Note: Today’s post is part of our “Editor’s Choice” series where we highlight recent posts published by our sponsors that provide supply chain insights and advice. This article is from Manhattan Associates and looks at the growth of quick commerce. Quick commerce, rapid delivery, serving the ‘instant needs’ market. Call it what you’d like, but […]

Transportation execution solutions allow shippers to connect to multiple carriers and then tender, track, and pay in the system.  Visibility solutions allow real-time asset tracking across the entire distribution network.  This enables improved estimated arrival times of goods. The transportation execution and visibility systems (TES) market has seen significant growth over the last few years […]

There has been a lot of buzz around facial recognition software lately. And this buzz has come down on both side of the issue, from the benefits off facial recognition software to the dangers and privacy concerns. I just read about a different take on facial recognition software that uses artificial intelligence in a little […]

Note: Today’s post is part of our “Editor’s Choice” series where we highlight recent posts published by our sponsors that provide supply chain insights and advice. This article is from FarEye and examines the challenges around big and bulky deliveries in 2022. As online retail continues its impressive growth, consumers and retailers alike are realizing […]

Note: Today’s post is part of our “Editor’s Choice” series where we highlight recent posts published by our sponsors that provide supply chain insights and advice. This article is from Asena Denizeri & Anil Gurbuz at Solvoyo and examines the challenges around supply chain planning for 2022 and beyond. Since the start of the Covid-19 […]

Robots are everywhere these days, from warehouses to stores to even restaurants. And while there are some concerns about whether robots will take the place of their human counterparts in a number of industries, the owners of a restaurant employing four robot servers said it is a resounding “no.” Amy, Ella, Will, and Josh are […]

Last week, Clint Reiser published an article highlighting our 2022 supply chain predictions. While we have published predictions about supply chain technology trends at the beginning of the year in past years. This year we have decided to lead with our predictions about the broader supply chain function. While we look ahead to the future, […]

Note: Today’s post is part of our “Editor’s Choice” series where we highlight recent posts published by our sponsors that provide supply chain insights and advice. This article is from Audrey Dong, from KNAPP, and looks at e-commerce in China and the impact of Singles Day. E-commerce in China has developed rapidly in the past […]

Welcome back! And while a new year has donned, the same supply chain issues and trends continue to unfold as we enter 2022. One of the biggest trends and areas of interest is around autonomous vehicles (see the TuSimple news below). The technology that is driving autonomous vehicles continues to improve, and as my colleague […]

It is really feeling like the holiday season, as we got our first dusting of snow in the Boston area this week. And the holiday season means that once again another year is coming to an end. This was certainly another strange year, as the in-person conferences I usually look forward to were once again […]

Cargo theft continues to be a problem, especially around the holidays. And I don’t just mean the winter holidays; cargo theft typically spikes during any holiday season where businesses may be closed for an extra day or two. But what exactly is cargo theft? I found a very detailed definition on the Texas Department of […]

Black Friday is in the books, and unsurprisingly, it was a big one. According to the annual survey by the National Retail Federation (NRF) and Prosper Insights & Analytics, nearly 180 million Americans shopped during the five-day holiday shopping period from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday. This exceeded initial estimates by more than 21 million […]

Halloween is in the rearview mirror and Black Friday is on the horizon. As such, retailers and logistics providers are gearing up for the annual holiday logistics crunch. The National Retail Federation (NRF) has forecast that holiday sales during November and December will grow between 8.5 percent and 10.5 percent over 2020 to between $843.4 […]

There was a lot of anticipation around electric vehicle start-up Rivian going public. On the second day of trading, the company’s shares spiked, surpassing both Ford and General Motors by market cap. While it is still well below the market cap of Tesla, Rivian’s valuation topped $100 billion. The valuation means Amazon’s 20 percent stake […]

The wine industry has been hit hard in the US over the last couple of years. Pre-pandemic, this was mostly due to droughts and wildfires, which ravaged the West Coast, and destroyed millions of acres of vineyards. For 2021, there has been another hiccup, which the wine industry may refer to as the great supply […]

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to speak with Pervinder Johar, CEO of Blume Global. During our conversation, Pervinder and I spoke about the changing nature of supply chain management, especially in the face of the ongoing Covid pandemic. I asked Pervinder to give his insights on a few key points. First, what […]

Who doesn’t remember their first phone? For my parents, it was a rotary phone at a stand-alone point in the hallway. For my wife, it was a see-through 80’s phone that gave her the freedom to talk to her friends every night. For me, it was a clunky cellphone that would cause me to butt-dial […]

We’ve all heard the news that storage containers are increasingly more difficult to come by, and as a result, this could impact the upcoming holiday season. But just how scarce are they? The spot rate of booking a 40-foot container from Shanghai to Los Angeles hit $10,229 the first week of August, up 238 percent […]

Last week I had the opportunity to speak with Ken Fleming, President at Logistyx Technologies. In our conversation, Ken spoke about some of the findings from a recent survey Logistyx conducted on cross-border holiday spending, as well as some larger trends around the state of parcel shipping. I asked Ken to give me some deeper […]

I just read an interesting article about Chris Johnson, former top sales executive at Apple and CEO of JC Penney. It seems that Mr. Johnson is on a quest to “remake the retail world” as he takes his new company public. The company in question is Enjoy, and it runs mobile retail stores for its […]

A few week ago, I wrote an article about the transformative nature of the plant-based meat supply chain. Over the last few years, Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods have been creating meat substitutes that promise to eat “more like meat.” Fast food chains around the country have been introducing meatless burgers, and now Burger King […]

Tom Brady is coming back to Foxboro. Unfortunately, he is not coming back in a Patriots uniform. Sunday night will mark Brady’s first appearance as a Buccaneer against his old team, and his first visit to Gillette Stadium since leaving the club after the 2019 season. Not only that, but he only needs 68 yards […]

A big part of sustainability initiatives includes the use of ethical sourcing. Ethical sourcing is the process of ensuring that the products made are obtained through responsible and sustainable methods. While we have seen more companies promoting ethical sourcing, does the consumer really care?

Good help is hard to find. And finding good help has become increasingly difficult as the Covid pandemic has caused labor shortages across a number of industries. One industry that has been hit hard is the restaurant industry, where owners and managers are having an incredibly difficult time finding servers. One Connecticut restaurant is taking […]

Over the years, sustainability has been increasingly embraced by consumers and brands alike. For many, this has caused them to re-examine the foods that they eat. In recent years, there has been tremendous growth in the plant-based meat market, with new entrants joining those that have been around for decades. The plant-based meat supply chain […]

Taco Bell continues to be innovative in its efforts to get tacos into its customers hands. A few weeks ago, I wrote about a Taco Bell franchisee that is building a new restaurant that the chain said will be the fastest way to get its food: a two-story, technology-heavy unit with four drive-thru lanes dubbed […]

It’s hard to believe it has been twenty years since the terrorist attacks on the US. In some ways it seems so long ago as so much has changed in the world. And in other ways, it feels like it was just yesterday. I can remember exactly where I was, how I heard about it, […]

When it comes to real-time visibility, the market is becoming more important and more robust than ever before. Billions of venture capital dollars of investment are being poured into companies that can integrate real-time visibility data with transportation to provide a more informed ETA for shippers and carriers. The need to know where products are, […]

This weekend is Labor Day, which is usually the final week of summer vacation. However, given the late nature of the holiday, my kids went back to school this week. It’s amazing how quickly the summer came to an end. I almost feel like we didn’t even have enough time for back-to-school shopping. But apparently, […]

Note: Today’s post is part of our “Editor’s Choice” series where we highlight recent posts published by our sponsors that provide supply chain insights and advice. Today’s article is from Lucas Systems and highlights the ways to reduce warehouse travel. Labor is the single largest operating cost in most DCs and warehouse travel often accounts […]

When it comes to managing your freight spend, there are a few options to consider. The three traditional methods are the use of a transportation management system (TMS), transportation execution system (TES), and managed transportation services (MTS). Ultimately it comes down to whether shippers want to manage their freight spend in-house or outsource it. A […]

Getting a parking ticket is always a frustrating experience. Last weekend, I took my kids to this cool skate park under the Zakim Bridge, parking at North Point Park in Cambridge. We got back to the car about 2 minutes after our meter expired, only to see the parking enforcement officer driving away and a […]

Note: Today’s post is part of our “Editor’s Choice” series where we highlight recent posts published by our sponsors that provide supply chain insights and advice. Today’s article is from GlobalTranz and looks at the difficult decision of transitioning in-house logistics to managed services. The supply chain is evolving, and the standards used for managed […]

Note: Today’s post is part of our “Editor’s Choice” series where we highlight recent posts published by our sponsors that provide supply chain insights and advice. Today’s article is from FourKites and examines ocean trends for 2021. 2020 was a tumultuous year for supply chains, and 2021 has certainly followed suit. With summer winding down, […]

This summer has been an interesting one weather-wise in the Boston area. In June, we experienced more than one heat wave, which is defined as three or more days in a row where the temperature reaches 90 degrees Fahrenheit or above. As a ridiculously hot June came to an end, we experienced a prolonged period […]

Note: Today’s post is part of our “Editor’s Choice” series where we highlight recent posts published by our sponsors that provide supply chain insights and advice. Today’s article is from FarEye and highlights the importance of last mile optimization. Online retailers need to work hard to please e-commerce customers in this advanced digital age. The […]

Grocery delivery is not a new phenomenon. In fact, it’s been around for more than 3 decades, although the ongoing pandemic has certainly lifted the market to new heights. However, I should clarify that when I say grocery delivery, I am talking about e-commerce grocery delivery. The home delivery model has been around for a […]

For the US Women’s National Soccer Team, the 2020 Tokyo Olympics were supposed to be another Gold Medal event, as it entered with a 44-match unbeaten streak. That streak came to an end in its first match, a 3-0 loss to Sweden, which happened to be the last team to defeat the US. And while […]

I am working on my latest Transportation Execution and Visibility Systems study, which looks at the total size of the market, the forecasted growth through 2025, and the leading suppliers across a number of categories including industry, region, customer size, and mode. As I mentioned in an earlier post on the growth drivers for the […]

Who wouldn’t like to go to space? For billionaires, it is now a reality instead of a rhetorical question. As my colleague Steve Banker pointed out earlier this week, billionaire egotism trumps sustainability, as Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and others battle it out to get to space first. Earlier this week, Jeff Bezos […]

Much like the Olympics were pushed off for a year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, so too was the 2020 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Euro 2020 or simply Euro 2020. This was the 16th Euro Championship, a quadrennial international men’s football championship of Europe. And the final, which was played […]

I am wrapping up my Transportation Management Systems market study which looks at the total size of the market, the forecasted growth through 2025, and the leading suppliers across a number of categories including industry, region, and customer size. A key piece of the study is looking at the key drivers for TMS growth from […]

The kick-off to the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan is just two weeks away, after being postponed last summer due to the Covid-19 pandemic. During a normal Olympics, millions of spectators flock to venues to watch over 300 events unfold over the course of two-plus weeks. However, this year, like most everything during Covid, […]

Note: Today’s post is part of our “Editor’s Choice” series where we highlight recent posts published by our sponsors that provide supply chain insights and advice. Today’s article is from Kinaxis and explores the TikTok Effect. Or, why you need  demand planning for going viral on social media. Overnight, millions of people are clamoring for […]

A few years ago, I took a family vacation to Copenhagen, where the autonomous train system brought joy to my whole family. One of the things we had planned to see while we were there, but never got around to, was the six forgotten giants, by recycle art activist artist Thomas Dambo. Fast forward three […]

Marisa Brown, Senior Principal Research Lead, Supply Chain Management at APQC (American Productivity & Quality Center) recently gave a presentation at ARC Advisory Group’s Supply Chain Forum. In her presentation, Ms. Brown examined supplier risk during a crisis, supply chain disruption, supply chain risk, and how organizations can shift from surviving to thriving. The following article highlights […]

