President Obama issued May 1 an executive order that aims to foster international trade by promoting greater cooperation with other countries on the development and implementation of regulations that affect global commerce. The order notes that foreign regulatory approaches may differ from those taken by U.S. agencies and that in some cases the differences might be unnecessary and impair the ability of U.S. businesses to export and compete internationally.

The Food Shippers of America Association (FSA) has become an association partner and gold-level sponsor of the American Logistics Aid Network (ALAN).

As part of their continuing supply chain research, Penn State University, Capgemini Consulting, Panalpina and eyefortransport are seeking the participation of supply chain and logistics professionals in their in 2012/2013 Third-Party Logistics Study.

Canadian logistics firm J.D. Smith and Sons has completed a six-month trial of radio frequency identification technology to track the loading, shipping and receipt of bagged pet food for a pet-product retailer. The company is now offering an RFID-based service to track its customers' goods, based on reads of RFID tags embedded in J.D. Smith's pallets.

Challenge: A leading designer, distributor, and licensor of high quality apparel, needed to precisely calculate bottom-line shipment costs and compare multiple routing and service options; establish sophisticated audit controls for carrier billing; deliver a quick user friendly system implementation; and seamlessly add new functionality as the company's needs grew.

Challenge: One of the largest distributors of wine and spirits in the USoperates in a tightly regulated industry with outdated business processes and systems, and was challenged by a lack of visibility to inbound orders from its global vendors and suppliers. In addition, the company's manual order and shipment tracking processes frequently led to significant delays and difficulty in determining accurate inventory levels and expected arrival dates, leading to reactive expediting and additional intra-company transportation moves.

Intelleflex Inc. has entered into a partnership with DeltaTRAK Inc. to enhance cold-chain technology for the food, pharmaceutical and processing industries.

Challenge: Our customer, a large consumer electronics manufacturer, was spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in customs and brokerage fees because they were not benefiting from Foreign Trade Zone (FTZ) services. Realizing the great savings potential, our customer shared their need for FTZ services with us.

Theft of trade secrets costs jobs and the global economy billions of dollars a year, according to a report released by the Center for Responsible Enterprise and Trade (CREATe.org) - a Washington-based non-profit industry group focused on responsible business practices.