It seems that all major U.S. retailers - whether they are traditional, brick-and-mortar operations or Web-based - are stepping up their same-day delivery services and fulfillment systems before this holiday season. The move not only helps them extend the holiday shopping season by a few days, but also caters to busy holiday shoppers who don't have time to grab groceries for holiday parties or family meals.
The Chanler Group, an environmental law firm, reached a settlement on behalf of its client with a Chinese manufacturer of products alleged to contain a reproductive toxin, commonly known as DEHP. This is reportedly the first time that California's Proposition 65, or any American consumer protection statute, has been used as a basis for international prosecution. The Chanler Group and its clients expect this to be the beginning of a new trend, where overseas manufacturers are held accountable for the products they provide for American consumers.
As a Target "beauty concierge," young Chelsea Mathison prowls the cosmetic aisles at the retailer's Nicollet Mall store, sweetly asking shoppers if they need beauty tips and recommendations. The pixieish clerk seems an unlikely front-line warrior in the Minneapolis-based retailer's effort to embrace showrooming -- where consumers fiddle with products in stores, only to surf their smartphones to see if they can buy the items cheaper somewhere else.
Glen Margolis, chief executive officer of Steelwedge, describes the planning challenges that companies are facing as they cope with increasingly complex demand and supply networks.
Challenge: Leading Beverage Company Need: A major North American beverage company having difficulty finding trucks in today's marketplace asked Landstar for support in sourcing and managing additional capacity beyond the normal reach of its carrier partners.
Executives want to know that their organization isn't wasting time or money. For logistics organizations, that means trucks should only be doing what is necessary to support the business, and nothing else, to ensure that time and money are invested only in value adding activities.
The International Chamber of Commerce's International Maritime Bureau (IMB) has revealed that piracy on the world's seas is at its lowest third-quarter level since 2006, but warns of the threat of continuing violent attacks off the East and West coasts of Africa.
Sustainability can involve a global effort to calculate carbon emissions across the entire supply chain. Or it can mean the changing of a few light bulbs.
Many a company has a "customer first" approach, and improvement methodologies such as Lean and Six Sigma start with the "voice of the customer". So what is the point in trying to solve modern-day business problems with ethnography methods that many people still exclusively associate with anthropology?
The latest supply-chain news, analysis, trends and tools for executives in the food and beverage industries. Learn how food and beverage companies and their suppliers around the world are managing the flow of products across all channels of the enterprise. Experts sound off on forecasting and demand planning, supply-chain visibility, logistics outsourcing, inventory optimization, transportation management, warehouse management, supply-chain security, corporate social responsibility and more.
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