A week after a train loaded with crude oil from North Dakota exploded in downtown Lynchburg, Va., dumping 30,000 gallons of oil into the James River, the Department of Transportation announced two moves to try to keep this from happening so frequently. It's doubtful that either will make much of a difference in preventing what's become a major safety hazard in the U.S.
Transnational infrastructure programs, such as cross-border railway networks and electricity distribution systems, can increase regional trade, prosperity, stability and integration. That is part of the rationale of the Priority Action Plan of the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA PAP), encompassing 51 programs and with an investment need of $68bn up to the year 2020. Such programs face formidable challenges, however.
My previous post covered the difficulty of tracing and ensuring the quality of automotive and aerospace parts. The job is just as tough for consumer packaged goods and food producers.
A recent White House report on big data wonders aloud about the capability of sensors and smart meters to turn homes into fish tanks, completely transparent to marketers, police – and criminals.
A new digital presence has recently been created by AWESOME (Achieving Women’s Excellence in Supply Chain Operations, Management, and Education), the industry-wide supply chain leadership initiative started in early 2013. The launch of www.awesomeleaders.org is timed to coincide with the second Annual AWESOME Symposium on May 15, 2014, in Chicago.
As U.S. and Canadian businesses plan to expand their business overseas this year, supply chain failures, data breaches and political instability are weighing heavily on the minds of their executives, according to a survey by the Chubb Group of Insurance Companies.
GS1 Healthcare US, an industry group formed to promote GS1 standards in the U.S. healthcare industry, has published an implementation guideline for addressing the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s new regulation for Unique Device Identification (UDI).
Boeing and its investors likely couldn't be happier with the first quarter 2014 earnings report: revenue rose 8 percent over the year-ago quarter, operating margins widened, and 2014 guidance got boost. The U.S. aerospace company ramped up deliveries for its 787 and 737 models to keep pace with demand, which in turn increased cash flow beyond analyst expectations. And a $374bn backlog of more than 5,100 aircraft guarantees that even if Boeing stopped booking new orders today it would take nearly a decade to deliver all the planes on order. But things don't appear quite so rosy in Boeing's Defense, Space & Security division.
In October 2012, the American Logistics Aid Network used its extensive network of supply chain management professionals to help victims of one of the nation's most devastating hurricanes. The lessons learned there have continuing applicability.
