We highlight myriad supply chain innovators, including the winner and finalists of The Supply Chain Innovator of the Year Award — a 17-year partnership between SupplyChainBrain and the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals.
Being human, we strive to make the best of a bad situation, and such efforts often yield positive results that might otherwise have never been realized.
The global manufacturer of “green” cement, winner of this year’s Supply Chain Innovation Award, unleashes a comprehensive program of digitization and data analytics to address uncertainties and disruptions caused by COVID-19.
Specialty retailer American Eagle Outfitters set out to optimize its supply chain and ultimately build a shared network, delivering measurable results amid unprecedented disruption.
Everstream Analytics, a provider of supply chain risk insights and advanced analytics, launched Everstream Discover – a solution powered by proprietary data, AI and graph technologies, to give users visibility into risks in their supply chains and help ameliorate the impact of disruptions.
International shoe retailer FLO wanted to meet the omni-channel customer demand while maximizing profitability by creating an end-to-end omni-channel network and inventory planning system. It employed technology from Invent Analytics to run what-if scenarios and rethink its entire network.
In order to keep transportation and distribution costs down while keeping inventory levels at just the right point to meet customer service needs, Kimberly-Clark launches its home-grown “EARL” (Early Tendering and Leveling) system, with impressive results.
Roambee, a provider of supply-chain visibility technology, helps a British multinational chemicals company to improve both the utilization of its large railcar fleet and its record of safe transportation and unloading of product.
Challenge: Client distribution of perishable products across approximately 150 retail stores in 35 states was creating challenges for receiving teams, who struggled to find and download data loggers when unloading trucks. Compliance failures resulted. For recovered devices, a time-consuming download process followed which also required outdated software.
Challenge: An international building solutions provider needed a better way to deliver concrete to building sites. Avoiding delays and interruptions was essential as concrete is highly perishable with a shelf life of just 90 minutes.
Mark Garland, president and chief executive officer of 4R Systems, describes the company's Vendor Order Optimization (VOO) product, which optimizes and prioritizes retailer orders from vendors.
Michael Lamia, senior vice president of GEODIS MyParcel, introduces the company's new direct-to-consumer cross-border delivery service to 28 countries.
These two giants of the world economy may well be on very different economic paths. In short, the U.S. has secure access to cheap energy and Europe does not.
Respect. Empathy. Flexibility. If you are in charge of securing and managing workers in warehouses, distribution centers, trucks and delivery vans, it might be an idea to view these three words as a mantra.
Until recently, international trade’s great big dirty secrets regarding forced labor remained mostly hidden beneath layers and layers of supply chain complexity.
Now, some governments are attempting to hold companies more accountable.
In the U.S., Tesla grabs most of the headlines about electric vehicle sales, followed by the major American automakers. But it’s China that’s racking up dominance in EV production globally.
Three years into the Covid-19 pandemic, the “bullwhip effect” of misaligned capacity and demand persists, contributing to labor and equipment shortages alongside port and inland congestion.
Supply chains inherently face levels of uncertainty. Meeting revenue targets, satisfying customers, and containing costs rely on companies being able to minimize that uncertainty and solve problems quickly and effectively.
Implementing intelligent materials systems that are simple, purpose-built and sustainable is important when embarking on an effort to optimize supply networks.
Employee training has typically been handled manually, in a traditional classroom setting, but new artificial intelligence-based digitized training platforms are revolutionizing human capital management.
Sweeping new global trade regulations, economic sanctions, free trade agreements, criminal or counterterrorism statutes and company ESG standards are together creating a challenging landscape for businesses engaged in global trade.
The first instinct of many a chief financial officer in an environment of compromised corporate earnings is to look for areas to scale back spending, but increasing technology spending could help companies reduce costs and increase competitiveness.
As the supply chain becomes more complex, it’s crucial to find a managed logistics provider (MLP) with complete capabilities, depth of experience, and technology.
Creating resilient and agile supply chains requires a platform that enables enterprises to leverage economies of scale when working with suppliers and contract manufacturers, while minimizing risk, disruptions and shortages.
More than two years of jarring supply chain disruption have proven the business case for end-to-end, real-time shipment visibility. But the horizon keeps moving, and while actionable data and visibility are critical, they’re only just a good beginning.
Retailers coping with the rapid acceleration of e-commerce have a fantastic opportunity to improve their competitive position using new technological tools for customer engagement.
One of the chief benefits of digitization is where it meets robotics in the form of robotic process automation. RPA, also known as software robotics, has the potential to transform daily and ongoing business processes by using automation technologies to mimic back-office tasks of human workers.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic struck, businesses around the world took the supply chain status quo for granted. Customers – consumers in particular – followed suit, simply assuming their purchases would arrive in a matter of a few days, on time, in full.
Keeping excess inventory as a safety strategy is a losing proposition for companies. It doesn’t work because companies often hold inventory that’s not usable or is obsolete, representing a dead loss, sometimes on the order of tens of millions of dollars a year, to the company.
Supply chain visibility is often thought of as tracking the physical location of goods and assets. But the process of getting products to customers is ultimately a digital one — from negotiations, purchase orders, and acknowledgments to shipping confirmations and receiving payment.
In the first weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, business planners, expecting a harsh recession, shut down manufacturing plants and canceled retailing orders
Supply chain resiliency is the ability of an organization to avoid, absorb and recover from the business impact of disruptions through a risk-balanced approach to product, supply chain strategy and network design.