Companies are increasingly connecting the dots between risk management and sustainability by making sustainability issues more prominent on corporate agendas, says a study by Ernst & Young LLP and GreenBiz. Driven by trends such as extreme weather events and risks to natural resources, among other factors, the shift is evidenced by the increasing involvement in sustainability-related issues of shareholders and the C-suite. At the same time, the study finds, companies are not adequately aligning risk response to the scale of sustainability challenges.

It's more than just number-crunching. Lalit Wadwha, vice president of global supply chain operations with Avnet Electronics Marketing, lays out the fundamentals of supply-chain analytics.

Korean electronics and home appliance firm Dongbu Daewoo Electronics is selling a near field communication-enabled refrigerator in Korea that allows users to track the condition and efficiency of their kitchen appliance, by means of an NFC smartphone loaded with a Dongbu Daewoo application.

The installed base of Bluetooth-enabled devices alone reached 3.5 billion in 2012 and is forecast to grow to almost 10 billion by 2018"”with not even taking into account many other technologies, such as Wi-Fi, ZigBee and cellular, according to ABI Research.

Airfreight rates suffered another month of falls in June, sinking to new lows, according to Drewry's monthly Sea & Air Shipper Insight report.

Aaron Corcoran, director of logistics with KUKA Systems Corp. North America, discusses how automation is transforming order fulfillment, as companies seek to forge "smarter" supply chains.

A new company called Zenput is offering a mobile application for collecting product data.

Cargill has released an assessment tool to help food and beverage customers achieve their growth, cost reduction and risk mitigation goals by identifying, prioritizing and quantifying risks and opportunities in its supply chains.