Prospects are very bright for manufacturing in the U.S., says Raj Batra, president of the industry automation division at Siemens. Batra, who believes that the U.S. now offers a high-end, innovation-oriented manufacturing environment, cites 30 months of consecutive increases in the PMI index and growth in plant capacity utilization as signs that a renaissance is under way.

Challenge: A fast growing sportswear brand was seeking supply network efficiency and visibility.

Grocery store chain Supervalu Inc. is committing to have 300 stores divert 90 percent or more of their waste from local landfills by the end of the current fiscal year, Feb. 23, 2013).

Challenge: When an opportunity presented itself with a very large retailer looking for a logistics partner and technology platform to manage their inbound business process, our client knew it was time to act.

Challenge: A manufacturer of high value consumer products came to Transport Security, Inc- ENFORCER ® seeking assistance in monitoring at-risk shipments in transit. Transport Security, Inc. implemented their ENFORCER ® Embedded Tracking Technology. The ENFORCER ® Tracking Technology allows the client to embed the technology within their shipment and covertly track their assets via a web -based application.

Challenge: Our client is a Fortune 500 CPG company with a shared-services Procurement and Sourcing team that supports the sourcing activities of dozens of global brands and business units representing a large percentage of the company's spend. As the team increased its spend under management, they found that their existing ERP and procurement tools were not adequate to meet their e-sourcing needs. They required a solution that could more effectively support strategic spend areas with robust features, yet speed and simplify their workload.

Challenge: Our customer, a specialty retailer selling casual apparel for three highly-visible brands, was lacking a system for supplier collaboration. Sourcing thousands of products from around the world, it needed a system for production tracking and visibility into every phase of the product lifecycle - pre-production tracking, costing, order management, logistics tracking, and material liability.

Challenge: A worldwide leader in the soft drink industry recently installed a Westfalia Automated Storage and Retrieval System (AS/RS) with Savanna.NET ® Warehouse Management Control Software (WMC) at their plant in Tampa, FL. Chief among the objectives of this facility expansion, besides maximizing storage space with the high density AS/RS, is to build store ready pallets.

Challenge: In today's market with increased customer service demands on top of escalating operating costs, it's imperative to develop streamlined processes to drive operational efficiency in supply chain operations. A major retailer with home delivery service learned just how much impact the proper technology solution can have when they chose Descartes as a partner. They were challenged with a manual delivery planning process that had proven inefficient and lack of visibility into activities on the road was detrimental to their customer service.

Challenge: DiCentral aided a major North American retailer in the development of new EDI specifications that followed industry best practices and VICS standards, and then helped the retailer implement these specifications with their respective vendor communities.