States continue to push for residents to sign up for the Covid-19 vaccination. In Massachusetts, the state is rolling out the Vax Express this week, which is a partnership between the MBTA and private health startup CIC Health. The program will use an MBTA commuter rail train to create a rolling vaccination site that will […]

Note: Today’s post is part of our “Editor’s Choice” series where we highlight recent posts published by our sponsors that provide supply chain insights and advice. Today’s article is from GlobalTranz and explores white glove services in transportation management. In logistics, not all shipments are equal. There are tiers for rates, mode, and freight class, […]

Supply chain sustainability is increasingly important for the future of business and the world as a whole. Companies are investing more money into sustainability initiatives, seeking to reduce waste and carbon emissions. As we’ve written about a number of times before, global companies are looking at various initiatives when it comes to sustainability, including energy […]

Note: Today’s post is part of our “Editor’s Choice” series where we highlight recent posts published by our sponsors that provide supply chain insights and advice. Today’s article is from Lucas Systems and highlights the benefits of machine learning in the warehouse. Real-world uses of AI in business have exploded in the past decade, but […]

Sometimes, you need to add a little color to make people happy. After World War II, Brussels was in a state of depression. Pierre Draps, founder of Godiva Chocolates, had the company’s delivery trucks painted pink, a color that soon became synonymous with spreading happiness during a dark and difficult time. As we have written […]

Often times, a shot and a beer go hand in hand. And President Biden is making sure the American public knows this; although this is not the traditional shot and a beer you are probably thinking of. The White House has partnered with Anheuser-Busch offering free beers if the country reaches its goal of getting […]

Note: Today’s post is part of our “Editor’s Choice” series where we highlight recent posts published by our sponsors that provide supply chain insights and advice. Today’s article is from Open Sky Group and highlights the need for a smarter transportation management system. Dodge ball. Mention the game and almost everyone has something to say. […]

From a historical perspective, transportation management systems are all about freight savings. However, with the ongoing pandemic, and the resulting capacity crunch, TMS is trending more towards cost mitigation rather than savings. Manhattan Associates unveiled its latest TMS, Manhattan Active Transportation Management, last week during the company’s virtual user conference. Manhattan Active TM was redesigned […]

Amazon has continued to grow its logistics network over the last few years, adding more branded trucks, airplanes, and drones. But the company is not happy with just owning logistics; it continues to expand its Prime benefits. And now, Amazon has added Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) to its portfolio. On Wednesday, Amazon announced it would acquire MGM […]

Sometimes when a company has too many similar options it can cause a lot of confusion. This appears to be the case for Amazon as it has expanded its grocery options over the years. For Amazon customers, things could certainly be a bit overwhelming as they tried to decipher the difference between Amazon Go, Amazon […]

Note: Today’s post is part of our “Editor’s Choice” series where we highlight recent posts published by our sponsors that provide supply chain insights and advice. Today’s article is from Blume Global and highlights why air freight forwarders must help industry increase air cargo visibility. Adversity forces innovation, especially for those resistant to change. With […]

Two adjectives that often describe the most successful supply chains are adaptive and resilient. An adaptive supply chain is one that is able to respond quickly to changes and disruption, and the ensuing changes to demand. A resilient supply chain is able to recover quickly from these disruptions. These terms perfectly describe the Asian Paints […]

Today, May 14, marks 221 years since the 6th United States Congress recessed. It met at Congress Hall in Philadelphia, PA and in Washington, DC from March 4, 1799, to March 4, 1801, during the last two years of John Adams’ presidency. What makes this Congressional recess importance is the fact that it was the […]

Mother’s Day is this weekend, and consumers appear ready to shower mothers with more gifts than ever before. According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), which has been conducting an annual survey on Mother’s Day spending since 2003, as more people are getting vaccinated and stimulus checks are being distributed, consumers are going all out […]

Supply chain sustainability and the concept of “going green” continues to drive a lot of operational initiatives and innovations as companies and countries look at their overall carbon footprint and look for ways to be more environmentally friendly. There is of course a system of checks and balances for global corporations when looking at supply […]

The Noid is back. For those unfamiliar, let me explain. In 1986, when Domino’s Pizza was pushing its 30-minute delivery timeframes, it introduced the Noid in its advertising campaigns. The Noid, wearing a red skin-tight suit with rabbit ears, was a “physical manifestation of all the challenges inherent in getting a pizza delivered in 30 […]

Thirty-six years ago today marks either one of the greatest marketing blunders or success stories of all-time, depending on how you look at it, of course. Concerned that it was losing market share to other soft drinks, and the fact that in some blind taste tests consumers preferred the sweeter taste of Pepsi, Coca-Cola changed […]

Last month I participated in Oracle’s Perfect Delivery Virtual Summit, along with Matt Leonard from Supply Chain Dive, Marcelo de Matheus from Tramontina, and Mohamed Absar from DP World. The point of the virtual summit was to discuss how streamlining the order-to-fulfillment process achieves perfect delivery, improves customer loyalty, and reduces costs. Below are some […]

We are truly living in the smart era; we have smart phones, smart TVs, smart cars, smart appliances, and really just about any other smart item you could imagine. And now, the smart face mask is set to become a reality. In January, game hardware company Razer unveiled what was then called Project Hazel during […]

Over the last year, we have seen shortages of almost everything you can imagine. The most famous shortage, of course, was the toilet paper shortage, which was really more about a shift in usage and panic buying than production. We have also seen shortages of semiconductor chips, shipping containers, and even test monkeys (seriously). And […]

Ashok Vantipalli, Vice President of IT, recently spoke at ARC Advisory Group’s Supply Chain Forum. Mr. Vantipalli works for TireHub and discussed the company’s ongoing digital transformation efforts. They have implemented a variety of supply chain applications to build out the business model, with the mantra of “crawl, walk, run.” They are currently in the walk […]

Note: Today’s post is part of our “Editor’s Choice” series where we highlight recent posts published by our sponsors that provide supply chain insights and advice. Today’s article is by Jim D’Addario, Director of Product Marketing SCM at Oracle, and highlights where to get started on the journey to the perfect delivery, How do you […]

Spring brings about a plethora of annual traditions. For example, yesterday was Major League Baseball’s opening day, which turned into a rainout for my hometown Red Sox. Another yearly tradition is the emergence of annual cicadas, which are found in every US state. This year, however, the annual cicadas will be joined by periodical cicadas, […]

We have certainly seen a large number of companies looking to offset their greenhouse gas emissions and reduce their carbon footprints. A lot of this effort comes down to more sustainable sourcing, which tends to make environmental-conscious consumers happy. But for consumers, it is often difficult to measure the climate impact of what we eat. […]

Three years ago, my colleague Steve Banker wrote an article about the Amazon supply chain, asking if it was the most innovative in the world. In the article, he wrote about Amazon Relay, the acquisition of Whole Foods, Amazon the carrier, and the expansion of its warehousing capabilities. As the world is in year two […]

In April of 2005, just a month after completing my first half marathon (and vowing I would never run a full marathon in my life), I went to the finish line at the Boston Marathon and saw Team Hoyt for the first time. Team Hoyt consisted of father and son duo Dick and Rick Hoyt. […]

Note: Today’s post is part of our “Editor’s Choice” series where we highlight recent posts published by our sponsors that provide supply chain insights and advice. Today’s article is from Logistyx Technologies, and highlights some of the reasons a company would want to implement a cloud multi-carrier parcel management system. Not too long ago, if […]

This past Monday was International Women’s Day, a global holiday celebrated annually to commemorate the cultural, political, and socioeconomic achievements of women. It is also a focal point in the women’s rights movement, bringing attention to issues such as gender equality, reproductive rights, and violence against women. This year’s theme is “choose to challenge” and […]

As part of ARC Advisory Group’s Supply Chain Forum last month, I had the opportunity to speak with Kathleen Geraghty, Vice President of North American Sales at ToolsGroup. During our conversation, we touched on a number of topics around the supply chain planning market. You can watch also the full interview below. Specifically, I asked […]

After nearly a full year of panic, I feel like I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. With more vaccines available, and Massachusetts expanding its eligible pool of those waiting to be vaccinated, I am getting closer to breathing a sigh of relief. This week alone, both my parents and […]

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to speak with Nil Durak, Chief Operating Officer at Solvoyo as part of ARC’s Supply Chain Forum. In this conversation, Nil and I spoke about the big picture of supply chain digital transformation, as well as taking a deeper dive into the supply chain planning market as […]

Note: Today’s post is part of our “Editor’s Choice” series where we highlight recent posts published by our sponsors that provide supply chain insights and advice. Today’s article is from Omer Ucar at Solvoyo. It was mid-March when my flatmate and I burst into a panic as the first cases of COVID-19 were officially announced. […]

Earlier this week, ARC Advisory Group held its 2021 Supply Chain Forum. Titled Accelerating Digital Transformation in Supply Chain & Logistics, the virtual event brought together thought leaders and practitioners to discuss digital transformation and the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on global supply chains. Of course, companies mean different things when they use the […]

ARC Advisory Group engaged in an informative discussion with Derek Gittoes, VP Supply Chain Management Product Strategy at Oracle, as part of ARC’s Digital Supply Chain Forum. Derek recently authored an article on Logistics Viewpoints describing recent advancements in logistics predictability through the application of machine learning. And we thought this to be a great […]

Today is the first day of the Lunar New Year. In case you are not totally familiar, here’s a quick breakdown. The Lunar New Year, which is also called Spring Festival, marks the first full moon of the lunar calendar and generally takes place between January 21 and February 20. The dates of the New […]

The Super Bowl is here, and for what seems like the yearly norm, Tom Brady is playing once again. But this time, things are different for a number of reasons. First, and most obvious, is that Brady is not playing for the Patriots. Instead, he will lead the Tampa Bay Buccaneers into battle against the […]

Tom Brady has done it again. But like everything else in the world, it’s different this time around. For the first time in his career, Brady was not under center for the New England Patriots this season. Instead, he opted to move south this past off-season to take over the reigns for the Tampa Bay […]

One of the most expensive parts of e-commerce has taken on a whole new meaning over the last 12 months: returns. The COVID-19 pandemic led to a surge in e-commerce sales that could not have been predicted. Starting in May, monthly e-commerce sales soared beyond a normal holiday season, with no signs of slowing down. […]

With the ongoing pandemic, all of life’s big events are different, even on the global stage. On Wednesday, Joe Biden was officially inaugurated as the 46th president of the United States. The logistics around the event were difficult, but again they were different. The biggest difference this year was the size of the crowd. Normally, […]

It’s that time of year again: Girl Scout Cookie season. Although, in recent years, the season has really been extended to a year-round event as you can buy them online. But there is still the initial rush when consumers can buy them from their local troop. Of course, the coronavirus pandemic is shifting things as […]

I recently completed my latest study on the transportation execution and visibility solutions market. Transportation execution allow shippers to connect to multiple carriers and then tender, track, and pay in the system.  Visibility solutions allow real-time asset tracking across the entire distribution network.  This enables improved estimated arrival times of goods. These solutions do not […]

Welcome back. I hope everyone had a relaxing holiday season and was able to get some much-needed rest. I know I certainly did. And luckily, unlike a large number of people out there, all of my Christmas packages arrived on time (although there were a few close calls). According to new data, while UPS, FedEx, […]

It’s hard to believe that another year has come and gone. And while it has been one of the most challenging and difficult years in recent memory, it has also been a great year of bringing you the all the biggest supply chain and logistics news. Like in years past, I have learned a lot […]

It’s the last few weeks of the year which means it is time to look back at the year in logistics. And 2020 was certainly quite the year in logistics. As always, it was a busy year covering the latest supply chain and logistics trends, emerging technologies, mergers and acquisitions, major news announcements, and more. […]

Four months ago I mentioned that after 30-plus years of golfing, my mom recorded her very first hole-in-one. As excited as my mom was, I know my dad was equally excited for her. They have been golfing together for the last 30-plus years, playing in tournaments and leagues together. My dad actually has another 30 […]

Even though this year will be very different than other years, the Thanksgiving logistics headaches will continue. The turkey supply chain remains a complex balancing act between supply and demand, especially at the fresh turkey level. Smaller gatherings could have an impact on demand for smaller birds, which can throw an added complexity into the mix. For those that enjoy a Black Friday deal after a day of turkey, this will be a different year as well. A pivot to more online-centric deals looms; and for those that do go to stores, the experience will be vastly different. But then again, everything has been different in 2020.

