changing workflows and driving functionality? This Martech Intelligence Report on Enterprise Account-Based Marketing examines the state of ABM in 2024 and what to consider when implementing ABM software.

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AIMMS Sponsors the 18th Annual Supply Chain & Logistics Summit in Barcelona

AIMMS

Last week, part of our EMEA team (Christophe, Marcel and Kim) attended the Supply Chain & Logistics Summit as a sponsor for the fifth consecutive time. The conference took place in Barcelona. The overall theme of the Summit was the Value Chain and How to Build the Competitive Supply Chain of the Future. This main topic was covered throughout the whole program.

AIMMS 159
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Impact Factors of Supply Chain Management Journals

SCM Research

Few days ago, Thomson Reuters published the 2015 impact factors of well-known management journals as part of their Journal Citation Reports. Two SCM-related journals have an impact factor of 4 or larger: Journal of Supply Chain Management and Journal of Operations Management. Two other journals have an impact factor between 2.5 and 3: Supply Chain Management: An International Journal and Journal of Purchasing & Supply Management.

Journal 156
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Gartner Asks: Are You (and your Supply Chain) Bimodal?

ToolsGroup

Taking a bimodal approach to supply chains was the pervasive theme at this year’s Gartner North American Supply Chain Executive Conference. Simply stated, bimodal means simultaneously keeping a dual focus. Or as in F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, “First-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in your mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”.

Gartner 172
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What Is Blockchain Technology, and What Is Its Potential Impact on the Supply Chain?

GlobalTranz

The modern supply chain continues to seek more cost savings and greater transparency and efficiency in all processes. While large, centralized systems have been created to manage the flow of goods and data, a single problem remains. This data can be changed from its original form, causing some to feel the supply chain is not being fully transparent with supplier, manufacturing and logistics processes.

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The Evolving Retailers Fulfillment Strategy: Meeting Demands with Agility

Speaker: Becky Parisotto and John Vurdelja

Fulfillment is no longer just about getting products from point A to point B – it's about crafting seamless, scalable, customer first experiences. Flexible fulfillment strategies are more important than ever for those aiming to stay ahead and build resilience as retail enters a new era in 2025. Learn how to optimize fulfillment processes, tackle complex, multi-vendor orders, and create seamless customer experiences – from white-glove delivery for high-value items to quick-ship solutions for ever

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Evolution of B2B Networks

Supply Chain Shaman

Today Thoma Bravo, a private equity investment firm, announced a definitive agreement to purchase Elemica, a provider of Supply Chain Operating Networks for the chemical industry. In 2014 Thoma Bravo acquired GHX, a Supply Chain Operating Network for healthcare. The Elemica announcement contained the obligatory positive quotes and promises to customers.

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Machine Learning for Supply Chain Efficiencies

Logistics Viewpoints

A few weeks ago I attended the ToolsGroup Supply Chain Transformation conference in Boston. One of the more interesting sessions I attended was “Predictive Commerce and Machine Learning” featuring ToolsGroup CEO Yossi Shamir. While Yossi obviously touted the benefits of the ToolsGroup product suite, the session focused more on the big concept of why supply chain needs automation now.

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AIMMS Sponsors the 18th Annual Supply Chain & Logistics Summit in Barcelona

AIMMS

Last week, part of our EMEA team (Christophe, Marcel and Kim) attended the Supply Chain & Logistics Summit as a sponsor for the fifth consecutive time. The conference took place in Barcelona. The overall theme of the Summit was the Value Chain and How to Build the Competitive Supply Chain of the Future. This main topic was covered throughout the whole program.

AIMMS 156
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Impact Factors of Supply Chain Management Journals

SCM Research

Few days ago, Thomson Reuters published the 2015 impact factors of well-known management journals as part of their Journal Citation Reports. Two SCM-related journals have an impact factor of 4 or larger: Journal of Supply Chain Management and Journal of Operations Management. Two other journals have an impact factor between 2.5 and 3: Supply Chain Management: An International Journal and Journal of Purchasing & Supply Management.

Journal 156
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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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How Gartner Sees the Future of Supply Chain Planning

ToolsGroup

Source: Algorithmic Supply Chain Planning: The Future of SCP , Amber Salley, May 2016. Gartner has taken a look at the future and sees lots of algorithms. The analyst firm says algorithms “are now feasting on the wealth of data becoming available, leveraging the huge computing resources in the cloud and becoming a pivotal source of competitive differentiation.

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Outsourcing Logistics: Does It Make Sense for Everyone?

