Archive for January, 2010
This Week in Logistics News (Jan 25-29)
· CommentsIn many ways, the biggest news of the week was Apple’s introduction of the iPad. Expectations were set so high for this gadget that many people were a bit underwhelmed when the wrapper finally came off on Wednesday. Is there a role for the iPad in logistics? Maybe down the road, but based on what I saw, the iPhone is much more promising and cost effective at the moment… Continue reading
The Perfect Order Metric is Not Sufficient
· CommentsThe Perfect Order is often recognized as the highest level of customer service. It can be defined in different ways, but the traditional definition includes four elements: order completeness, timeliness, condition, and documentation. In other words, to be considered perfect, an order must be delivered to the customer’s distribution center (DC) complete, on time, free of damage, and accompanied by the correct invoice and other documentation.
[caption id=”attachment_2808″ align=”aligncenter”… Continue reading
At the end of every year, Walmart holds a meeting for the investment community. Because so much of Walmart’s core strategy revolves around excellence in supply chain management, I always enjoy hearing about the company’s plans. What interested me the most this year was Walmart’s multichannel strategy.
Here are some key points from Raul Vazquez, the CEO of Walmart.com:
- Amazon is the company’s
Happy Birthday Logistics Viewpoints
· CommentsLogistics Viewpoints officially turns 1 today. There are many ways to measure a year: 284 postings, 132 comments, almost 500 Twitter followers, a 5X increase in monthly page views, and so on. It’s been a fun blur.
How do you guys manage to write something every day?! This is the most common question we get. The answer: we’re crazy…and disciplined…and we enjoy it.
Having to write something every… Continue reading
I recently spoke to the folks at BabbleWare, a new software vendor with a low-cost warehouse management, manufacturing execution, and mobile field-based execution applications. BabbleWare mentioned that one of its WMS clients is actually experimenting with using the iPhone as their barcode scanning application.
Are they crazy?
Yes, you can buy a barcoding application at Apple’s App Store, and it is cheap—only $1.99 for the RedLaser application. The… Continue reading
Based on the popularity of last week’s version, we’ve decided to make this “news roundup” the focus of our Friday postings. Here is some of the news that crossed our desks (actually, our computer screens, email inboxes, iPhone, etc.) and caught our attention this week:
Oliver Williamson, a Professor Emeritus at the University of California Berkley and co-recipient of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics, published a paper in April 2008 titled “Outsourcing: Transaction Cost Management and Supply Chain Management” in the Journal of Supply Chain Management. Williamson’s area of expertise is transaction cost economics. The paper is far more focused on theory than practice, and is not an easy read by any means… Continue reading
The Detroit Lions had better odds of winning the Super Bowl this year than a Republican winning the Senate seat from Massachusetts, held for almost 50 years by the late Ted Kennedy. But the Republican Scott Brown defeated the Democrat Martha Coakley yesterday by a five-point margin (52 percent vs. 47 percent). This morning, pundits on both sides of the political spectrum are spinning the results. Was this vote… Continue reading