On Sunday, Richard Branson’s Virgin Hyperloop announced that it had completed the world’s first passenger ride on a super high-speed levitating pod system. For those not familiar with the hyperloop, I’ll explain. A hyperloop system uses magnetic levitation to allow near-silent travel at high speeds; it is the same technology used in high-speed bullet trains. […]

As I wrote earlier this week, the election is behind us – well, maybe not. With record numbers of mail-in votes still being counted, a winner has yet to be declared. As of the writing of this, swing states including Pennsylvania, Nevada, Georgia, and North Carolina were still counting ballots, and the races are too […]

Regardless of whether consumers and retailers are ready, holiday shopping – and shipping – season is here! With carriers announcing capacity shortages and major headlines advertising “Shipageddon,” consumers have been encouraged to start shopping for the holidays NOW.  While this elongated holiday shopping season can certainly create new revenue opportunities for retailers, retailers can only capitalize on the opportunity if their parcel shipping operations are prepared to execute.

The election is behind us (well, maybe not), and during the campaign COVID-19 was a key talking point for both President Trump and former Vice President Biden. One of the biggest questions that still does not have an answer is when a coronavirus vaccine will be ready. Beyond that, there are all the logistical hurdles […]

It’s hard to believe that tomorrow is Halloween. And like everything else over the last six-plus months, Halloween will be different this year. Cities and towns across the country have released trick or treating guidelines that have either canceled the practice or changed it to ensure proper social distancing and mask wearing. In my town, […]

I may be in the minority here, but I’m just going to come out and say it. I do not like glitter. I dislike glitter so much that some of my friends have (jokingly) threatened to send me a glitter bomb package. I’m the only one in my family that feels so strongly about it. […]

Last week’s Amazon Prime Day kicked off what will surely be a wild 2020 holiday season. While the numbers are not official yet, most estimates have Prime Day raking in nearly $10.5 billion in worldwide sales. Not to be outdone, Walmart and Target launched their own online deals to coincide with Prime Day. Black Friday […]

As Boston sports fans, we have become accustomed to duck boat parades. Since 2000, the city has hosted 12 rolling rallies for major sports championships, including 6 for the Patriots, 4 for the Red Sox, and 1 each for the Celtics and Bruins. And if not for a few heartbreaks along the way, that number […]

Note: Today’s post is part of our “Editor’s Choice” series where we highlight recent posts published by our sponsors that provide supply chain insights and advice. Today’s article is from Kinaxis. Outdated software isn’t just a headache to manage. It’s a business blocker. In a moment when unpredictable shifts in the flow of goods to […]

Earlier this week, guitar legend Eddie Van Halen died after a decade-long battle with cancer. He was often referred to as a guitar god, playing with blistering speed and bringing the tapping technique to the mainstream. One of the coolest stories I have heard about him this week was how he came to play the […]

Omni-channel retailing is one of the hottest trend in supply chain management right now. With e-commerce continuing to grow, there is more focus on Web commerce than brick and mortar. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has pushed e-commerce to levels that would not have been believed just six months ago. For example, in the US, May […]

In a normal year, Amazon launches its Prime Day sales extravaganza in the middle of summer. Well, as we all know, this is not a normal year. So, Amazon had to postpone its annual sale due to the impact coronavirus had on demand and shipping capabilities, with a promise of Prime Day at a later […]

Forty-six years ago today, Dr. Frank Jobe performed the first ulnar collateral ligament replacement surgery on baseball player Tommy John. At the time, this was an experimental surgery, and Jobe put the chances for success of the operation at 1 in 100. The procedure is certainly a complex one. A 3 to 4-inch surgical incision […]

As I’ve mentioned a few times here, COVID-19 has changed the nature of my job. Two weeks ago, instead of traveling to an in-person event, I joined the FourKites Visibility 2020 conference from the confines of my home office. The conference was an excellent event, with a clear message of how the company is moving forward during the current pandemic, a vision of what is to come, and a number of customer success stories.

Over the last six-plus months, the coronavirus pandemic has changed virtually every aspect of our lives. We have dealt with the health implications of COVID as well as economic hardships, the closing of schools and businesses, delays and changes to our daily schedules, and a pivot in how many of us work, just to name […]

On June 1, 2020, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) revised the hours of service (HOS) regulations for motor carriers. The HOS final rule will go into effect on September 29th, 2020.
The FMCSA HOS final rule is intended to provide drivers flexibility while promoting safety for drivers on the road. As shippers contend with rising freight rates and managing heightened shipment volumes, while at the same time preparing for retail peak season, understanding the potential impact of the new ruling on truckload capacity is critical to success now and through the end of 2020.

Over the last few months, I’ve seen stories about people receiving random, unidentified seeds in the mail. Usually, the package came from China and had something else listed as the contents on the outside. However, once it was opened, there were just seeds with no description. The USDA in July said the packages were most […]

When it comes to managing your freight spend, there are a few options to consider. The three traditional methods are the use of a transportation management system (TMS), transportation execution system (TES), and managed transportation services (MTS). Ultimately it comes down to whether shippers want to manage their freight spend in-house or outsource it. We […]

As the COVID pandemic continues, we have written a number of articles about the supply chain impact and the shortages of products and supplies that has ensued. Recently, there was a concern that there would be a shortage of glass vials for a vaccine that could hinder production. And I just read about another shortage […]

One of the most difficult and expensive aspects of the supply chain is last mile and home delivery. However, from a customer experience standpoint, it is also the most memorable and possibly important. Home delivery has become an increasingly hot topic as a result, and last week, I spoke on a panel about last mile […]

About a month and a half ago, I wrote about a trend sweeping Facebook nation: “Top 10 Albums that Influence Your Taste in Music.” And as I wrote, there are certain bands that define specific eras of my life. One of the biggest bands in my life over the last 40 years has been Metallica. […]

It is back to school shopping season again, but things sure have changed. With the future uncertain, coronavirus could push back-to-school shopping to record levels as families make contingency plans for remote learning. The National Retail Federation (NRF) and Prosper Insights & Analytics released their annual survey on back-to-school spending, and consumers tentatively plan to […]

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the nature of my job quite a bit. The pandemic hit just as we were heading into our busy conference season. So instead of traveling across the country attending conferences, networking with peers, and in most cases, enjoying a bit of sunshine either by the pool or on the beach, […]

According to the National Hole-in-One Registry, the odds of the average golfer making a hole-in-one are 12,000 to 1. I was actually a little surprised by the odds, as I would have assumed that they were much lower. Last Friday afternoon I received a text message from my mom letting me know that she had […]

As my colleague Clint Reiser pointed out in last week’s news round-up, baseball is back. And while the season will look a lot different than in years past, it is back. At least until it isn’t. Unlike the NHL and NBA which chose to use bubble cities to contain the teams, baseball teams are still […]

Note: Today’s post is part of our “Editor’s Choice” series where we highlight recent posts published by our sponsors that provide supply chain insights and advice. This article comes from Vivek Vaid, CTO at FourKites, and examines how to predict accurate shipments ETAs. Predictive intelligence is a big deal these days. In talking to one […]

I recently wrapped up my Transportation Management Systems market study which looks at the total size of the market, the forecasted growth through 2024, and the leading suppliers across a number of categories including industry, region, and customer size. The study includes a holistic view of the TMS outlook. I was recently interviewed by ARC Advisory Group’s Allen Avery to take a deeper look into the TMS outlook for the foreseeable future and identify some of the larger trends in the TMS market.

It is always interesting to me to see the creative ways that companies try to collect data about their customers. Over the last few years I have seen an increasing number of “challenges” being shared on Facebook that in reality are simply ways to gather more information about its users. These include picture challenges, such […]

I have recently completed a market study and supplier selection guide on the Transportation Management Systems (TMS) market. A TMS helps companies move freight from origin to destination efficiently, reliably, and cost-effectively. Transportation management systems include 2 types of solutions. Planning and execution is focused on freight moves involving a carrier. The complete process would […]

A little over a year and a half ago I saw Hamilton in Boston. The show was incredible, but I always wondered if I missed out by not seeing the original cast on Broadway. When I initially heard that Hamilton was set to hit the big screen in 2021 with a filmed performance by the […]

Note: Today’s post is part of our “Editor’s Choice” series where we highlight recent posts published by our sponsors that provide supply chain insights and advice. This week’s blog comes from Oracle, and examines how the global supply chain responds to turmoil. Disruptions can come in many sizes. From those smaller, everyday disruptions of machines […]

When it comes to TMS and digital freight, there is a lot of interest. More and more TMS suppliers are integrating digital marketplaces into their core TMS offering. As the supply chain world continues down its digital transformation path, digital brokers can play an integral role in easing capacity constraints, opening up new lanes, and providing a benchmarking tool for shippers. It is certainly an exciting time for the TMS market.

Baseball is back! Well, sort of. After a long series of negotiations, Major League Baseball and its players have finally agreed on a format to begin the 2020 season. The season is set to begin in late July and will be condensed to a 60-game schedule with a number of changes from a normal season. […]

If this was a normal year, I would be writing that today is the last day of school for my kids (and my song of the week would clearly be School’s Out by Alice Cooper). However, this is not a normal year. In fact, I would refer to these days as strange days. Massachusetts schools […]

Artificial intelligence has been applied to just about every supply chain application imaginable, including transportation management and execution, demand planning, supply chain planning, warehouse management, and order management. It has also been embedded in autonomous trucks, robots, and drones for navigation. There are myriad applications outside of the supply chain world as well, but I […]

Transportation and coronavirus have been getting a lot of attention lately. The global supply chain is becoming more complex due to increased regulations, trade wars, cross-border commerce, and most recently, the impact of coronavirus. FourKites founder and CEO Matt Elenjickal shares his thoughts on transportation and coronavirus.

Note: Today’s post is part of our “Editor’s Choice” series where we highlight recent posts published by our sponsors that provide supply chain insights and advice. This week’s blog comes from HighJump – now Körber, and examines various warehouse picking technologies and how they compare to voice picking. Warehouse order picking describes the process of […]

UPS has dubbed January 2 as National Returns Day, where the company ships close to 2 million unwanted items back to retailers. While retailers plan for the holiday buying surge for months, they take equal care in preparing for the influx of returns when the holiday season ends. But as we know, 2020 is a […]

Note: Today’s post is part of our “Editor’s Choice” series where we highlight recent posts published by our sponsors that provide supply chain insights and advice. This week’s post comes from Logitsyx Technologies. Now is the right time for retailers to review their transportation strategy and consider the lessons they’re learning during the coronavirus pandemic.  For example, is the transportation strategy flexible? Is it scalable?  Has it met the demands of this unusual environment? Or are changes necessary? Here are six opportunities for retailers to optimize their transportation strategy to meet 2020’s peak season challenges.

Is the future of drones here? There have been plenty of trials that would indicate that home delivery drones are right around the corner. The FAA has loosened restrictions and selected eight companies to help establish technical requirements for home delivery. However, there are still a number of obstacles to overcome. But, for other uses, drones are getting the job done. This includes inventory management within warehouses and yards, monitoring equipment at ports, farms, and job sites, and re-stocking ships at sea. With these use cases in mind, the present and future of drones both look bright when it comes to drones.

