Quality & Metrics

Report Sees Dramatic Increase of Ship Pollutants Fouling 'High Arctic' Over Next Ten Years

February 17, 2015

At current fuel sulfur levels, pollutant emissions from ships in part of the Arctic region could increase 150 to 600 percent by 2025, according to a report from the International Council of Clean Transportation.

Food Supply Chains in 2015: A Banquet of Risk

February 17, 2015

Robert J. Bowman, SupplyChainBrain

The food industry has a lot on its plate these days.

How to Stop Getting It Wrong: New Developments in Supply and Demand Planning

February 13, 2015

SupplyChainBrain

Demand planners are coping with the growing complexity of consumer-goods supply chains. Most of all, they have to do a better job of getting the numbers right, says Robert F. Byrne, chief executive officer of Terra Technology.

True Innovation Lost by Applying Conventional Values to 3D Technology

February 10, 2015

Design News

A mentor often repeated this: "If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten." Product designers who are working with 3D printing design, development and manufacturing should take heed. Design the way you've always designed, and you won't get anything out of 3D printing that's different from what you've always gotten before 3D printing.

Does McDonald's Need to Serve Up Better Supply Chain Transparency?

February 10, 2015

Harvard Business Review

Recently, McDonald's, the world's iconic largest food service provider, has been (forgive the cliché) through the grinder. Poor performance has led to the departure of its CEO and plenty of critical attention in the business pages. Part of this story relates to the provenance, or origins, of its products: Chains that provide more upmarket "fast casual" dining such as Panera, Chipotle, and Shake Shack have brands that speak of freshness, health and trustworthy sourcing.

Why Procurement Is No Longer Just a Numbers Game

February 9, 2015

Robert J. Bowman, SupplyChainBrain

We've heard it before: chief procurement officers aren't just cost-cutters. They're contributing real value to the organization. But is that really true?

Supply-Chain Design: A 'Must-Have' Business Function

February 6, 2015

SupplyChainBrain

Toby Brzoznowski, executive vice president of LLamasoft Inc., details the changes he's seen in supply-chain modeling and network design over the last 15 years. And he offers a picture of where the technology and supporting business processes are going.

How Supply Chain Affects Corporate Reputation

February 6, 2015

Robert J. Bowman, SupplyChainBrain

A company's reputation rests on much more than the quality of the products that it makes.

Three Emerging Trends in Life Sciences Supply Chain and Serialization

February 4, 2015

Dan Walles, VP, Solution Architecture and Global Partnerships, TraceLink

With the Jan. 1 U.S. Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) lot-level traceability deadline now behind us, many pharmaceutical companies are turning their attention to full drug serialization. DSCSA requires that manufacturers mark packages with a product identifier, serial number, lot number, and expiration date by 2017. In that period, highly regulated packaging and distribution processes must be changed; physical equipment must be procured and operationalized; enterprise-wide IT must be implemented; and end-to-end serialization testing with supply chain partners must take place well in advance of the deadline to allow time for any necessary adjustments. Given these multi-faceted complexities, three years is an aggressive implementation time frame.

With All the Research, Innovation at Hand, CPG Companies Largely Clueless Which Products Will Succeed

January 23, 2015

Strategy + Business

Consumer packaged goods companies have a big problem: They have almost no idea which of their new products will end up being popular with consumers. Despite big data, despite a decade of heavy investment in innovation, despite chief innovation officers and efficient R&D, failure rates for new products have hovered at 60 percent for years. Two-thirds of new product concepts don't even launch.