Seagate Technology has launched a program to eliminate costly and wasteful inventory from its supply chain. Scott Robbleloth, director of supply chain, explains how the company did it.
Benoit Reinards of Flanders Investment and Trade explains why global retailers like Nike have made Flanders their hub for distribution throughout Europe and beyond.
Bill Clement, vice president of intermodal at CSX Transportation, thinks an additional 9 million truckloads a year could and should be moved from highway to rail, and explains why CSX is taking that message directly to shippers.
Don Olson, senior director of remanufacturing business operations with Alcatel-Lucent, explains how the concept of remanufacturing can reap cost, environmental and customer-service benefits for high-tech companies.
Perry Santia, senior vice president of Genpact, provides the "big picture" of how high-tech supply chains are coping with the challenges of serving customers today.
Breaking down functional silos to create transparent and responsive end-to-end supply chains has long been an intractable supply chain challenge, but many companies are finding success using a control tower concept that gets everyone working off the same plan and focused on the same outcome.
While it can't be said that every company has tapped into web-based transportation management systems, such applications have been around long enough to no longer qualify as new - and their presence in the enterprise is growing. Is it fair to say that traditional TMS software has been overtaken by web TMS? Perhaps not, but such online, hosted or on-demand systems are proliferating. They are quick to deploy in most cases, they are highly scalable and the faster-time-to-ROI argument hasn't hurt web-based TMS adoption either.
When it comes to high demand volatility and difficulty in forecasting, few industries match the world of consumer electronics. And Monster Products, the maker of high-quality cables and other accessories for computer, video and sound systems, faces a challenge that's especially daunting. For much of its product line, the company depends on the ever-changing nature of big-ticket items like PCs and flatscreen televisions, not to mention the fickle tastes of consumers. Now add thousands of SKUs to that mix, and you have a forecasting effort that can be brutally complex. In this interview, conducted at eyefortransport's Hi-Tech & Electronics Supply Chain Summit in San Francisco, director of materials Jennifer Hochstatter spoke with managing editor Robert J. Bowman about how Monster Products approaches the problem of prioritizing supply for its extensive product line, and ensuring forecast accuracy for the most critical customers.