On Wednesday, SpaceX was set to become the first piloted launch to orbit of a privately owned and operated spaceship. The launch of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft also would have been the first piloted flight to orbit from US soil in nearly nine years. However, bad weather rolled through Florida and the launch was scrubbed. […]

This Monday is an important day. It is Memorial Day, a US federal holiday to honor and mourn the military personnel who have died while serving in the Armed Forces. But that is not the only important thing happening on Monday. It is also my birthday. And while this is exciting, there is still one […]

The post COVID world will likely look a lot different than what we experienced just a few short months ago. As economies begin to open, restrictions abound and are likely to remain in place until a vaccine is created and administered across the country. In this post COVID world, the supply chain will continue to be a key cog in ensuring that the economy can function, and home deliveries will be the new normal for more and more of our retail needs. To that end, Amazon, FedEx, and UPS have put changes in place to deal with the changing nature of customer demands and interactions.

As the world continues to turn during the coronavirus pandemic, we are all adjusting to the new normal. However, what that new normal will ultimately look like is still an unknown. But for now, there are certain things that we are getting used to, such as social distancing and wearing face covers. But how will […]

This Sunday is Mother’s Day. But it will certainly be different than Mother’s Days of years past. Instead of getting together and enjoying brunch and hug, more people will be looking at socially distanced or virtual celebrations. Even so, people are ready to spend this Mother’s Day. According to an annual survey from the national […]

As an analyst at ARC Advisory Group, this is normally my busy travel time of the year. Along with my colleagues Steve Banker and Clint Reiser, I am usually attending a number of industry and customer events across the country. However, this year things are very different; coronavirus is pushing these events to online virtual […]

Sustainability has been a hot topic in supply chain and manufacturing circles lately. Earlier this week I saw an article about Taylor Guitars, one of the world’s most well-known makers of acoustic guitars, and how it has been looking at alternatives to using exotic wood for its instruments as regulations around the use of exotic […]

A few months ago, I attended the ARC Advisory Group’s Industry Forum in Orlando. While I was there, I had the opportunity to sit down and interview a few ARC analysts including Craig Resnick, Harry Forbes, Inderpreet Shoker, and Jim Frazier. I also had the opportunity to sit down with Ed O’Brien and discuss digital […]

This past Monday was Patriots Day, which in Boston is one of the best sports days of the year. But, due to coronavirus, the Boston Marathon has been pushed off until September (hopefully) and the Red Sox season is on hold. Usually, millions of spectators flock to the historic marathon route to cheer on the […]

The future remains uncertain as the country continues to combat COVID-19. A big question facing the nation is when and how to re-open the economy. While some states are pushing to re-open their economy (or beaches, in the case of Florida), others are cautioning that doing so too early would be socially irresponsible and bad […]

Note: Today’s post is part of our “Editor’s Choice” series where we highlight recent posts published by our sponsors that provide supply chain insights and advice. This week, we look at BluJay Solutions’ Freight Market Index. As we all find ourselves in uncharted territory with the COVID-19 pandemic, data is as critical as ever to […]

It’s a wild world right now. As people everywhere look to flatten the curve, we have tentatively moved beyond the “panic-buying” stage of COVID-19. However, things are rapidly evolving when it comes to grocery shopping. Many stores are limiting the number of people in stores at one time, leading to long lines outside of stores […]

Note: Today’s post is part of our “Editor’s Choice” series where we highlight recent posts published by our sponsors that provide supply chain insights and advice. Today’s article is from Kinaxis. Digital transformation. It sounds oh-so-glamorous at first. But digitization is not a panacea for the world’s (or even just one company’s) supply chain problems. […]

As sports around the world continue their imposed hibernation, the companies that supply athletes and teams with sports equipment are shifting their focus. Rather than producing uniforms, equipment, and apparel, many companies are now producing masks for healthcare professionals as supplies continue to run low. Nike is re-purposing sneakers to make face masks and shields […]

Note: Today’s post is part of our “Editor’s Choice” series where we highlight recent posts published by our sponsors that provide supply chain insights and advice. The concern over COVID-19 remains a hot topic for supply chains, let alone the general public. Yesterday I read a blog from FourKites about how supply chains have remained resilient […]

A couple of months ago I wrote an article about 3D printing and the supply chain, looking at how additive manufacturing can and will impact the end to end global supply chain. Specifically, I looked at how companies are beginning to explore on-demand manufacturing rather than traditional manufacturing models, meaning they can keep less physical […]

The coronavirus pandemic has moved non-essentials employees to their home offices for the last few weeks and for the foreseeable future. This has dramatically increased the popularity of virtual conferencing app Zoom, as employees, students, and friends look to remain connected in this time of isolation. Just how popular has the app become? Currently, it […]

Across the country stay-at-home orders have been extended for another month as we grapple with the ongoing reality of COVID-19. This means that schools, libraries, daycare centers, and other non-essential businesses are closed for the foreseeable future. As a father of young children, this certainly poses a unique set of challenges as my wife and […]

Autonomous technology continues to make an impact on the supply chain. The autonomous supply chain, as I am writing about it here, applies to moving goods without human intervention (to some degree at least). One of the more interesting examples I have seen is from the Belgian brewery De Halve Maan, which in an effort […]

We all knew this day would come eventually. I just don’t think any of us saw it shaking out quite like this. After 20 years, 18 post-seasons, 14 Pro Bowls, 6 Super Bowl championships, 4 Super Bowl MVP awards, 3 regular season MVP awards, and the most dramatic comeback in Super Bowl history, Tom Brady […]

Coronavirus continues to impact the world, stunting supply chains and the global economy. The impact has been far reaching, and at Logistics Viewpoints, we have documented many areas of concern, including the impact on manufacturing supply chains in Southeast Asia, the automotive and pharmaceutical supply chains, the high-tech supply chain, and the impact on retail. […]

Coronavirus is certainly making an impact on the world, and more cases continue to pop up in the US every day. Over the past few days, the NBA, NHL, and MLS have suspended their seasons, MLB is postponing spring training and the start of the season, the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments have been […]

It’s an interesting and unsettling time to be a Boston sports fan. As I’ve noted on here a number of times, we are living in an era of winning that is unprecedented. Every Big 4 team has won at least 1 championship over the last 20 years and the cumulative sits 12. And that number […]

Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start. The Konami Code. For any kid that grew up in the 80’s this code should resonate. It was the guarantee (or at least your best chance) that you could beat Contra, a multi-player, run-and-gun video game developed by Konami in 1988. However, the code […]

Note: Today’s post is part of our “Editor’s Choice” series where we highlight recent posts published by our sponsors that provide supply chain insights and advice. Coronavirus, and the supply chain impact are being felt worldwide. As my colleague Steve Banker and I wrote about last week, coronavirus is leaving its mark on the global […]

Additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, has been around in one shape or form for a while. The process essentially entails building a three-dimensional object from computer-aided design (CAD) to add material layer by layer until a final product is complete. The use cases for 3D printing cover most anything you can imagine. In fact, recently, […]

As technology continues to make incredible advances, there are also annoyances that are commonplace these days. One annoyance is constant privacy concerns over whether or not our devices are listening to us. My wife and I are constantly amazed by the ads that come up in our Facebook feed after a conversation about a TV […]

Sustainability continues to be a hot topic within supply chain management. One area that has proven to be an uphill battle is the reduction of packaging waste for home deliveries. I actually wrote about this topic as one of my very first Logistics Viewpoints articles nearly six years ago. To this day, when I receive […]

Earlier this week, the death toll from the Wuhan coronavirus rose to over 1,000 people, invoking memories of the 2003 SARS outbreak. While the human aspect of this outbreak is clearly the biggest story, the virus is causing major disruptions in global supply chains as well. As my colleague Steve Banker pointed out yesterday, the global high-tech supply chain has been hit particularly hard. But other industries are feeling the impact as well.

I read an interesting article this week about food deserts. For those that don’t know, a food desert is an area that has limited access to affordable and nutritious food. On the other end of the spectrum is a food oasis, which has higher access to supermarkets or vegetable shops with fresh foods. In 2010, […]

The long wait is over, and we are almost ready for kick-off in the Redemption Bowl. I mean Super Bowl. On Sunday night in Miami, FL, the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers will battle it out for football’s ultimate prize. This Super Bowl is a chance at redemption for the coaches, as […]

Indoor vertical farming has been around for quite some time but is starting to garner a lot more attention these days. As the world population continues to expand, so too does the amount of fruits and vegetables needed to feed the world. Generally speaking, we are not creating new farmland to accommodate the increase in fresh food required. Vertical farming can be part of the solution to this problem.

Thirty-six years ago, today, on January 24, 1984, Apple Computer placed the Macintosh personal computer on sale in the United States. This was the first mass-market personal computer that featured a graphical user interface, built-in screen and mouse. Upon its launch, it was bundled with two applications designed to show off its interface: MacWrite and […]

Today’s post is part of our “Editor’s Choice” series where we highlight recent posts published by our sponsors that provide supply chain insights and advice. This week’s post is from Manhattan Associates. The explosion of e-commerce has impacted every part of the supply chain, from distribution centers to inventory and transportation. Manhattan’s podcast, Transportation Disruption, […]

One hundred and one years ago Wednesday, a bizarre disaster struck the city of Boston: the Great Molasses Flood. The disaster has also been known as Boston Molasses Disaster, the Great Boston Molasses Flood, or, in a clever play on words, the Boston Molassacre. In the North End, a storage tank filled with 2.3 million […]

A record crowd of 40,000 people attended the National Retail Federation (NRF) Big Show in New York City this week to see what new solutions and innovations software suppliers had in store for 2020 and beyond. The usual themes were still very present as solution providers and retailers alike were more than happy to talk […]

Welcome back to the Logistics Viewpoints weekly news round-up. I certainly had a busy, but refreshing, break over the holidays. But somehow the beginning of the new year seems different this time around. I suppose that is because for the first time in a decade my beloved New England Patriots are not in the divisional […]

It’s the last few weeks of the year which means it is time to look back at the year in logistics. As always, it was a busy year covering the latest supply chain and logistics trends, emerging technologies, mergers and acquisitions, major news announcements, and more. We want to take this opportunity to reflect on […]

It’s hard to believe that we have reached the end again. And by that, I mean the last Logistics Viewpoints news round-up of the year. It’s been another great year bringing you the news. It’s also been another great year of learning. I’ve learned so much from reading and researching so many supply chain news […]

And like that, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Giving Tuesday are in the books. This means we have hit peak holiday shopping and shipping season. This year, however, there is an added wrinkle for retailers. Namely, with Thanksgiving being so late this year, retailers are left with six less days of holiday shopping after Black […]

It was such a surprising victory, that my wife and I were actually giddy. Now, neither one of us are what I would call “dog people.” However, we put on the replay of the National Dog Show on Thanksgiving night mostly to crack jokes about how much the movie Best in Show rings true. Additionally, […]

Sustainability continues to be big news in the global supply chain, and many global brands have put timeframes on sustainability efforts. One notable example is McDonald’s USA, which pledged to make its coffee supply chain 100 percent sustainable by the end of 2020. I saw late last week that the company had achieved its goal […]

Next Thursday is Thanksgiving, which as I pointed out last year, is a time for FFFTT –  family, friends, football, thankfulness, and turkey. Thanksgiving is also a time for logistics headaches. The holiday is centered around the big family meal, and the food supply chain tied to that meal is complex. But there are a […]

We are still 35 days away from winter, but more than 230 million people in the US feel like they are in the depths of the cold season already. Earlier this week, an arctic blast swept the eastern two-thirds of the country, plunging temperatures below freezing, breaking hundreds of cold temperature records. On Wednesday morning […]

Over the years, rats have shown an ability to navigate a maze in search of food. Well, it turns out that rats are becoming a bit more sophisticated. Recently, a group of rats at the University of Richmond in Virginia have mastered the ability to drive miniature cars to collect food. For the experiment, the […]

A few weeks ago, I wrote an article that gave a snapshot of the transportation execution and visibility systems market. In that article, I highlighted the evolving nature of technology and how machine learning, IoT, and blockchain are helping to fuel market growth. I also highlighted the that are contributing to rapid growth, such as […]

It looked like the Houston Astros were finally going to end the bizarre pattern of World Series games this fall. And by that, I mean the home team would finally win a game. But the visiting Washington Nationals had other ideas, and for the first time ever, the visiting team won every game of a […]

