Author Archive for Steve Banker – Page 2

The Holidays are a time for giving. My posting today celebrates the best example of corporate giving that I came across in my travels this year. TNT, a large global provider of express deliveries, and ORTEC, a company that provides a logistics optimization and execution platform with advanced planning capabilities, are the two companies whose intelligent giving has helped to make the world a better place to live… Continue reading

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Categories : Just for Fun, Transportation
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I’ve been paying attention to multi-tenant Warehouse Management Systems (WMS) ever since they appeared in the market about five years ago. A multi-tenant system has an architecture where users from different companies and different parts of the world access the exact same Internet-based software. Salesforce.com is the best known enterprise solution based on this architecture.

Historically, multi-tenant WMS was an extremely low-cost solution – in some cases as low… Continue reading

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On August 30th, O’Reilly Auto Parts gave a presentation to financial analysts from one of its distribution centers (DCs) in Kansas City, Missouri. This signaled that the company considers distribution excellence to be a core differentiator, a message that comes out loud and clear when you look through the presentation the company gave.

O’Reilly Auto Parts is an auto parts retailer with $5.6 billion in sales over… Continue reading

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At one of the conference receptions I attended this fall, I heard an interesting story about a Global Trade Management (GTM) system implementation.

At one level, the business case was focused on fine mitigation. US Customs had warned this company several times about shipments lacking the proper licenses, permits, and classifications. Finally, customs lost its patience and fined the company more than $50 million. Part of the business case… Continue reading

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Over the past few weeks I’ve attend TMC’s Interactive Client Forum and Descartes’ Evolution 2011 User Conference (TMC and Descartes are ARC clients). At both conferences, there were speakers focused on regulatory trends in transportation. The Descartes conference featured Annette Sandberg, a former Administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). TMC’s conference featured Angie Freeman, C.H. Robinson’s VP of Investor Relations and Public Affairs (TMC is… Continue reading

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Categories : Regulations, Transportation
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