One night last January, Mark Shields was home in his kitchen making hummus, listening to This American Life, WBEZ's popular syndicated radio show. He was streaming the podcast on his Mac laptop via Apple's AirPort technology, which turned out to be an appropriate platform for listening to the episode, given that the subject was Apple itself.

An overlooked and critical operational area is the yard - that area between the warehouse and the transportation system.

Increasing real-time visibility is key to achieving greater efficiencies in logistics management practices. As all goods often go through multiple yards throughout the lifecycle, any inefficiencies or errors in the yard are amplified as the effects propagate through the supply chain network.

As food safety legislation heats up, shippers can enhance the security of their supply chains - and reduce costs - by turning their attention to yard management solutions.

When organizations turn to the web to offer their suppliers and/or joint venture partners direct access to services and business processes to reduce costs and speed up processing, a virtual organization emerges.