Both global and domestic supply chain networks will need to become more resilient and reliable in order to better manage more volatile demand as well as pressures on margins, according to recent analysis by two consulting firms.
Chris Caplice, executive director of the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics, discusses his research on identifying dominant designs in logistics and how these designs, in which companies are heavily invested, may be disrupted by emerging trends.
In the end, all outsourcing relationships are founded on trust. You can write a contract that drills down to the smallest details, but at some point you have to rely on the integrity of your partner. And when that trust is violated, the consequences can be severe.
MIT's High-Viz Supply Chain Project is developing a way for companies to automatically map and analyze supply chain risk. Bruce Arntzen, executive director of the Supply Chain Management Program at MIT, explains the methodology underlying this project, progress to date and barriers that still exist.
Success in marketing to U.S. millennials"”the generation of people now 18 to 34 years old"”will be critical to companies across product and service categories. One reason, of course, is that millennials represent the consumer market of the future.
Product development has traditionally been seen as the responsibility of research and development (R&D) or engineering departments. Hand-in-hand with product development comes product lifecycle management (PLM), a function which is often wrongly positioned as product data management and thus rarely used to its full potential.
Construction firms should expect a buoyant 2014, but the first half of the year is likely to remain tough for main contractors as the supply chain dictates terms, analyst KPMG has said.