Archive for June, 2009
According to a Reuters news report, Ford plans to “identify 850 suppliers eligible for its future business by the end of this year, down from 1,683 suppliers last year.” Tony Brown, Ford’s group vice president of global purchasing, is quoted as saying, “We’ve accelerated our efforts…to rationalize the supply base in order to get to profitable growth for all. There is simply too much capacity in the system. We… Continue reading
Cap-and-Trade Bill Passes House
· CommentsOn Friday, the U.S. House of Representatives narrowly passed the “American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009” (aka Waxman-Markey) by a 219 to 212 vote (only 8 Republicans voted in support of the bill, while 44 Democrats voted against it). The bill now goes to the Senate where its fate is highly uncertain at the moment.
I’ve written extensively on this topic in the past…
Amazon.com: A Customer-Centric 3PL
· CommentsYou won’t find Amazon.com on any “Top 25 3PLs” list, but the company is a leading 3PL in my book (no pun intended).
I recently read a Businessweek article on “customer service champs” and Amazon.com was ranked number one. The article highlights how Amazon not only focuses on providing consumers with the best possible buying experience, it also strives to provide merchants who sell on the site with… Continue reading
SaaS TMS and Supply Chain Risk Management
· CommentsMy colleague Adrian Gonzalez and I are both fans of network-centric, software-as-a-service (SaaS) transportation management systems (TMS). We see advantages in terms of on-boarding carriers and other trading partners, data quality management, and the potential for benchmarking (see “More Questions About Software-as-a-Service“). But as I think more about Duncan Watts’ “Too Complex to Exist” article (which I highlighted in “‘Power Curves’ and Supply Chain Risk Management“), I… Continue reading
Microsoft Xbox and Other AS/RS Killers
· CommentsI read an article by Bob Trebilcock in Modern Materials Handling titled “Automation: Grocery giant Kroger changes the distribution game,”and I was amazed by what Kroger has accomplished, and the risks the company has taken.
Kroger implemented an automation system “that can receive and put-away full pallets, then break them down and rebuild them into store-ready mixed pallets according to how they will be put away on the… Continue reading
What If Your 3PL Goes Out of Business?
· CommentsThis question became a reality earlier this month for customers of New Vine Logistics, a provider of wine-shipping services for leading winemakers. According to an article in the San Francisco Business Times, New Vine “abruptly” suspended operations on May 29th, laid off most of its employees, and informed clients over the weekend (nice!) that it was no longer receiving or processing orders. According to an article in… Continue reading
I teach the supply chain management course at Northeastern University’s Executive MBA program, and this year I included a relatively new case study in the syllabus: “Crocs: Revolutionizing an Industry’s Supply Chain Model for Competitive Advantage by Michael Marks, et al. The case was published in June 2007, and it highlights how Crocs developed an “extremely flexible supply chain” that allows it to “adjust to changes in the… Continue reading
Speed vs. Consistency in Logistics
· CommentsI received a “food for thought” email yesterday from Giles Taylor, a friend of mine and president of Trans-Solutions, a transportation consulting company. Here is an excerpt of his email:
“Do customers want speed or service? It seems like UPS and FedEx have created a market for fast delivery, when most of us want consistent delivery. Has it gotten ridiculous with UPS offering 2nd day AM service? There’s… Continue reading
