A few weeks back I referenced the work of Robert J. Gordon, an economist and professor at Northwestern University. In a paper published last September for the Centre for Economic Research, he laid out the history of the first three industrial revolutions. And he asked whether a fourth, supposedly driven by the internet and other advances in information technology, could come anywhere near its predecessors in terms of productivity improvements.

In 1948 a supermarket executive came to the Drexel Institute of Technology in Philadelphia with a request. He wanted a technology that could encode information about his products. Two graduate students, Bernard Silver and N. Joseph Woodland, took up the challenge. Woodland became obsessed and dropped out of school to concentrate on it.

While more than 75 percent of suppliers are confident in their ability to meet their customers' needs in 2013, one-third of respondents to ASQ's 2013 Manufacturing Outlook Survey say they anticipate a problem with a supplier next year, resulting in a shortage of parts or services.

No experience happens as often, grabs share of wallet, and stimulates the senses more than grocery shopping, finds PwC US in a new report titled Experience Radar 2013: Lessons from the U.S. Grocery Industry. The study, which is one in a series of customer-centric reports, measures the experiences of about 6,000 U.S. consumers across multiple industries.

It's no surprise that supply chains are growing in complexity as manufacturers continue to globalize in order to reduce costs and expand their market. With this shift, manufacturers need to take a new approach to managing their supply chains by finding ways to improve communication with suppliers, obtain early visibility into sourcing information and better mitigate supplier risk.