As the old adage goes, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. But what happens when that imitation comes from the person they are imitating? And what happens when that form of imitation is seen as copyright infringement on a band’s song? Well, in 1988, John Fogerty faced a very rare court case in which […]

I am finishing up my latest market study on global transportation execution and visibility systems. Transportation Execution Solutions (TE) allow shippers to connect to multiple carriers and then tender, track, and pay in the system. Visibility solutions allow real-time asset tracking across the entire distribution network. This enables improved estimated arrival times of goods. Visibility […]

Stranger Things has been one of the better shows around in recent years. And now, an iconic piece of the show is up for sale. Most of the Georgia mall heavily featured in the third season of the show is going up for sale. Moonbeam Capital Partners is ready to sell its portion of the […]

Sustainability has been a really hot topic around here lately. We’ve touched upon ways that companies are reducing their carbon footprint, re-engineering products to include recyclable materials, and using sustainable energy at their factories. But one area that often times goes under the radar is how to re-use consumer goods products that are already out […]

The global food supply chain is complex, vast, and vital to human existence. For that reason, when there are disruptions to the food supply chain, it makes major headlines. These headlines come in all shapes and sizes, including disruptions due to food recalls, natural disasters, disease, and political unrest, among others. Perhaps the biggest threat […]

We have written extensively about the future of self-driving vehicles on this platform. And while we usually stick to autonomous trucks and mobile robots, we occasionally look at the current and future state of autonomous cars. As Elon Musk continues to build his empire, with a nod to the autonomous trucking world, one has to […]

Wednesday September 25, marked the 39th anniversary of John Bonham’s death. Also known as Bonzo or the Beast, Bonham was arguably the greatest drummer in rock n’ roll history. While I may personally be partial to Keith Moon’s overall body of work, Bonzo was immensely talented and a larger than life figure. Bonham was ranked […]

Omni-channel continues to be one of the hottest trends in supply chain management today, basically touching every software application you can imagine. In order to truly be omni-channel, retailers and brand manufacturers must provide a unified brand experience for their customers. This is true for all three major phases of the customer journey – before, […]

Last week, I wrote about the robot uprising that is going on in the store, where retailers are using robots for a variety of tasks, including stock checks, damage control, and customer service. So, what happens when a robot cannot fulfill its responsibilities and makes too many mistakes. Well, it turns out that after getting […]

Ah yes, it is officially palindrome week. This year, however, palindrome week takes on a whole new significance. After next Thursday (9/19/19), there will not be an official palindrome week until 2021 (we don’t count putting a 0 in front of the month around here). This is the end of a wonderful run of years, […]

The robot uprising is coming to a store near you. And no, I’m not talking about Skynet building T-1000 Terminators to take over the world (or store in this case). I am talking about how the retail store is drastically changing to become more automated, using artificial intelligence, and relying on non-human assistance for check-outs, […]

It’s that time of year again. And no, I don’t mean back to school or the home stretch of the baseball season. I mean football season is kicking off. And once again, my hometown Patriots are set to raise another Super Bowl banner on opening night. In a step away from the norm, the NFL […]

For the last few months, Patriots fans have been wondering what Rob Gronkowski’s “next chapter” will be. As a fan, my obvious hope was that after some down time and the chance to heal his body, he would decide to rejoin the team. Earlier this week, Gronkowski held a press conference to finally announce his […]

Sustainability is an initiative that thankfully more companies are taking on. One area of concern for a lot of people is around single-use coffee pods. These pods are one of the best (or worst) examples of unnecessary single-use plastics that are polluting our planet. Coffee pods can wind up in rivers where they wash into […]

I recently wrapped up my Transportation Management Systems market study which looks at the total size of the market, the forecasted growth through 2023, and the leading suppliers across a number of categories including industry, region, and customer size. The study includes a holistic view of the TMS outlook. A TMS helps companies move freight […]

It’s nice to be back bringing you the logistics news round-up again. My colleagues took over for me the last two Fridays as I was on vacation exploring Ireland and Northern Ireland. It was such an amazing trip on so many levels. First there was the family aspect. I saw family I hadn’t seen in […]

It used to be that if you wanted marijuana, you got the flower bud and smoked it in either a joint or pipe of some sort. Today, however, the options are expanding. Aside from the traditional bud, marijuana dispensaries offer various forms of marijuana concentrates, including shatter, wax, crumble, sugar, honeycomb, sap, and oil (apparently […]

Sometimes things go as planned and sometimes they don’t. However, even when they don’t go as planned, this create a huge business opportunity. In an effort to promote sustainability, many towns and cities, mine included, have begun to crack down on plastic bags in stores. And when I say crack down, I mean they banned […]

The Transportation Management System market continues to grow at an impressive rate. I’ll get to the main factors that are driving this growth in another article, but the main reason is the robust ROI attributed to a TMS. Companies buy a TMS to achieve freight savings which can be attributed to simulation and network design, […]

They’ve done it again! The US Women’s National Soccer Team has won a fourth World Cup championship in Lyon, France last Sunday. This victory also marked back-to-back World Cup championships, which is the first time a women’s team has accomplished the feat, joining only men’s winners Italy (1934, 1938) and Brazil (1958, 1962). To say […]

Tomorrow is the 4th of July, a holiday celebrating American independence, fireworks, and backyard BBQs. And like any good American holiday, consumers are ready to spend some money. The National Retail Federation (NRF) has been conducting its annual Independence Day survey with Prosper Insights & Analytics since 2003. The survey looks at the spending habits […]

The spotted lanternfly is becoming a problem and states are beginning to lean on truckers to help them in their fight to control the pest. The spotted lanternfly is an invasive, plant-hopping pest that hitches rides on trucks and other vehicles. It is currently spreading along busy transportation corridors in the mid-Atlantic region, threatening billions […]

I saw an article earlier this week that detailed how Amazon has gone about testing its delivery robots. The robot revolution is gaining a lot of traction and lots of companies are looking at how they can use robots to make last mile deliveries (see Dominos Pizza article below). Many companies have done initial testing […]

I recently wrapped up my Managed Transportation Services market study which looks at the total size of the market, the forecasted growth through 2023, and the leading suppliers across a number of categories including industry, region, and customer size. In an MTS arrangement, a shipper contracts with a third party to plan and execute their […]

So close, yet so far away. I actually can’t believe that I am not writing an intro to the news round-up about Boston sports and our monopoly on titles. Unfortunately, after a valiant run, and a decisive game 6 victory to force a game 7, the Bruins were unable to bring the Stanley Cup home. […]

After 32 victories and $2,462,216 in earnings, the run is finally over. Of course, I am talking about James Holzhauer’s Jeopardy win streak, which ended earlier this week, about $60,000 shy of Ken Jennings’s record of $2,522,700 in a 74-game winning streak in 2004. And while the big loss was not much of a surprise […]

A few weeks ago, I spoke with Keli Sanford, Logistics Manager at Ocean Spray. In that role, Keli is responsible for inbound raw materials going into the plant and finished goods leaving the plant, as well as overseeing Canadian warehousing and transportation. In her years at Ocean Spray, Keli has had a lot of first-hand […]

I was on the young side to fully understand how devastating the 1986 World Series loss to the Mets was for Red Sox fans, but I certainly couldn’t escape it growing up. And unfortunately, for one of baseball’s better players over the last 40 years, he couldn’t escape it either. Obviously, I am talking about […]

I was listening to the BBC Newshour earlier this week and heard an interesting story about the rise of a new class of race cars: Forumla E. This class, which uses only electric-powered cars, was conceived in 2011, and had its first championship in Beijing in 2014. Since the beginning of the series, the cars […]

It’s been a busy few weeks around these parts as the conference season winds down. Over the last few weeks I, along with my colleagues Steve Banker and Clint Reiser, have made the rounds on the conference scene. Our trips included HighJump Elevate, Oracle Modern Business Experience, Descartes Evolution, Promat, BluJay Soar, MercuryGate Velocity, Transplace […]

It has been almost two years since Amazon acquired Whole Foods for $13.7 billion in cash. And over these two years, changes have been made to Whole Foods, at the corporate level and down to the individual store as well. Some of these changes have been for the good, while others have left people questioning […]

This Sunday is Mother’s Day, a day to celebrate moms everywhere. According the NRF’s annual look into Mother’s Day spending, an estimated 84 percent of consumers are planning gift purchases for their mothers (or wives). And like most holiday spending trends, Mother’s Day spending has consistently grown over the last decade. And in 2019, consumers […]

I spent the last three days in Las Vegas attending the MercuryGate Velocity user conference. This was my third time attending a MercuryGate conference and with over 450 attendees, this was the largest one yet. The theme of the conference this year was Innovate Today, Own Tomorrow. This was an extremely fitting theme for both […]

As history tells us, following Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, John Wilkes Booth fled to southern Maryland and then Virginia. There, Union soldiers surrounded the barn where Booth and his co-conspirator were hiding out, set the barn on fire, and in the ensuing chaos, shot and killed Booth on April 26, 1865. Or did they? The Philadelphia […]

Two of my all-time favorite musicians are Jimi Hendrix and Pete Townshend. Aside from being musical masterminds, these two had something else in common – smashing their guitars on stage. During the 60’s, Hendrix would often light his guitar on fire before smashing it to pieces; Townshend would often smash his guitar and amps before […]

A while back, I wrote about the managed transportation services (MTS) market. According to ARC’s definition, in an MTS arrangement, a shipper contracts with a third party to plan and execute their moves for them. In other words, instead of having internal planners plan and execute moves, those planners are employed by the MTS supplier, […]

He’s back! Eleven years after his last major win, Eldrick Tont “Tiger” Woods won the Masters for the fifth time, while notching his 15th total major victory. In doing so, Woods moved closer to Jack Nicklaus’ record 18 major wins. To put that in perspective, of all active golfers, Phil Mickelson is second in career […]

A few weeks ago, I spoke with Kim Harper-Gage, Senior Vice President, Operations and Supply Chain at Iconex. Iconex is the world’s largest maker of paper receipt rolls for the retail, banking, and restaurant industry. Additionally, the company makes custom labels for various industries such as logistics and retail. Iconex is a global company with […]

We are heading into what I can only call one of the single greatest days of the year in Boston: Patriots’ Day. The holiday officially commemorates the “shot heard round the world,” or the first shots fired at the battles of Lexington and Concord and the beginning of the American Revolutionary War. The region marks […]

On April 1, I saw a very interesting piece of news that I just couldn’t believe. Passel, a sharing economy company that has shoppers (dubbed Passers) deliver goods to other shoppers, made a major announcement on how items would be delivered. The company’s R&D division announced that Passers would have the option of engaging drones […]

There’s an old proverb “that all good things must come to an end.” As a New England Patriots fan, that ending came a lot sooner than I would have liked. Earlier this week, Rob Gronkowski announced that he is retiring from the NFL. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a player quite like Gronk. When […]

I’m coming to you live from Naples, FL at the 2019 Descartes Evolution Conference. This was my third time attending the event and as always, it did not disappoint. This year marked the largest conference yet, with more than 650 attendees; in fact, it has outgrown its old location in West Palm Beach and from […]

I spent the majority of this week in Las Vegas attending the Oracle Modern Business Experience conference at the Mandalay Bay. From a supply chain perspective, the conference looked into how disruptive technologies like IoT and blockchain are impacting supply chain management and the benefits and efficiencies they can add. The sessions were both informative […]

St Patrick’s Day is this weekend, where everyone is a little bit Irish. And it wouldn’t be a holiday without Americans spending a lot of money. So just how much money will be spent this year? According to the National Retail Federation’s (NRF) annual survey on St Patrick’s Day, about 55 percent of Americans plan […]

As I wrote about a few weeks ago, I spent the first week of February in Orlando attending ARC Advisory Group’s Industry Forum. The event had a heavy focus on how digitizing factories, cities, and infrastructure will benefit technology end users and suppliers alike. While I was there, I had the opportunity to sit down […]

