Quality & Metrics

Food & Beverage Traceability Impacts Brand, Consumer Safety

March 9, 2012

Analyst Insight: Food and beverage manufacturers have the distinct advantage (or detriment, depending on how you view it) of often having direct access to the customer. In today's more open, collaborative, social world this can reap major benefits of understanding one's customer base and responding to its needs. On the flip side, food and beverage manufacturers are susceptible to a major downfall simply from minor issues across its supply chain. Open or not, it's the new reality. - Simon Ellis, practice director, Supply Chain Strategies, IDC Manufacturing Insights

IMO Adopts Guidelines for Mandatory Energy Efficiency Measures in International Shipping

March 8, 2012

Maritime Executive

An important series of guidelines to support the uniform implementation of mandatory measures to increase energy efficiency and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) from international shipping was adopted by the Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), when it met for its 63rd session from Feb. 27 to March 2, 2012, at IMO Headquarters in London, paving the way for the regulations to be smoothly and uniformly implemented by Administrations and industry.

Defining Consumer-Driven Processes in CPG Industry

March 8, 2012

SupplyChainBrain

Analyst Insight: While 95 percent of consumer products companies talk about building the end-to-end supply chain extending from the customer's customer to the supplier's supplier, most of it today is only lip service. Why? The processes that made the CP company strong are the very same processes that need to change to drive growth, improve supply chain resiliency and power market share. - Lora Cecere, partner, Altimeter Group

ERP, Enterprise Systems Software Evaluation Is So Much More Complex

March 8, 2012

SupplyChainBrain

Analyst Insight: The rapidly changing business environment has caused software evaluation to evolve, and organizations that do not realize those shifts will be left with inadequate solutions and an increased chance of IT failure. These new trends have complicated an already difficult software evaluation process due to cloud, SaaS, IaaS, PaaS, SOA and Web 2.0 technologies. - Keean Persaud, managing director, Eval-Source

Secrets of the Smart Warehouse

March 8, 2012

FORTE

Ten ways to think smarter about distribution center design. This paper will review four functional areas that are key to smart warehouse design and operation.

A Data-driven, Widely Supported, and Collaborative Approach to Successful Business Process Management

March 7, 2012

SupplyChainBrain

Analyst Insight: Though there is no question that modern business process management (BPM) applications have the potential to solve many technical aspects of business processes challenges, the productive consolidation and integration of this evolution into the corporate culture requires that the management of business processes shift toward an approach that is data-driven, widely supported, and better communicated at the organizational level. - Jorge GarcÃƒÂa, research analyst, Technology Evaluation Centers

A New Study on Supply-Chain Risk

March 7, 2012

SupplyChainBrain

ImpactFactor recently completed a study on supply-chain risk, surveying managers of more than 100 companies. The results were not encouraging. According to managing director Bill McBeath, many companies don't consider proactive risk-management to be a strategic tool. He was "shocked" at how level their level of investment in that area was, with half reporting expenditures of $50,000 or less to audit and assess suppliers. "Not a single one spent more than $3m," he says. "Given the huge potential impact [of risk] on their shares, we believe companies are seriously under-investing."