It's no mystery why companies emulate their most successful peers. Tried-and-true approaches often seem preferable to starting from scratch, whether for developing new products or running efficient supply chains. The quest for such methods went global during the 1980s and 1990s as European and U.S. companies sought to retool their operations by transplanting Japanese factory practices, such as kanban and just-in-time production. Management consultants - ourselves included - naturally facilitate the process by extolling successful companies as models from which others can learn proven practices that reduce risks.

As work piles up in our in-boxes and on our desks, the question should occur-what important issues am I missing? It is an interesting fact that a high percentage of our critical work and the data we use to make decisions are still outside the operations systems we have-ERP, accounting, modeling and decision support.

Starbucks, Johnson + Johnson, Sprint and 16 other companies have sent a letter to Congress, urging elected officials to extend the wind production tax credit (PTC) before it expires at the end of 2012.

Looking at the 12-month period ending with July 2012, the winery-to-consumer shipping channel has grown to $1.35bn, representing 8.6 percent of the total U.S. wine retail market, according to a report from ShipCompliant and Wines + Vines Magazine.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. lost a bid to dismiss an 11-year-old gender discrimination lawsuit brought on behalf of workers in California after the U.S. Supreme Court barred a lawsuit representing Wal-Mart employees nationwide.

Uncertainty is the only certainty in the current airfreight market, according to Kenji Hashimoto, the new man in charge of American Airlines Cargo.

Although often overlooked, middle-market companies are making positive impacts on the economy and the global supply chain. They are the middle children of the business world, tucked between billion-dollar companies that attract great attention because of their size, and small businesses that grab headlines for their entrepreneurial spirit.

More than 40 percent of companies that outsource intend to conduct a bid or rebid for part of their network to a logistics service provider within the next 12 months, according to the Outsourced Distribution Report by Tompkins Supply Chain Consortium.

Manufactured exports - a bright spot of the U.S. economy in recent years - are set to surge. Combined with jobs created as a result of reshoring, higher U.S. exports could add 2.5 million to 5 million jobs by the end of the decade, as manufacturers shift production from leading European countries and Japan to take advantage of substantially lower costs in the U.S., according to new research by The Boston Consulting Group.

Corporate executives and workers from dozens of refineries, glass-makers and other business groups bombarded members of the California Air Resources Board with complaints about an upcoming auction of credits allowing them to release greenhouse gases.