One of the things I like best about the user conference season, other than seeing new innovative technologies and learning from my peers, is the fact that I actually get to watch movies on my flights. I recently watched Bohemian Rhapsody, the based-on-reality movie about the life and times of Queen and its front man […]

I spent the better of the last week in the sunny, warm confines of Southern Florida. It was a harsh dose of reality coming back to Boston and a snow storm. On our trip we saw iguanas, sea turtles, vultures, (wild) alligators, and a host of other animals. When it comes to animals, one of […]

Last summer, I wrote an article about the future of electric trucks. Notably, I outlined that the industry was ready to transition to zero-emission trucks and that a number of major manufacturers including Tesla, Daimler, Thor, and Toyota had unveiled electric class-8 trucks while UPS, FedEx and DHL had unveiled electric class-6 parcel trucks. But […]

Last year, I wrote about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which upon further review, may be significantly larger than previously thought. The plastic floating waste contains at least 79,000 tons of material spread over 1.6 million square kilometers. While a lot of the materials come from humans’ ocean activities, such as abandoned fishing nets and […]

According to the National Retail Federation’s (NRF) annual Valentine’s Day survey with Prosper Insights & Analytics, Americans were expected to spend a record amount on Valentine’s Day this year despite a years-long decrease in the percentage of people celebrating the holiday. Those celebrating planned to spend $3.9 billion on jewelry (given by 18 percent), $3.5 […]

The key for AMRs is that they enable workers to be more productive due to constant collaboration. During Steve Banker’s panel discussion on AMRs at ARC Advisory Group’s Forum last week, the four panelists made two key points about AMRs. First, robots are not replacing human workers, but rather, are assisting them. Second, warehouse labor is becoming harder to find and more expensive to train and retain. These two reasons are why there will be an increase in AMRs in the warehouse.

The Patriots have done it again, winning their third Super Bowl in five years, and sixth since the turn of the century. This was certainly not the game most people expected; with two high-powered offenses, most football fans were excited for a shoot-out. Instead, the Patriots defense shut down the second highest scoring offense in […]

It’s that time of year again – Super Bowl weekend. According to the National Retail Federation’s (NRF) annual Super Bowl survey, American adults say they will spend an average of $81.30 on the Super Bowl, for a total of $14.8 billion. The survey found that 72 percent of adults plan to watch the game, down […]

Sustainability and the concept of “going green” has been a hot topic lately, especially as companies and countries look at their overall carbon footprint and look for ways to be more environmentally friendly. Of course, there is a system of checks and balances for global corporations, as even though they may have the best intentions, […]

This past Sunday was a remarkable day for the NFL, with both conference title games going to overtime for the first time ever. Here in Boston, it was business a usual, as Tom Brady and the Patriots advanced to yet another Super Bowl. But in New Orleans, a horrible missed pass interference call has left […]

Tuesday, January 15 marked the tenth anniversary of the dramatic landing of US Airways Flight 1549. I happen to be in New York for NRF on that day, so not surprisingly I saw a lot of media coverage. Shortly after takeoff, the Airbus A320 hit a flock of geese and lost all engine power. The […]

Another year, another NRF Big Show in the books. This year marked my eleventh visit to New York City for retail’s biggest show. This appeared to be the biggest conference from any that I have attended, with some estimates suggesting 36,000 people were there. As in the past, the usual themes emerged: omni-channel, mobility, big […]

I’ve written about the threat of cargo theft on here multiple times. One of the largest categories has always been food and beverage. Well, this week, more than $500,000 worth of Patron Tequila has been stolen from a Florida rest stop. After enjoying dinner, a truck driver noticed that his trailer (and the contents) were […]

Happy new year and welcome back to the Logistics Viewpoints news round-up. The holiday season was another record breaking year, as customers flocked to the web and to the store for all their gift-giving needs. And for those living near the Dutch coast, an additional round of gifts is showing up. Or should I say […]

This is the end of the line. And by the end of the line, I mean this is our last news round-up for the year. And what a year it is has been. In my article earlier this week, I highlighted the top articles of the year, which included our takes on Amazon and Tesla’s […]

We have entered the final weeks of the Logistics Viewpoints year. As always, it was a busy year covering the latest supply chain and logistics trends, emerging technologies, mergers and acquisitions, major news announcements, and more. Like in years past, we wanted to look back at the Top 10 most popular articles written this year […]

Amazon is used to making headlines, especially as it continues its technology evolution within its warehouses. One area that Amazon has focused on is the use of robots in the warehouse. In fact, Amazon holds an annual contest, dubbed the Amazon Picking Challenge, where teams compete to build robots capable of efficiently picking and packing […]

Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Giving Tuesday are in the books, and we are in the full swing of the holiday shopping, and shipping, season. Over the years, as e-commerce has grown and retailers are shipping more packages than ever before, holiday logistics has become a make or break area for these companies. The nightmare […]

After traveling through space for six months, the Mars InSight officially touched down on the red planet earlier this week. InSight is short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, and according to NASA, will give the planet its “first thorough check-up since it formed 4.5 billion years ago.” The mission is […]

Last week, I read an interesting report from LLamasoft (a Logistics Viewpoints sponsor) that looked into the impact of economic nationalism on global manufacturers. The study found that more than half of global manufacturers would make changes to their supply chain due to economic nationalism. The study also looked at the impact of technology on […]

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, a time for FFFTT –  family, friends, football, thankfulness, and turkey. Lots of turkey. According to some reports I have seen, Americans will spend more than $1 billion on the 50+ million turkeys they will consume. Some of the biggest news that I have seen, however, is the technology upgrade that is […]

On Monday, November 12, Stan Lee, writer, editor, and publisher of Marvel Comics died. Working closely with Jack Kirby at Marvel, Lee created some of the most iconic superheroes, including Spider-Man, Iron Man, the X-Men, the Hulk, Thor, Daredevil, the Fantastic Four, Black Panther, Ant-Man, and more. Over the course of his career, he would […]

Amazon has finally decided upon its second headquarters. Or has it? According to multiple reports, Amazon will build out two smaller “headquarters” as supplements to the main headquarters in Seattle, WA. The location of the two outposts, Long Island City, NY and Arlington, VA, are not overly surprising, considering the interest from the Washington, DC […]

One of the major trends driving TMS implementations is the technology’s proven ROI. Primarily, a TMS can save companies money by lowering their freight spend. An ARC survey on the ROI of TMS found that respondents indicated freight savings of approximately 8 percent with the use of a TMS application, a 2 percent improvement from […]

For the 4th time in the last 15 years, the Red Sox are the World Series champs! The funny thing is I made a very specific bet a long time ago. To be exact, the year the was 2001, at the beginning of the baseball season and the end of my senior year of college. […]

Last week I mentioned that the Panama Canal expansion has resulted in record breaking tonnage moving through the waterway. The expansion was surely an engineering feat, using the latest technology to improve the global supply chain. However, engineering feats such as building a massive canal did not always have access to this level of technology. […]

The stock market has been in the news a lot lately over the past few weeks. This is due to the volatility of the market as it has experienced huge swings just this week alone. On Wednesday, the DOW was down over 300 points, with losses picking up right after the release of the Federal […]

Halloween is a mere two weeks away, and the shopping season is in full swing. And by “in full swing,” I mean that consumers are spending big bucks on all the Halloween essentials. According to the National Retail Federation’s (NRF) annual survey conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics, Halloween spending is expected to exceed $9 […]

Going, going, gone. Those words were posted on Instagram, along with a picture of his “Girl with Balloon” canvas print, by the renowned and mysterious street artist Banksy shortly after the piece of art had sold for nearly $1.4 million at auction. Why going, going, gone? Well, Banksy, who has a history of pranking the […]

We have officially entered one of my favorite parts of the year – October. The days are getting cooler, the football season is in full swing, hockey season is starting, and it’s the beginning of the baseball playoffs. For the first time since 2004, the Red Sox and Yankees will face off in the playoffs, […]

As I mentioned in my news round-up last week, Hurricane Florence has brought an estimated $40+ billion in damages to North Carolina. So far, I have written about the 60 percent drop in freight activity coming out of the state, as well as the closures and slow re-openings of both ports and I-95. Some truck […]

Today marks the 237th anniversary of the beginning of the Siege of Yorktown, the last major land battle in the American Revolutionary War. The timing seems appropriate as last weekend I finally saw Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s masterpiece about the life and death of founding father Alexander Hamilton. It was an incredibly special night as I […]

The wait is over, and the show is finally here. I’ve mentioned on here a few times how my kids (and my wife and I) have become obsessed with Lin-Manuel Miranda’s masterpiece that is Hamilton. Well, this weekend, we finally get to see it live. And while the touring cast does not feature Miranda, or […]

When it comes to retail and supply chain, omni-channel continues to be one of the most talked about topics wherever you look. Omni-channel extends through all phases of the customer journey – before, during, and after the sale – and has an impact on nearly every software application you can think of. Historically, the brick […]

Every acquisition has its growing pains, right? Well, Amazon is seeing that now with its acquisition of Whole Foods as a group of Whole Foods employees are seeking to establish a union for the company’s 85,000+ workers. The group recently wrote a letter to Whole Foods employees citing that they are concerned about the “direction […]

And like that, summer is over and the kids are back to school. But this year is a little different, as my daughter has joined her big brother at the elementary school and started kindergarten. For some reason when my son started kindergarten, it didn’t seem like it was as big of a deal to […]

The on-demand supply chain market is experiencing significant interest and growth right now. Within the on-demand supply chain, I am specifically talking about the transportation and warehousing segments, where investment money is pouring in to digital freight matching apps, crowdsourced last miles deliveries, and on-demand warehousing. While these businesses are still in the early stages […]

In October 2015, Asteroid 2015 TB145, dubbed the Halloween Asteroid, passed within 302,000 miles (just over 1 lunar distance) of the Earth. The asteroid is an estimated 2,297 feet in width, making it the largest object to pass that close to the Earth since 2006. The asteroid is expected to pass by the earth again […]

Electric trucks have been in the news a lot lately, especially as Tesla has made multiple announcements regarding the highly anticipated release of its Class 8 semi-truck. However, the state of Tesla’s supply chain, along with the skepticism regarding the design of the truck, had the public wondering if it would actually come to fruition. […]

According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), total spending for K-12 schools and college combined is projected to reach $82.8 billion, nearly as high as last year’s $83.6 billion. The top four categories for back to schoolers (not back to college) are clothing ($236 million), electronics ($187 million), shoes ($138 million), and supplies ($122 million). […]

Food waste and its impact on supply chains and the environment has been a hot topic lately. Tesco has scrapped “best by” dates on packaging to reduce waste, and Circular Systems is pioneering new tech to convert food crop waste – like banana peels and hemp stalks – into wearable fibers. Two more companies are […]

I’m kicking off a new study on Managed Transportation Services (MTS). In an MTS arrangement, a shipper contracts with a third party to plan and execute their moves for them. In other words, instead of having internal planners plan and execute moves, those planners are employed by the MTS supplier, but work on the shipper’s […]

Growing up in the 80’s, malls were a pretty big deal. They were the social hotspots for teenagers, the place where you could buy anything (so the original Amazon), and even spawned a full-on tour for Tiffany, aptly named “The Beautiful You: Celebrating the Good Life Shopping Mall Tour ’87.” One of the best things […]

I’m back at it, after a two-week vacation to Copenhagen, Denmark. I have to say that Copenhagen was one of the cleanest and family-friendliest cities I have ever been to. In all, it was an amazing trip. As an analyst that covers logistics, I feel as though there are two points I have to make […]

President Trump has been quite vocal when discussing US trade deals, often lamenting how the US has been getting the short end of the stick on almost every trade deal. One of his first moves as President was to pull the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) citing it as a bad deal. Since then, […]

I just finished my latest research on the global market for Transportation Execution and Visibility Systems. Transportation Execution Solutions (TE) allow shippers to connect to multiple carriers and then tender, track, and pay in the system. Visibility solutions allow real-time asset tracking across the entire distribution network. This enables improved estimated arrival times of goods. Visibility […]

