Global Supply Chain Management

The Power of Real-Time Analytics

April 11, 2012

Paul Boris, Global VP-Enterprise Operations Management, SAP

Is There a Manufacturing Renaissance in the U.S.?

April 11, 2012

Raj Batra, Pres., Industry Automation Div., Siemens Industry North America

Alliance for Innovation and Operational Excellence Gains Support in First Year

April 11, 2012

Tom Egan, VP-Industry Svcs., Packaging Machinery Manufacturing Institute (PMMI)

Try This On - Apparel Makers See Bangladesh as Next Hot Spot for Sourcing

April 10, 2012

McKinsey Quarterly

In 2010, China dominated European and U.S. markets for ready-made garments, accounting for about 40 percent of the import volume in each region. A recent McKinsey survey, however, found that 86 percent of the chief purchasing officers in leading apparel companies in Europe and the United States planned to decrease levels of sourcing in China over the next five years because of declining profit margins and capacity constraints.

Is Your Plant Floor Having Unprotected Communication?

April 10, 2012

Industry Week

To remain competitive in today's fast-paced, global environment, manufacturers are adopting newly designed, high-speed wireless networks to help take better control of plant operations. Engineers and operators are being armed with iPads, laptops and high-speed scanners running on these networks to bring their facilities up-to-date with instantaneous, real-time communication.

How Can Your Company Become Demand-Responsive?

April 10, 2012

SupplyChainBrain

Is the term "demand responsiveness" a true call to action on the part of manufacturers, or is it just another buzz phrase? Rakesh Sharma, president and founder of Zyom Inc., believes it can have real value. He defines the term as an approach whereby companies with physical products work closely with an "ecosystem" of partners on the sales side, communicating through multi-tiered channels. Finding out in a timely fashion what has changed in those channels is no simple task anymore, given the expanding network of partners in outsourced relationships.

Optimizing Global Logistics at Crossbeam

April 10, 2012

SupplyChainBrain

Crossbeam, a provider of enterprise network security solutions, found it struggled with meeting same-day and next-day delivery requirements mandated in its service-level agreements, says Jim Curley, director, manufacturing & technical operations. It needed automated export compliance from a company with a global footprint, says John Miller, senior vice president, global business development, Flash Global Logistics.

LG Joins EPA's Green Power Partnership with 100 Percent Green Energy Use for Its Headquarters

April 10, 2012

Environmental Leader

LG Electronics USA is purchasing more than 1.5 million kWh of green power over the next 18 months in cooperation with the EPA's Green Power Partnership program, the company said.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Cloud

April 9, 2012

Robert J. Bowman, SupplyChainBrain

What is this thing called "cloud computing"? It's nothing new - that much is certain. Software vendors have been offering applications "hosted" off-site for years. The idea of computer services as a kind of managed utility dates back to the 1960s at least. Salesforce.com, founded in 1999, based its entire business model on the cloud, even if it didn't use the word at the time. Since then, we've seen a variety of takes on what came to be known as Software as a Service, or SaaS. That's now been supplanted by "the cloud," a term which refers to any number of apps that reside in huge banks of servers located far from the client.

You DON'T Have a Mobile Strategy Because Mobility Differs from Anything You've Seen Before

April 9, 2012

Chief Executive

Mobile is completely different from anything you've done before, and you need to throw conventional wisdom onto the dust heap of out-of-date thinking. You may have a bunch of people in business and IT that are telling you how you should approach mobile, but beware. They might not even recognize that mobile is different in every way from previous technology waves.