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Open Sky Group, a global leader in supply chain execution solutions, has announced a strategic partnership with Easy Metrics , a premier provider of labor management and warehouse performance management solutions.
Sudden tariff increases can quickly make a cost-optimized procurement strategy untenable, leaving companies scrambling to adjust. Finally, rigid fulfillment networks compound the problem. Fulfillment networks are being evaluated based on responsiveness, not just throughput. Metrics must reflect the new priorities.
This uncertainty makes dynamic inventory replenishment optimization essential for business success. Effective inventory optimization directly impacts customer satisfaction, loyalty, operational costs, and waste reduction making it a critical business function in todays volatile market.
Three months into 2025, we have seen a barrage of on-again, off-again tariffs that have supply chain and logistics teams reeling, as they must rethink everything from next weeks shipping route to their foundational network models. They are also limited by their supplier, carrier, and trading partner networks. billion to $23.07
Creating a data-driven supply chain tracking important transportation metrics helps shippers respond and adapt as quickly as possible to known and unknown events. Why Monitor Transportation Metrics. Transportation metrics provide visibility that helps drive operative and competitive advantages.
Continuous networkoptimization recognizes that supply chains are complex organisms. Continuous networkoptimization creates an environment where supply chain planning operates at the next level. World class organizations can sustain living models of their networks and keep them tuned to small, frequent changes.
Similarly, UPS uses its ORION system, which integrates real-time and historical data to optimize delivery routes, saving fuel and enhancing delivery reliability. Real-time route optimization allows fleets to adapt to dynamic conditions such as traffic and weather, minimizing fuel consumption and delivery delays.
Forget static network designs and gut-feel decisions. By harnessing the power of data science and analytics, you can gain end-to-end visibility across your entire network, breaking down information silos and optimizing every stage of your operations. Ready to get started? Let’s dive in.
The modern supply chain is a complex network of suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, and customers, all interconnected and reliant on a shared ecosystem of trust and accountability. Public Reporting: Publishing sustainability reports and ethical compliance metrics to highlight progress and areas of improvement.
Continuous networkoptimization recognizes that supply chains are complex organisms. Continuous networkoptimization creates an environment where supply chain planning operates at the next level. World class organizations can sustain living models of their networks and keep them tuned to small, frequent changes.
Green Logistics: Optimizing transportation routes, consolidating shipments, and employing energy-efficient vehicles to reduce emissions. Advanced route optimization tools further support these goals. Internet of Things (IoT): IoT devices monitor vehicle performance and energy usage, enabling real-time optimization.
Samuel Parker and Joe Lynch discuss DAT iQ: the metrics that matter. Key Takeaways: DAT iQ: The Metrics that Matter In the podcast interview, Samuel Parker gave a freight market overview based on DAT’s database of $150 billion in annual market transactions.
These technologies can help identify patterns in product performance and supply chain efficiency, allowing companies to optimize their operations. This integration includes tracking individual components and collecting data on environmental impact, including sustainability metrics such as carbon footprint and recyclability.
The traditional metrics of excellence cost efficiency, on-time delivery while still important, are no longer sufficient in an era defined by volatility, complexity and political changes. The convergence of artificial intelligence and digital networking technologies is fundamentally reshaping our operating models.
There are many working parts, network partners, and opportunities for things to go wrong that some are often overlooked. Additional opportunities can be reached through transportation optimization whether using a 3PL or 4PL. Defining Transportation Optimization.
GEP and the North Carolina State University (NCSU) Supply Chain Resource Cooperative surveyed supply chain, procurement and IT professionals across a range of industries to gain insight into their priorities and strategies regarding supply chain resilience and optimization. Business Spend Management Solutions are Networked .
Today, organizations are increasingly empowering teams to harness the potential of AI, big data, and analytics to optimize daily operations and enable data-driven decision-making. How can change managers effectively harness the hidden potential of informal networks that exist beyond formal governance structures?
Key Takeaways: Taking the Uncertainty and Risk Out of Freight Network Integrity Unit:DAT has a dedicated team, the Network Integrity Unit, which works around the clock to monitor the network for suspicious activity, investigate potential threats, and enforce security measures to protect users from fraud and cybercrime.
But between rising costs, complex logistics, and the constant struggle to optimize space and labor, staying ahead can feel like an uphill battle. That’s where warehouse optimization comes in. Here’s what you can expect: A clear definition of warehouse optimization and its core components. Ready to get started?
Supply chain optimization has also improved in significant ways that can address these trade-offs better than before. Analytical techniques like linear programming can create the mathematically “optimal” plan, but these methods must be implemented well to avoid creating other challenges. Supply chain optimization for today’s realities.
As companies across industries have discovered, a well-optimized supply chain can drive significant improvements throughout their operations. We’ll examine the key components of efficient supply chains, explore essential performance metrics, and uncover the fundamental drivers that influence efficiency.
We are trying to assess the value of a network in managing contract manufacturing.) Use of Supply Chain Descriptors Most organizations are locked into functional silos driven by functional metrics. Stuck in a rut, supply chain leaders try to punch their way through a set of conflicting metrics and priorities each day.