The group play stage of the 2018 World Cup is over and the tournament has moved on to the knockout stage, where the remaining 16 teams will play a single elimination tournament. Notice I said remaining 16 teams and not the best 16 teams. This is due to the somewhat unfair nature of the random […]

After nearly 10 months (including 5 snow days), today marks the last day of school for my kids. I’m sure they will come pouring out the front door with screams of excitement, knowing that vacation has officially begun. This vacation will consist of camps, the pool, a few trips, no homework, and most importantly, the […]

I am currently finishing up my latest market study on global transportation execution and visibility systems solutions. Transportation Execution Solutions (TE) allow shippers to connect to multiple carriers and then tender, track, and pay in the system. Visibility solutions allow real-time asset tracking across the entire distribution network. This enables improved estimated arrival times of […]

Last weekend, at the Belmont Stakes, Justify made history. The American thoroughbred racehorse became just the thirteenth American Triple Crown winner. For those of you unfamiliar with the Triple Crown, it means winning the three biggest races in the US – the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont Stakes. While the last Triple Crown […]

My kids have officially become obsessed with Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s masterpiece musical about the life of American Founding Father Alexander Hamilton. Every time we get in the car, the first thing they ask for is to listen to Hamilton. They sing the songs constantly, day and night, taking turns between who gets to be Alexander […]

Towards the end of last year, Steve Banker and I met with Greg Lehmkuhl, President & CEO, Sudarsan Thattai, CIO, and Chris Timmer, SVP Sales and Value-Added Services from Lineage Logistics. The name Lineage Logistics may not be a household name, but that is something the leadership team is used to. However, Lineage, a mid-cap […]

As hard as it is to believe, today is already June 1, the 152nd day in the Gregorian calendar (153rd day in a leap year). There have been some pretty big moments in history that took place on June 1. Examples include Anne Boleyn was crowned Queen of England in 1533(for a short period of […]

And like that, my spring conference season is over. For three straight weeks I traveled to Florida attending user conferences, learning from peers, exploring innovative solutions, racking up JetBlue points, and spending lots of time in an Uber. Each of the three conferences, JDA, Pitney Bowes, and Manhattan Associates, offered dynamic content and a glimpse […]

I am coming to you live from Manhattan Momentum 2018, in Hollywood, FL at the Diplomat Beach Resort. This year’s theme is “Push Possible” which is very fitting. CEO Eddie Capel explained that push possible is all about pushing the envelope with actionable, measurable solutions. It means bringing in bigger and brighter ideas, to push […]

I spent the beginning of the week (for the second straight week) in Orlando. This time, I was speaking at the Pitney Bowes Retail (R)Evolution conference. The conference as a whole was a great event, with the two days splitting up the complete customer shopping journey and overall experience. One of the highlights (aside from […]

I spent the beginning of this week in Orlando, attending the JDA Focus conference. This is one of the busy times in the life of an analyst, as we head into conference season. And for me, conference season means lots of trips to Florida. In fact, my travel earlier this week was the first of […]

I am writing this post from Orlando, FL, where I am attending JDA Focus 2018. The theme of the conference was “Expectations. Fulfilled.” and based on some of the new product strategies that were announced, it seems to be an appropriate theme. The big news from the conference was the launch of the JDA Luminate […]

This past weekend, I had what I would call an 80’s throwback weekend. On Friday, I went to see a Guns n’ Roses “cover band” in Cambridge. Now this band is made up of musicians that my wife went to college with, so there was a strong college contingent. They also all have real jobs, […]

Last month, I mentioned in my news roundup intro that the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” may be significantly larger than previously thought. It turns out that the plastic waste floating in the Pacific Ocean between California and Hawaii contains at least 79,000 tons of material spread over 1.6 million square kilometers. That’s the equivalent mass […]

I recently wrote an article about the factors contributing to the growth of the omni-channel order management system (OMS) market. Some of these factors include changing customer expectations, the rise of B2B use cases, the store’s changing role in the retail landscape, and the use of artificial intelligence. However, adoption rates of an omni-channel OMS […]

April 17 was Tax Day in the United States. And it appears that many Americans (myself included) were giant procrastinators this year. While I didn’t wait until the very last minute to file, many millions of Americans did. And when they did, they discovered they were in a nightmare scenario – they couldn’t file their […]

In the Boston area, this is one of the best weekends of the year – Patriot’s Day weekend. And the biggest tradition of Patriot’s Day weekend is the running of the Boston Marathon on Monday, where 30,000+ runners will trek the 26.2 miles from Hopkinton to Boston. Every runner has a story, whether they are […]

A few months ago, I wrote an article about using crowdsourced deliveries for last mile success. In the article, I touched upon a few key points regarding crowdsourced deliveries. First was the rapidly expanding market for crowdsourced deliveries. Major retailers such as Target, BestBuy, Macy’s, Staples, and Walgreens, to name a few, are currently offering […]

It’s Masters Weekend – one of the most glorious weekends of the year for golf fans. This year’s tournament marks the return of Tiger Woods, who will be competing in his first Masters since 2015, when he finished tied for 17th. While Tiger will clearly be a dominant storyline, one of the feel-good stories has […]

A few weeks ago, I wrote an article about drone deliveries, and whether or not they were actually close to a reality. In that article, I outlined a few practical applications for drones, as well as some of the more hypothetical uses. Well, this week has shown us that aside form practical uses, companies are […]

I am kicking off some new research on the Transportation Execution and Visibility Systems market in the next week or so. This will be an update on a study Steve Banker did a few years ago, which looked mostly at the execution space, and how the Uber for Freight model was disrupting the market. According […]

According to recent research, the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” may be significantly larger than previously thought? Just how big is it? Well, the plastic waste floating in the Pacific Ocean between California and Hawaii contains at least 79,000 tons of material spread over 1.6 million square kilometers. That’s the equivalent mass of 6500 school buses, […]

Sásta Lá Fhéile Pádraig! Or, for those of you that don’t speak or read Gaelic, Happy St. Patrick’s Day! While the holiday originated as a celebration of the traditional death date of Saint Patrick (c. AD 385–461), the foremost patron saint of Ireland, it has certainly morphed into something else. It is now a day […]

The United States has been lagging behind other parts of the world when it comes to the testing and adoption of drones for last mile deliveries. This is not due to a lack of interest or research and development efforts from some of the largest drone manufacturers. In fact, companies such as Amazon, Google, and […]

Three years ago, Hamilton, the critically acclaimed rap musical about founding father Alexander Hamilton was in its first run Off-Broadway. After a couple of extensions, the show moved to Broadway, and has recently begun touring the US. In case you’ve been living under a rock and haven’t heard of it, the play was written by […]

The 2018 Winter Olympics are officially in the books. Last week, I wrote about the US women’s hockey team’s incredible victory over Canada to claim gold. Well, they weren’t the only US ice team to claim victory. The men’s curling team, which had finished last and second-to-last in the last two Olympics, brought home the […]

Omni-channel continues to push the bounds of commerce, with companies scrambling to meet customer expectations without sacrificing the bottom line. The rise of e-commerce has been an incredible journey, and one that has opened up new opportunities for retailers and consumer brands alike. But, with the rise of these opportunities comes the growing pains associated […]

This Sunday marks the end of the 2018 Winter Olympics. It has certainly been and exciting couple of weeks, with hundreds of medals awarded, and some incredible performances by the world’s greatest athletes. Yesterday marked the 38th anniversary of the Miracle on Ice, when the USA men’s hockey team defeated the heavily favored team from […]

On Wednesday of this week, millions of people celebrated Valentine’s Day. And how better to show your love than by spending lots of money. Much like basically every holiday, Americans dug into their wallets to spend, spend, and spend some more. According to the National Retail Federation’s annual survey on Valentine’s Day, as 55 percent […]

Earlier this week, SpaceX launched a rocket into outer space. Attached to the Falcon Heavy rocket, launched from Cape Canaveral, FL, was a 2008 Tesla Roadster, with a dummy at the wheel named “Starman.” The goal was to launch the car into space and into an orbit around the sun that would bring it close […]

Omni-channel order management is essential for today’s changing business environment. While integration issues abound, the market for OMS is poised to grow. This is due to a combination of factors including cloud deployments, increased use of ship from store, and artificial intelligence.

The time has finally come for Super Bowl weekend. All the pieces are in place – the teams, the media, the fans, the halftime entertainment, the security, and all the other logistics that need to be in place for the Super Bowl to actually happen. While I am clearly hoping for a Patriots victory, and […]

In yet another impressive comeback, the New England Patriots topped the Jacksonville Jaguars 24-20 in the AFC title game to move on to their 10th Super Bowl, and 8th in the Belichick – Brady era. They will meet the Philadelphia Eagles, who crushed the Minnesota Vikings 38-7 in the NFC title game, a week from […]

Amazon has narrowed the field down to the final 20 cities for its seconds headquarters. This is just the first step in the process, from the original 238 communities that sent proposals. Each of the proposals was evaluated based on the specific criteria set forth in the RFP, including availability of software developers and other […]

Earlier this week, I attended the National Retail Federation’s (NRF) Big Show at the Jacob Javits Center in New York, NY. This marked the tenth straight year that I have attended the event as an analyst. Over the years, certain key themes have emerged, and many of those themes have remained in place each and […]

Earlier this week, it was reported that Jeff Bezos was the wealthiest human being of all time. Let that sink in – of all time. His reported net worth is upwards of $105 billion. Of course, that all has to be taken with a grain of salt. When factoring in inflation, Bill Gates has historically […]

The Key Last Mile Markets Last mile deliveries continue to be costly and headache-inducing for retailers. A lot of this is due to consumers constantly evolving and tough to meet demands of fast, reliable, and cheap (or free) service. Many retailers have turned to crowdsourced delivery options to alleviate the stress of last mile deliveries, […]

Happy New Year and welcome back to Logistics Viewpoints! It’s good to be back, refreshed and rested, and ready to bring you all the logistics news you’ve been missing. After a bitterly cold stretch here in the Boston area to end 2017 and start 2018, we finally got a reprieve from the cold yesterday. And […]

The Logistics Viewpoints year has come to an end. It was certainly a very busy year for us covering all the top supply chain and logistics news stories. Like in years past, we wanted to look back at the top 10 most popular articles written this year and see what our readers found to be […]

This news roundup marks the final edition of “This Week in Logistics News” for 2017. It has been a pretty incredible year for me covering logistics news and trends. My recent article highlighted some of the top news stories of the year, including the advancement of drone technology, the ongoing rivalry between Amazon and Walmart, […]

2017 is just about in the books, and it has been a busy year for the supply chain industry. Let’s look back at ten of the top logistics stories of the year. Drones 2017 has been the year of the drone. There’s been a lot of interest in using drones for last mile deliveries. In […]

Earlier this week, a camera on board the Mars Curiosity captured a photo of a round, stone-like object. Now, just what that object was, remains to be seen. It all depends on who you ask. NASA deems these strange spheres to be Martian “blueberries,” which applies to many of these round objects. According to NASA, […]

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are once again in the books. And not surprisingly, more and more shoppers are heading to the internet rather than the mall. Plenty of brick and mortar retailers offered deep in-store discounts to drive consumer traffic, but the web reigned supreme. According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), from Thanksgiving […]

Amazon is no stranger to innovation; we need to look no further than its investment in drone technology, warehouse robots, robotic picking competitions, the Prime program, dash buttons, cloud services, and a host of others. Often times, the company will quietly launch one its new services as a test run before making any major announcements […]

On Wednesday, a painting by Leonardo da Vinci was sold at auction at Christie’s in New York City for a record-shattering amount. While there are only about 20 known surviving da Vinci paintings, “Salvator Mundi” is the only one that is in private hands. The painting was once thought to be a copy, and sold […]

The global transportation management systems (TMS) market is an area that is poised for growth. As I’ve written about in the past, one of the major trends that is driving TMS adoption is the strong, proven ROI associated with an implementation. ARC survey on the ROI of TMS found that respondents indicated freight savings of […]

We’ve all done things that we probably either regret or, at the very least, know we shouldn’t have done. This is true in both our personal lives and our work lives. However, I recently saw an article that epitomizes this scenario. A Nevada Department of Transportation employee is under investigation for violating the rules of […]

For the first time in franchise history, the Houston Astros are world series champions. The Astros outlasted the LA Dodgers in a thrilling seven game series to bring home the crown. As soon as that final out was made, the real planning began. And no, I’m not talking about how the Astros can build off […]

Now that Halloween is behind us, the time has come to focus on bigger things: the 2017 holiday season. Retail imports have been on the rise as the industry braces for the busiest time of the year. The National Retail Federation’s (NRF) latest projections call for a 3.6 to 4 percent increase in holiday sales […]

We are in the final weekend before one of my favorite holidays: Halloween. This year, I actually have plans to go to a costume party for one of the first times since having kids. I was stuck when it came to a costume as I looked back at some of my classics: Bob Ross, Richard […]

As I mentioned in my post earlier this week, the life of bees is an interesting one. This past weekend, I saw it up close and personal as I took my annual “apple picking” trip with my family. However, this year, we went with friends to make things more interesting for our kids. Due to […]

The life of bees is a fascinating one. One interesting fact is that bees are the only insect that produces food consumed by humans. And that is one of the most troubling aspects of colony collapse disorder (CCD), which is the rapid decline in bee populations around the world. It is not just the supply of honey that is at risk. Bees are responsible for cross-pollinating plants, which in turn, enables fruits and vegetables to grow. Without bees, a food shortage is all but inevitable.