GlobalTranz

The benefits of outsourcing logistics processes to a third-party logistics provider (3PL) are well documented. As the world’s economy has become increasingly complex, it has become impossible for a single entity to control all of the warehousing, transportation and administrative tasks that come with shipping and managing inventory. For this reason, more companies are turning to 3PLs to help with cost reductions and overall management of supply chain processes.

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The shape of a supply chain distribution network

Kinaxis

by Iman Niroomand Today, I’d like to discuss distribution networks shapes. A distribution network is a channel that a company uses to get its products from the manufacturer to the end customer. The shape of this distribution network could vary from a small and simple size network to very complicated networks such as power grid network. The factors that are involved in defining the shape of the distribution network are end customer product demands, product variety, product availability, response

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Toyota and USPS See Opportunities for Blockchain Technology in Supply Chain Management

Talking Logistics

It was back in January 2015, after reading an article in the Wall Street Journal about bitcoin, that my eyes were opened to the potential for blockchain technology to transform supply chain management. As I wrote at the time in Bitcoin: A New Supply Chain Operating System? : Imagine a bitcoin being a unit of inventory and a digital wallet (“bitcoin address”) being an inventory-keeping location, such as a store, distribution center, or truck trailer.

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Freight Procurement Simplified: Bids from Hours to Minutes

Speaker: Eric Berdinis, Ran Sun, & Chris Chmielewski

Procuring freight can be cumbersome, time-consuming, and error-prone. If you’re frustrated with the complex and manual processes for obtaining bids for your contract and spot freight, you’re not alone. In today’s fast-moving supply chain environment, optimizing these processes is critical to staying competitive and cutting costs. Join this exclusive webinar with experts from Uber Freight to learn how the latest digital tools and automation can transform your freight procurement strategy by strea

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Need Robust and Flexible Supply Chain Analytics? Build your own Apps

AIMMS

Apps have come to define the way we work and live in many ways. We have cars with A pps , watches running A pps , TVs that operate with A pps …as the phrase goes “There’s an App for That.” There are Apps out there for just about anything, it’s hard to imagine a world without them. Why do we love Apps so much? We get the information we need upfront, they can be used anytime, anywhere, they help us connect, and they serve a specific purpose.

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Top Young Tech Companies Poised to Transform Supply Chain Management

Logistics Viewpoints

The young companies that are poised to transform the supply chain management profession fall into a relatively few categories. The most interesting start-ups we are seeing have business models based on the sharing economy, the Internet of Things (IoT), predictive analytics, and robotics. The Sharing Economy: Five companies are very interesting: Flexe, Deliv, Doorman, Transfix, and Shyp.

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Drones and Robots in the Warehouse

PINC

The 3PL Summit and Chief Supply Chain Officer forum brought together supply chain executives and industry experts to discuss the latest trends in the industry. The event happened in Chicago between June 20th and June 22nd.

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Current State of the Logistics and Freight Economy

GlobalTranz

From cloud-based systems to transportation management, the state of the logistics industry is evolving to expand an increasing number of services. Meanwhile, the overall capacity of shipments is climbing higher, reports Jeff Berman of Logistics Management, and the driver shortage is becoming more essential as full truckload shipments decrease. Although an initial view of the logistics and freight industry seems stale, it represents how the flow of goods and services are sprouting and delivering

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The 25 Types of Innovation Dominating R&D Today

Innovation varies widely across sectors and organizations, creating value in diverse forms. Understanding different types is crucial for R&D teams to foster creativity and uncover missed opportunities. This guide explores 25 key types of innovation in management frameworks.

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S&OP Summer Reading Series by Accenture Strategy Guest Blogger

Kinaxis

by Steven J. Puricelli. Kinaxis recently asked me to author a blog series on the topic of Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP). Naturally, I was flattered to be asked to contribute to their popular 21 st Century Supply Chain blog. But I was also very excited, because as a strategy consultant at Accenture, I’m able to share a wide range of client experiences on ‘what good looks like’ and what business issues clients are facing across a wide range of industries.

S&OP 143
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How to Capture Full Divestiture Value with a 3PL

Talking Logistics

A divestiture is a major transition that impacts all areas of a business, including supply chain reliability and efficiency. Today, shippers face increased regulations, unstable market conditions and capacity concerns that make it near impossible for a newly divested company to achieve all of its goals without the expertise and support of a third-party logistics (3PL) provider.

3PL 130
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Need Robust and Flexible Supply Chain Analytics? Build your own Apps

AIMMS

My takeaways from Gartner’s Supply Chain Executive Conference 2016. Apps have come to define the way we work and live in many ways. We have cars with A pps , watches running A pps , TVs that operate with A pps …as the phrase goes “There’s an App for That.” There are Apps out there for just about anything, it’s hard to imagine a world without them.