In a hyper-connected scenario of the future, entire networks can proactively sense and respond to potential supply chain disruptions. Optimize supply chain execution and minimize both delivery time and costs. Analyzing real-time insights and historical performance using AI, delivers key metrics on availability and service levels.
But the sheer complexity of supply chain networks, and the impact design decisions have on operational performance, makes supply chain inventory management aligning inventory investments with on-time customer delivery and margins a major challenge. Implementing inventory optimization. Single vs. multi-echelon inventory optimization.
As an entrepreneur I’ve been reflecting on this a lot: The current milestone in logistics and fulfillment is using emerging technologies to capture and leverage exponentially growing data sets in warehouses and throughout the entire fulfillment network. Data sets have grown quickly in the cloud paradigm – and they exploded in 2020.
For organizations layered in functional metrics and driving a cost agenda, this is a tough nut to crack. During the pandemic, companies struggled with planning systems turning off the optimizers, and using the technology as a system of record. What Is the Value of A Network? Tougher than most understand.
Third, they align the interests of all the firms in the supply network so that companies optimize the chain’s performance when they maximize their interests. Reward teams for cross-functional metrics. Focus functional metrics to improving reliability. For more on this topic, read the book Supply Chain Metrics That Matter.
A network design model figures out where factories and warehouses should be located. The key solutions are demand forecasting/inventory optimization, supply planning, and network design. The key solution for this is network design. Supply and network design models are constraint-based models.
These systems also support phased implementation, allowing you to start with high-priority processes, train staff during regular work hours, deploy your wireless infrastructure before software rollout, maintain parallel systems during the initial transition, and closely monitor performance metrics. Think of it as smart routing for your team.
We speak about the need to move from a functional understanding to a global, holistic capabilities, but the traditional supply chain leader defines bonus incentives and process performance goals based on functional metrics. Bi-Directional Flow and Value Networks. Measurement. Innovation is slowing. Innovation.
How do we design work systems to align organizations and ensure that there is the right balance of reward systems with metrics? Is there a need to redesign metrics to move from a functional and traditional function to drive goal alignment? How do we seamlessly connect outcomes from optimization to policy, strategy, and rules?
I have learned that supply chain systems are more complex than I originally thought, and that the relationships between supply chain metrics are nonlinear. In my work on the Supply Chain Index , I see that companies I recognize as doing network design well are rising faster on the list of the Supply Chain Index work.
Outdated transportation management methods relied on manual processes, physical phone calls, and the hope that your network partners would be available. It was difficult to see where the optimization opportunity was and what was necessary to achieve the best result. . A TMS platform can track movements and optimize routes.? .
Supply chain design and optimization projects present significant challenges, ranging from complex network structures, and multiple databases to diverse business objectives. This initial step enables tailoring the supply chain network design to meet specific needs effectively.
The market for network design tools was growing at a moderate rate, and most of the market had invested in technologies from either i2 Technologies (then termed i2 Strategist) or Logictools. This analysis needed to be completed monthly and fed to newer forms of inventory optimization technologies. The reason? Ensuring Profitability.
When you get these elements working together – proper ABC analysis, optimized order parameters, and clean master data – that’s when you’ll see your inventory management transform into a smooth-running operation. You also need to ensure that you’re cascading these metrics through your organisation.
The consulting team pitches a theme–vision of supply chain best practices, big data analytics, or demand-driven value networks– to the executive team, and a new project is initiated. Companies adopt planning to optimize the organization’s response from the customer’s customer to the supplier’s supplier.
Inventory strategies are increasingly focused on optimizing stock locations — what to hold and where, especially for inventory not immediately sold. Given current conditions, one way retail and CPG companies can optimize their order visibility is by integrating their systems of record.
This targeted approach optimizes resource allocation and minimizes bottlenecks by allowing you to scale only where necessary. Optimizing existing layouts and exploring alternative locations may be necessary. Consider these essential metrics: Asset Utilization: How efficiently are your machines being used?
This can result in a messy supply chain network and flows that adversely impact cost-to-serve as can be seen in figure 1 in case of a distribution intense company we worked with. This network evolved over a period of time as the company went through significant shifts such as acquisitions and launching of several new products.
Optimization engines to improve functional metric performance resulted in an exploding number of planners. I would prefer for companies to invest in the building of outside-in processes, supply chain design capabilities, and network automation. Reduce Data Latency in Networks. Think past EDI. Take the plunge.
My remorse is the technologists and business leaders are replacing traditional optimization with newer models based on narrow AI, but not questioning the taxonomies or the current definitions of planning. Today, companies are investing in networks to improve sensing. Today, companies are blind to relationship flows in their networks.
The analysis, based on networkoptimization assumed average loading, and did not account for the swings. The metrics were not aligned. Map the different metrics and incentives in the organization to behavior. Use network design and planning tools to show flow.) Don’t dwell on the negatives. You have to do so.
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