With 2015 off to a good start, IHS Automotive forecasts global automotive sales for 2015 to reach 88.6 million, an increase of 2.4 percent over 2014, continuing an unbroken five-year run of sales recovery and growth from the low point set in the depth of the Great Recession in 2009. However, a slowdown is being signaled with just two of the high-potential BRIC markets likely to see increased sales this year.
The liner services group of Crowley Maritime Corp. is adding a flat-deck container barge, with capacity for 400 forty-foot equivalent units (FEUs), to its South Atlantic Puerto Rico service.
Cuba is on the threshold of getting, potentially, a massive technology upgrade, thanks to a U.S. decision to ease economic sanctions. But this tiny island nation needs a lot of work.
Grupo Herdez is one of Mexico's leading manufacturers and distributors of grocery products and is a pioneer there in Collaborative Planning, Forecasting and Replenishment. Eduardo Cantu explains some of the challenges to CPFR implementation in Latin America.
A manufacturing production index for Latin America as a whole is expected to show this year experienced no growth - instead, it is forecast to decline a slight 0.1 percent. This challenging regional picture masks sizable differences across countries, however. The poor performance of the index published by the Manufacturers' Alliance for Productivity and Innovation Foundation is explained by recessions in Brazil and Argentina that have offset the good performance of Mexican factories.
InkaFarma has an ambitious plan to nearly double the number of stores it operates in Peru, with an emphasis on opening up new locations in some of the country's remotest areas. To make that happen, the company needed both a new, automated distribution center and a warehouse-management system with which to run it.
