September, 2015

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Using the Bits: Building Digital Outside-In Processes

Supply Chain Shaman

Social. Mobile. Sensors. 3D printing. The Internet of Things. The list goes on and on. The atoms and electrons of the supply chain are changing. My mind is spinning with the possibilities. Transmitted perfectly, replicated indefinitely; and with a one-time investment in network infrastructure, a digital task performs well with zero marginal cost. As a result, new data types move quicker and more accurately, with lower levels of investment.

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The iPhone 6s Freight Shipping Costs

Freightos

Yesterday Freightos announced a private beta version of its online instant freight quote marketplace. At the same time, Apple tried to steal the show by showcasing its new products at the Hey Siri event. So obviously, being freight rate nerds, we got to wondering: How much would the logistics of shipping the iPhone 6s from China to the U.S. cost Apple?

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Behind the world’s shimmering cars: The supply chain struggle

DELMIA Quintiq

Futuristic limousines and eye-popping concept cars dominated the recently concluded IAA Frankfurt Motor Show in Frankfurt am Main. The press, however, were preoccupied with just two things: Harald Krueger, CEO of BMW, who collapsed on stage during his keynote presentation and Martin Winterkorn, CEO of VW, who bowed to mounting pressure over an emissions scandal in the US and resigned as VW boss.

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Supply Chain Big Data: Why Supply Chain Leaders Are Using Big Data Analytics

GlobalTranz

Supply chain industry leaders have access to more information today than ever before in history. Thanks to data gathering programs, supply chain software , and data entry applications, this represents a mountain of data, which has the potential to provide ground-breaking insight into how to improve business-model efficiency. As a result, business leaders can reap a significant return on investment by thoroughly analyzing this data.

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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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Technology and the Supply Chain: What Does the Future Hold?

Kinaxis

by Alexa Cheater Meet the Jetsons! Like any well-rounded child of the 80s, I grew up watching Saturday morning cartoons. Admittedly the futuristic family sitcom The Jetsons , which actually first aired in the 60s, wasn’t top of my list like He-Man or Captain Planet , but there was something fascinating about the whimsical and almost unimaginable gadgets and gizmos they featured.

More Trending

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Is Inventory Waste or an Asset?

Supply Chain Shaman

I am sitt ing in seat 4E on an evening flight to San Francisco thinking about my day. It is Labor Day weekend in the United States, and the plane is full. While many have a three-day holiday this weekend, I will celebrate this Labor Day working. Next week is the annual Supply Chain Insights Global Summit , and summit preparation is on my agenda for the weekend.

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The Next Supply Chain Revolution

Logistics Viewpoints

I’ve been researching and writing about supply chain management for 20 years. I’ve seen a number of supply chain “revolutions” In the first revolution, the concept of supply chain, as opposed to logistics, was put forth. Constraint based optimization tools for the extended supply chain were developed to support the new philosophy. As this was […].

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Regional & global perspectives: Highlights from Quintiq World Tour Singapore 2015

DELMIA Quintiq

Quintiq World Tour: Remember when we asked whether the presentations and panel sessions were worth the time away from your desk ? Well, according to attendees of Quintiq World Tour Singapore, the answer was a resounding yes! The full-day event (and I mean full!) in Singapore marked the halfway point for World Tour events in 2015 – six down, six to go.

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Technology’s Ever-increasing Role in Supply Chain Functions

GlobalTranz

For decades, the realm of transportation management , warehouse management, and order fulfillment remained set in near-prehistoric hands of isolated silos, inefficient processes, and limited accessibility. However, technology has risen to dramatically alter the execution of supply chain functions. Technology poses the greatest opportunity for small- and medium-sized businesses to take advantage of innovative tools to ensure end-to-end tracking, visibility , and processing of products.

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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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3 Ways Crowdsourcing Is Revolutionizing Supply Chain Management

Kinaxis

by Kirsten Watson The term crowdsourcing—the process of obtaining ideas, services or information by soliciting feedback from a large group of people—has existed since 2005. But its fundamental concept predates the name by centuries. In 1714, the British government offered the public a monetary prize to the person who created the best solution for measuring a ship’s longitude.

