Half of global trade professionals are optimistic about the global economy in 2012 and nearly three quarters plan to spend at or above 2011 levels, according to The State of Global Trade in 2012, a joint report from global trade intelligence company Panjiva and The Global Sourcing Council, a non-profit organization that fosters dialog on critical issues in global sourcing and supply chain management.

Misalignments in the many linkages of the supply chain lead to variability in delivery performance or in demand, says Dale Houle, chief technology officer at AGI-Goldratt Institute. The theory of constraints can help nullify the effects of that variability.

Company supply chains are now better able to handle market uncertainty, according to the 2012 Global Supply Chain Agenda study from Capgemini. The study reveals that ongoing uncertainty around the global economy and euro zone crisis is having a significant impact on supply chain strategies at every level.

So much of the attention focused on supply chain sustainability has to do with energy conservation, regulatory compliance and the like, says Todd Stark, chief operating officer of Fair Trade USA. But companies and consumers shouldn't forget that the workers upstream need to have fair wages and safe and clean working environments.

At four Minnesota stores, a major U.S. automotive battery supplier has added radio frequency identification technology to storage racks, making it possible for the company to view the locations of its products and replenish stock at the appropriate times, thereby enabling it to provide improved services to its distributors, dealers and retailers.

Intelleflex, a provider of on-demand data visibility solutions for supply chains and asset tracking, has rolled out the Intelleflex CMR-6100, a fully integrated cellular-enabled, GPS-equipped, multi-protocol RFID reader with support for the ISO Class 3 battery-assisted passive and EPCglobal C1G2 passive standards. Intelleflex ZEST Data Services, a cloud-based repository for aggregating, warehousing and sharing information across the supply chain, facilitates on-demand access to actionable data for improved supply chain operations to provide a complete picture of data spanning the entire supply chain.