The expansion of global supply chains has meant an exponential growth of the risk of disruptions to those networks. Catastrophic events, such as the Japanese earthquake and Hurricane Katrina, have highlighted the need for analysis of disruption risk and development of mitigation plans to cope with them. In addition, trends such as globalization, heavy reliance on transportation and communication infrastructures, and lean manufacturing have led to an increase in the vulnerability of supply networks. Furthermore, nodes on supply chains are very often interrelated, causing these vulnerabilities to propagate rapidly.
Among the ways technology is evolving to bring greater productivity to the DC is in providing ergonomic features to forklifts and other equipment, says Bill Pfleger, president of Yale Distribution.
How much is that doggie in the window? For internet users, the answer may soon be, "It depends on who you are, and how much I know about you." And this trend may upset a host of laws concerning deceptive trade practices, fair pricing and even contract, trespass and computer crime laws.
HighJump Software Inc. has released a new version of HighJump Mobile Sales Advantage, the company's mobile pre-sales application for direct store delivery (DSD) businesses.
Transportation spending is outpacing the economic recovery, but procurement teams lack the tools needed to boost efficiency and uncover long-hidden savings within logistics networks.
The use of predictive analytics is common in industries such as telecommunications, financial services and retail, says Gareth Herschel, an analyst at Gartner Inc. "But overall it's still a relatively small percentage of organizations that use it - maybe 5 percent." That's changing.
Technology and infrastructure investments will account for 50 percent of Pier 1 Imports' $70m to $75m in planned capital expenditures this year, but the retailer will have a lot of IT-enabled activity to show for its money. Two of the biggest elements are the July 28 launch of Pier 1's new e-commerce site and the planned rollout of its new POS system beginning this fall.
Small-item fulfillment continues to grow, especially with e-commerce orders, but a lot of traditional sortation technology was never designed to handle smaller and lighter pieces, says John Park, product manager, Accu-Sort Systems.
Mobility is important to retailers, but it is not mobility for the sake of mobility. Instead, the focus is convergence of e-commerce, mobility and social. And despite the doomsayers on the concepts of social commerce, the greatest increase in the intended use of mobile is to fuel efforts in social commerce.
You can learn a lot by monitoring consumer conversations in social media. It can predict political elections, the Oscars and even the next reality show winner. If you are a CPG marketer, social media can also be a real-time predictor of your new product's success.