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Inventory Obsolescence: It Can Get Complicated

ToolsGroup

It’s hard to get around obsolescence. Derived from the Latin verb obsolesere —to grow old—most products in the marketplace grow “long in the tooth” at some juncture in their life cycle. Shorter innovation cycles, multi-channel complexity, and long-tail stock-keeping units (SKUs) accelerate the inevitable decline in value. The knack in today’s innovation economy is to understand how the value of a particular SKU deteriorates or its costs increase so that profit erosion can be factored into invent

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Five Insights on Effective S&OP

Supply Chain Shaman

An effective S&OP plan is the goal of many, but there is no clear industry definition of an effectiveness. While there are many maturity models, most are not research based. To better understand the characteristics of an effective S&OP plan, we just completed a study of seventy-three companies. In the quantitative survey, completed this summer, thirty respondents rate their processes as effective and forty-three rate the their S&OP processes as less effective on a seven point scale.

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Papyrus embraces new planning process with Pharos, a central supply chain control tower application

AIMMS

Papyrus, a leading European paper wholesaler, started using AIMMS in May 2014 to implement radical changes in its supply chain network and re-envision its forecasting, replenishment & supplier management workflow. The company’s supply chain supports more than 68,000 customers in 20 countries from warehouses and cross-dock platforms strategically located across Europe.

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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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Expert insights: An interview with entrepreneur & author Vivek Sood

DELMIA Quintiq

What are the key challenges facing companies today? How important is technology to companies? We explore these questions and more as we catch up with Quintiq World Tour Singapore guest speaker Vivek Sood to get his thoughts on the developments in the industry. Vivek is the managing director of Global Supply Chain Group and author of three books on global supply chains.

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Q&A: American Manufacturer, UCan Zippers, Shows Pride, Quality, and Commitment to American Manufacturing

GlobalTranz

Last week we featured an interview with Josh Miller, documentary filmmaker of "Made in the USA: The 30 Day Journey." In that interview we mentioned that he would visit Made In USA Zipper manufacturer, UCan Zippers to film a video documenting the company's commitment to American Manufacturing for nearly 30 years. Below you will read our interview with UCan Zippers' Malan Lai, Managing Partner, General Manager, and the son of the founder of UCan Zippers, Paul Lai. .

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Making Mobile a Reality

Kinaxis

by Matt Benson I don’t really see my iPhone as a mobile phone anymore – it’s so much more than that, and judging by the number of people as attached to their phone as I am to mine, I’m far from alone. Every day I use it for a multitude of different applications that assist my life. Things like tracking times and distance whilst exercising, checking travel status, messages, watching the Rugby World Cup and occasionally tweeting about life thoughts.

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How Safety Stock Absorbs Demand Volatility

ToolsGroup

Demand volatility is cited by Gartner, IDC and other analyst firms as the number one obstacle identified by corporate executives to achieving their supply chain goals. But companies can overcome this obstacle by positioning the right inventory across the supply chain to absorb such volatility. Fixing forecasts is important. But generating good forecasts is still difficult for even the best managed companies.

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How to Master Product Portfolio Management

Pursuing product portfolio management excellence empowers organizations to unlock the full potential of their offerings. This comprehensive guide unveils 10 essential keys that serve as the building blocks for success.

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Offering Prayers While Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun

Supply Chain Shaman

The city of Philadelphia is eerily quiet this morning. On the door of my favorite coffee shop is a closed sign. There is no traffic on the streets. Only armed guards with dogs stand on the corners: strategically posted behind 8 foot barricades. Why? The City of Brotherly Love is preparing to welcome the Pope. I live in city-center Philadelphia. Today, the word security has a different meaning.

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Freight Rates News October 2015

Freightos

Since we live and breath freight, we constantly come across information that’s critical for our customers – logistic providers, shippers and carriers. And as freight innovators ourselves, we love seeing more innovation. So we’ve decided to share. Here’s our pick of last month’s news, especially where they plug into broader trends.

