The demand for vendor-managed inventory programs in warehouses behaves "as a pendulum swinging back and forth between supplier and retailer," says John Mayer, vice president of sales with Park City Group. Over the last six to 12 months, he says, it has swung back in the direction of favoring VMI. Mayer has seen particular interest in the technique in the grocery industry.

Downstream demand signals have been available in the retail world for some time now, but it has taken a while for suppliers to take full advantage of them. Mark Kremblewski, global business expert in demand planning with Procter & Gamble, likens the situation to the mining industry, which trades in deposits of both high- and low-grade ore. The latter type is more plentiful, but it's the first that offers the biggest payback from a better use of demand data in unpredictable situations.

Agentrics NeoGrid, a vendor of products for supply-chain synchronization, has created the NeoGrid Portal. The new collaboration tool integrates existing systems within a company, creating a single point of access for managing the entire network of a client's supply chain.

CombineNet Inc., a provider of strategic-sourcing systems for global supply chains, has developed new capabilities which allow procurement and sourcing managers to manage electronic sourcing events in a single platform.

Freeing data from functional silos and making it available to decision-makers throughout the supply chain in real time is the elusive key to true, end-to-end supply chain optimization, says Kristi Montgomery of Kenco Management Services, a third-party logistics provider.

SAP AG has introduced a series of mobile applications for business users and consumers. The new tools provide real-time access to human resources, finance, sales and mobile commerce functions.

Accellos Inc. has certified the newest version of its AccellosOne Warehouse software application with Microsoft SQL Server 2012.

Traceability always has been important to dairy cooperative Agri-Mark, but it has become even more of a focus since passage in 2010 of The Food Safety Modernization Act, which gives the Food and Drug Administration the right to make product recalls mandatory, rather than voluntary.

PeopleNet has added ALK Technologies as a partner for its In-Cab Navigation application. PeopleNet is a vendor of onboard computing and mobile communications systems for truck-fleet management.

Shippers often buy freight transportation on the spot market as a last resort when they have exhausted all of their route guide options or capacity is in short supply. Does that mean that these movements can't be tracked and managed in much the same way that more regular shipments are managed?