Enabling its field sales managers to collaborate on forecasts allowed Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated to slash inventories in half while absorbing 150 new products.
Straightline Source is defying the e-business odds and growing legs as a virtual distributor of carbon and flat-rolled steel. Technology enabling order efficiency and waste reduction is part of the reason.
Wireless is already connecting remote workers, such as truck drivers, field technicians and sales representatives. But the technology promises so much more in terms of capturing information and acting on it.
Today's supply-chain marketplace has little room for generalists. It's specialists that are in demand, with buyers of both software and services looking for industry-specific solutions and deep domain expertise.
Company operated vertical exchanges that take a one-to-many approach are stealing the spotlight from the many-to-many e-marketplaces which proliferated last year. It is these private exchanges that will handle the bulk of B2B internet commerce in coming years, analysts say.
Webvan Corp., with the help of its technology partners, has broken the code on guaranteed, self-scheduled home delivery. Here's how it gets the goods delivered within a promised 30-minute window and where it plans to take that achievement.
As Kodak's European business changed in response to economic union and various internal factors, the company needed a logistics solution that would provide greater flexibility and lower overhead costs at key facilities. It opted for outsourcing with a shared-use approach, a concept that was given an unusual and innovative twist in the U.K. with partner MSAS Global Logistics.
Canadian Tire is perhaps Canada's most widely recognized and well established retailer, but in the early 1990s the company realized its aging stores and out-of-date replenishment system were costing it business. A major renovation of stores and re-engineering of the supply chain yielded impressive results.
Canadian retailer Club Monaco, a recent addition to the Polo Ralph Lauren group, needed a total logistics solution when it relaunched its cosmetics business to an international audience. PBB Global Logistics had the required services and the right approach.
Home Depot has centralized its import operations, opened a major import distribution center in Savannah, Ga., and installed purchase-order and import tracking software from RockPort Trade Systems to support its continuing, rapid-fire growth.