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The best of Quintiq World Tour London: Chickens, skydiving & business planning

DELMIA Quintiq

No, chickens did not skydive at the Quintiq World Tour event in London. But it was still an exciting day at the Park Plaza Hotel in the heart of the great city, filled with invaluable business insights and stories by our customers Moy Park, Transport for London and many others. Here are six highlights from the event: 1. Keeping London running. Did you know there are an average of six new residents every hour in London?

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What is DFMA (Design for Manufacture and Assembly) Analyses And How Can It Reduce Supply Chain Costs?

GlobalTranz

Editor's Note: First of all, you may ask yourself, "Why is a 3PL who helps manufacturers with transportation management efficiency be talking about manufacturing efficiency?" Well, I am glad you asked! The reason, is that we don't only want to provide content about transportation management, although we do right a lot about that, but we also want to give our customers and potential customers, who are primarily manufacturers, other ways they might gain efficiency.

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The Ultimate Guide to Transportation and Load Building Optimization

Enhance your transportation and load building efficiency with our comprehensive guide. Learn to tackle today's supply chain challenges and optimize your approach with advanced planning strategies. This guide covers: Supply Chain Challenges: Discover how transportation planning can address critical issues and improve efficiency. Load Building Benefits: Understand how effective load building can enhance your transportation processes.

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Is Your Supply Chain a Growth Engine?

Kinaxis

by Alexa Cheater We recently had the chance to sit down with Gary Hanifan, Managing Director, Accenture Strategy, to discuss all things supply chain. And one of the biggest topics coming out of that discussion was how you can determine if your supply chain is a growth engine. One big red flag it might not be? Your supply chain is still linear. According to Hanifan, networks are the wave of the future.

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Why the Traditional Approach to Buying Supply Chain Planning Systems is Flawed

ToolsGroup

Most supply chain organizations recognize that their ERP solution does not deliver the functionality that they need to effectively model and plan their supply chain. So selecting a good planning software solution is critical and can drive significant value to the business. Since there are many options and approaches, the decision making process can be very challenging.

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SanDisk’s Story of Customer Segmentation Strategies Using Inventory Postponement

Supply Chain Shaman

Platitude: a flat, dull, or trite remark, especially one uttered as if it were fresh or profound. Source: Dictionary.com. During the year, I go to a lot of conferences. In the process, I get to hear the views of many thought leaders. As I sit on the back row, I hear platitudes (A number of concepts positioned at a high level without clarity on how to execute).

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The Evolution of WMS Customer Requirements

Logistics Viewpoints

Last month I posted a Logistics Viewpoints article on the evolution and growth of the WMS market. Today I am going to take a slightly different perspective and discuss the evolution of WMS customer requirements – how are WMS customers’ requirements different now than they were in the past, and what factors are driving these […].

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What Makes a Warehouse Worker Happy?

The 2024 Newcastle Systems Worker Satisfaction Survey provides insights into the life of a warehouse worker and what matters to them.

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Top 4 Challenges You Need to Master for International Shipping

Talking Logistics

As increased globalization and mobile workforces continue to create opportunities for international business, it is more important than ever to realize the need for seamless global trade. Of course, international shipping is a complex service with countless moving parts, including regulations, security, capacity and legal considerations – all which can lead to a reliable and cost-effective shipment when tended to properly.

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9 Benefits of Effective Reverse Logistics Process & 5 Advantages of Partnering with a 3PL

GlobalTranz

While conventional logistics optimizes the flow of goods from producer to consumer, reverse logistics manages the processes for inverting that flow to deal with returned parts , materials and products from the consumer back to the producer. Most often, this includes warranty recovery, value recovery, repair, redistribution, product recalls, used parts and replacement materials for refurbishment, service or product contract returns, and end-of-life recycling.

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Top Four Most Vital S&OP Technology Capabilities

Kinaxis

by Lori Smith In a previous post , I discussed the sometimes surprising technology choices some organizations are making to manage their S&OP process. Now I’d like to take a look at the Top 4 technology capabilities you need in order to achieve a successful sales and operations planning process: #1: A single application with deep data. We know that successful S&OP must be fed by solid and complete information from across the extended supply chain and supported by robust advanced planning

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