Author Archive
The traditional definition of a private fleet is a fleet of vehicles owned by a company to conduct business. When supply chain folks hear the term they tend to think of a fleet of large trucks with trailers hauling goods from the manufacturer’s distribution center (DC) to the retailer’s DC. But other types of fleets exist as well: smaller trucks used to install new products for project-based supply chains; maintenance vans… Continue reading
It is still a tough economy out there, with unemployment in the U.S. still hovering near 10 percent. Where should a young person interested in a supply chain management career look for a job? My top two choices: Bentonville, Arkansas and Geneva, Switzerland.
Bentonville is where Walmart is headquartered. But the jobs there are not just for Walmart. Many large consumer goods (CG) companies have account teams in Bentonville… Continue reading
Leveraging the Logistics Software Ecosystem
· CommentsThere is a whole ecosystem surrounding the logistics software market. Part of the reason some logistics software companies thrive and others fail is that some of them do a better job of tapping into this ecosystem and leveraging it to create advantages for themselves in innovation, marketing, and sales.
Here are the key classes of players that impact this market:
- Of course, the logistics software companies themselves
In an article last Thursday, The Wall Street Journal announced that the Coca-Cola Company was nearing a deal to buy the bulk of its largest bottler, Coca-Cola Enterprises. This was interesting news to me because the acquisition, like PepsiCo’s deals to buy its two biggest bottlers, The Pepsi Bottling Group and PepsiAmericas, was driven in large part by the need for distribution flexibility.
A little refresher course on… Continue reading
The Importance of Design for Logistics
· CommentsI recently spoke with Ralph Rupert, Director for Unit Load Design at Virginia Tech. If you are not familiar with what a unit load is—I must confess, the term was new to me too—a unit load is “a single item, a number of items, or bulk material which is arranged and restrained so that the load can be stored, picked up, and moved between two locations as a single mass.”… Continue reading
“Are people who travel in town cars and on corporate jets different—on a psychological level—from you and me? Does the availability of luxury goods ‘prime’ individuals to be less concerned about or considerate toward others?”
The answer to these questions seems to be yes, based on research conducted by Roy Y.J. Chua of Harvard Business School and Xi Zou of London Business School. Sarah Jane Gilbert interviews Chua in… Continue reading
How Objective are Category Captains?
· CommentsAs I’ve mentioned before (here and here), I’ve been researching the ROI associated with consumer goods (CG) companies using downstream data (e.g., POS, store level inventories, and DC-to-store shipments). One of the conclusions that I have reached is that Category Managers get a better ROI from their investments in this area than other consumer goods manufacturers.
Category Management might be new to many supply chain professionals, so… Continue reading
The Unbiased Forecast
· CommentsI’ve been interviewing supply chain executives at consumer goods manufacturers to learn how they are using downstream data. A key focus area for these executives is using this data to improve the accuracy of their demand forecasts.
A couple of the executives I interviewed raised an interesting point about forecasting that I don’t remember coming across before: the importance of having an unbiased forecast. Forecasts, by their very nature… Continue reading
