When a key customer opted to embrace the internet, the U.K.'s Europa Worldwide Logistics had to step up with new software to manage the intensified demands for order management and customer service.

Sweden's Höganäs AB, a producer of metal powders, implements a system to improve its access to market intelligence, plan for demand and optimize inventories, while ensuring just-in-time delivery to the assembly line.

The role of technology in warehouses has shifted from purely reducing costs and has increasingly expanded into benefits that can drive differentiation and profitable growth for business, according to a study by Motorola Solutions Inc., which provides communication solutions and services for enterprise and government customers.

Dynamic flow storage rack system eliminates logistics bottlenecks and allows contract manufacturer of canned chicken to seek new business.

Growth in sales was making it tougher for the popular maker of premium ice cream to keep tabs on its production line. New software to ensure manufacturing quality was needed.

Remember when words like "globalization" seemed to be enough to drive some folks into the streets in protest? Surely, most of us have accepted that business is the way of the world. That's especially true when it is almost as easy to do trade with someone halfway around the globe as it is halfway across town. Just look at how interwoven we are in world commerce.