A first reaction to the announcement on May 13th that China, Japan and South Korea are to open talks on establishing a trilateral free-trade area is to shrug. The idea has been around for a decade. There are many obstacles to its realisation. And not so much as a date has been announced for the talks to begin.

Some Apples will be green. Apple data centers, that is. The technology giant has announced that its new half-million-square-foot data center in Maiden, N.C., will only use electricity that has been generated by renewable energy. The company said that the Maiden facility will be "the most environmentally sound data center ever built."

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.

The worldwide supply chain management software market totaled $7.7bn in 2011, a 12.3-percent increase from 2010, according to Gartner Inc. It was the second year of double-digit growth for the SCM software market as supply chain investments kept their priority status and moved forward, despite caution from IT budget decision makers.

The Obama administration ordered tariffs of 31 percent and higher on solar panels imported from China, escalating a simmering trade dispute with China over a case that has sharply divided American interests in the growing clean-energy industry.

As a leading contract manufacturer of electronics, Celestica works with a diverse supply base comprised of thousands of vendors. Six years ago, the company began a major initiative to gain better visibility and control of supplier performance, an effort that led to creation of a proprietary supplier collaboration tool known as Live Share.

People, processes and technology are the three key areas where companies are experiencing "pain points" in their forecasting efforts, says Eric Ball, solutions manager with Avercast LLC. The people side is especially vital, given the trend within many companies of "trying to do more with less." Too often businesses rely on a new piece of technology to improve their forecasting, ignoring the need for humans to run the system. "Coupled with budget cutbacks left and right, developing personnel is a tremendous issue," he says.

International transportation management, value engineering and strategic collaboration are three cornerstones of Menlo Worldwide's 4PL service offering, says Nick Caragher, director of 4PL operations.

Six years after it was signed, the U.S.-Colombia free-trade agreement has taken effect, giving the U.S. economy a shot in the arm. Tell us again why this pact was a bad thing?