This was a disappointing sports week around these parts. On Monday, the Red Sox were oh so close to forcing a deciding game 5 in the American League Division Series against the Houston Astros, only to have their bullpen implode and blow a late game lead. This, of course, lead to their second straight opening […]

This has been a tough week. The senseless shooting in Las Vegas has left me grasping for something to write. But I just don’t even know what to say. However, this is not the appropriate place for me to step up on my soapbox, so I’ll share something my colleague Steve Banker said in his […]

I heard a fascinating piece on NPR last week about car rental agencies and their disaster relief plans. When it comes to relief efforts after a hurricane or other natural disaster, rental car companies are the face of the future. This comes down to their ability to manage their fleets appropriately, to get the proper […]

Last night I saw Roger Waters perform at the TD Boston Garden as part of his Us + Them Tour. This was my second time seeing Roger Waters, the first time being on his Wall Tour from a few years ago. The Wall was an amazing show, especially given that it has long been one […]

Monday, September 18, marked the 47th anniversary of the death of Jimi Hendrix. While his short-lived career lasted only four years, he is universally recognized as the greatest guitarist in rock n’ roll history. He released three studio albums and one live album, but since his death, more than 10 posthumous albums have been released, […]

A few weeks ago, I wrote about omni-channel and returns management. This was part of my sneak-peak into my upcoming omni-channel fulfillment and returns management strategy report. A common theme here at Logistics Viewpoints is to write about what we are currently researching. So, in conjunction with my omni-channel returns management research, I am also […]

Today is September 15. It’s neither October, November, nor December 15. It is September 15. That means it is still “officially” summer, but I can go along with the notion of fall. The days are getting shorter, the early mornings and nights cooler. It’s the perfect time for a fire pit. It also means I […]

The boys are back and they’re looking for trouble. The 2017-18 NFL season kicked off last night, with my hometown Patriots raising Super Bowl banner number 5. In a move that surprised some fans, Roger Goodell made the trip to Foxboro, much to the delight of the crowd and their clown towels. The night did […]

This weekend is Labor Day weekend in the United States. It represents the creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City, in accordance with the plans of the Central Labor […]

The rivalry continues between Amazon and Walmart. Just a few months ago, I wrote about the impact of Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods, and how Walmart and the market in general would react. And while the rivalry has been growing over the last few years, that purchase seemed to stoke a fire under both companies, […]

This summer in the Boston area has been an interesting one. We have seen temperatures fluctuating in a bizarre pattern that I cannot ever remember, with a few days in August only reaching a high temperature of the upper sixties. So, when the leaves started changing colors in early August and dropping off the trees, […]

Omni-channel continues to be one of the hottest trends in supply chain management today, basically touching every software application you can imagine. In order to truly be omni-channel, retailers and brand manufacturers must provide a unified brand experience for their customers. This is true for all three major phases of the customer journey – before, […]

Wednesday marked the 22nd anniversary of the Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia’s death. Whether you are a fan of the Grateful Dead, or any of the large number of side projects he worked on, Jerry Garcia is a cultural icon and a very talented guitarist / songwriter. I actually never saw him play, and outside of […]

Yesterday afternoon, I went to my town’s transfer station to drop off recycling and garbage. As I was dropping off my recycling, my car door was open and the Beastie Boys were playing on the radio. I was approached by a 15-year-old (give or take) who looked at me and said “Is that the Beastie […]

In May, I provided an overview of one of the biggest trends (cloud) driving TMS market growth, as well as some regional, industry, and complementary market trends. I want to revisit some of that TMS research, and highlight another megatrend as well as a few strategies for both TMS buyers and suppliers. One of the […]

The 2017 Tour de France concluded this past Sunday after 23 days, 21 stages, 2,200 miles, and over 86 hours of riding. To put some perspective on the logistics behind the Tour, the race consisted of 198 riders, 167 of whom would finish the race. There are generally somewhere in the range of 10 to […]

As hard as it is to believe, the year is already more than half-way over. Which makes this the perfect time to look back at what have been the most popular Logistics Viewpoints articles for the first half of the year. It’s nice to see a wide range of topics on the list, as well […]

Back to school? My kids are only a couple of weeks into summer vacation and I’m already seeing ads for back to school shopping. I simply can’t wrap my head around that one yet. But, when I hear those words, there are three immediate thoughts that jump into my head. The first is of my […]

A few weeks ago, I wrote about Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods, and how it plays into its bigger rivalry with Walmart. New details have emerged about the acquisition, namely that Amazon beat out six other suitors to land Whole Foods. Whole Foods was initially approached by four private equity firms and two unnamed companies […]

The subscription retail model is not a new concept. The first basic model I can think of is a magazine subscription – a new magazine came every month unless you canceled your subscription. The first subscription service I used was Netflix, way back when the company only shipped DVD’s to your house. However, as the […]

After weeks of seeing “last day of school” posts across social media, the day has finally come for me. And by me, I mean for my kids. In my quaint town just outside of Boston, we had a few more snow days than our neighbors. While my kids loved the extra sledding days at the […]

Growing up in the greater Boston area, I’m quite familiar with rivalries. Rivalries are simply a way of life here. There’s Red Sox – Yankees, Lakers – Celtics, Bruins – Canadiens, Patriots – Roger Goodell, Space Savers – Non Space Savers during winter storms, Dunkin’ Donuts – Starbucks, Mike’s – Modern, and the list goes […]

It’s been a busy week in the battle between Amazon and Walmart. Late last week, Amazon made a lot of noise with the announcement that it had agreed to acquire Whole Foods for nearly $14 billion in cash. This move is an obvious effort to bolster Amazon’s lagging grocery business, while hopefully making a dent […]

According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), Americans are anticipating spending more on Father’s Day gifts this year than any other year. So just how much are Americans looking to spend? Let’s just say that the amount is insane. To be more specific, the NRF is expecting total spending to hit $15.5 billion this year, […]

At the beginning of the year, Steve Banker and I launched a survey with DC Velocity to examine best practices for achieving excellence in warehouse operations. The research employs the balanced scorecard strategic planning management system. The resulting report looks at what high-performing warehouses are doing differently than other distribution operations. The big question then […]

The rise of e-commerce is making its mark on brick and mortar retailing. We’ve seen plenty of big name retailers changing their brick and mortar strategy, including closing or downsizing their stores, carrying less on-hand physical inventory, and using stores as an e-commerce fulfillment channel. We’ve also seen the impact on malls across the country; […]

Uber’s development of autonomous trucks has been in the news a lot lately. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been for the reasons the company has hoped. First, there was the lawsuit filed by Google alleging that Anthony Levandowski, one of Otto’s top engineers (and formerly an engineer at Google’s self-driving car venture Waymo) downloaded 14,000 confidential files […]

ARC Advisory Group conducts an annual analysis of the global transportation management systems (TMS) market. The research process includes the analysis of large amounts of information and interviews with executives from numerous TMS software companies. The process concludes with the publication of ARC’s TMS Global Market Research Study, which analyzes the market shares across numerous […]

As I work to finish up my latest Transportation Management Systems Market Study, one thing is becoming clear: the cloud is in. This applies to basically all software applications these days as more and more suppliers are offering cloud solutions, and more and more customers are demanding them. For my latest study, cloud revenues have […]

Over the weekend, there was a massive coordinated cyber-attack that hit more than 150 countries. The attack targeted businesses, hospitals, and government agencies, as well as personal computers. This was the worst computer worm- outbreak in more than a decade, as Europe’s police agency estimated at least 200,000 computers had been hit, while Chinese officials […]

As Steve Banker mentioned in his post earlier this week, the two of us attended the Manhattan Associates user conference in Las Vegas last week. The theme of the conference was “active solutions for an active world.” It was a pretty fitting theme when you consider how active today’s supply chain and commerce environments are, […]

It’s been busy around here. I spent the week in Las Vegas for the Manhattan Associates user conference. The conference theme was “active solutions for an active world.” And that is exactly what Manhattan showcased. While I will certainly have an in-depth write-up and a case study story to share later, I’ll leave you with […]

It has been an incredibly busy week. I am working on getting my latest Transportation Management Systems market study completed, while prepping to launch my annual omni-channel fulfillment survey, as well as an omni-channel order management market study. On top of that, it is conference season. Which means lots of travel. As I mentioned in […]

BluJay has launched a new product strategy that groups products into portfolios, rather than simply stand-alone products. The different product groups are part of the Global Trade Network (GTN), which encompasses 40,000 participants, including shippers, carriers, forwarders, and technology partners. BluJay CEO Doug Braun gave an overview of the GTN, and added that the goal is to add 50,000+ new members to make it more robust.

I remember being a kid and watching re-runs of the Jetsons – you know, the futuristic Flintstones. The show was set in a non-specific future utopia filled with robots, flying cars, and all sorts of other space-age contraptions. Every time I watched it, I couldn’t help but think what a wonderful world. But it recently […]

Patriots’ Day is one of the best days of the year in Boston. For those of you that don’t know what Patriots’ Day is, I’ll tell you. It is a state holiday commemorating the anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the first battles of the American Revolutionary War. It is observed on the […]

Safety-Kleen, a subsidiary of Good Harbors, has made the decision to centralize routing of their trucks. There was no consistent message or process, as every branch would route their trucks differently. The drivers would essentially design their own routes based on their daily tickets that had come in. The initial phase of the process had 100 of the 200 branches switch over to centralized routing. In the 18 months since the roll-out, on-time performance has improved 78 percent. In the first year, revenue and gallons per mile have improved 19%. On top of that, the total first year cost reductions are nearly $6 million.

I saw over the weekend that Norway is planning on building the world’s first ship tunnel to bypass part of the ocean. The tunnel will be a 5,610-feet passageway dug through a piece of rocky peninsula that will allow vessels to avoid a treacherous part of sea. The tunnel will be 118 feet wide, 162 […]

The boys are back! That’s right, the Bruins are back in the playoffs after suffering season-ending collapses the last two years. On top of that, baseball season officially kicked off this week, and the Red Sox opened up the season with a two-game winning streak against the Pirates. The weather has not exactly cooperated with […]

Last week, I attended the annual Descartes Systems Group User conference in sunny West Palm Beach, FL. This was my second time attending the event, and once again, it did not disappoint. This was the largest event yet for Descartes, with well over 400 attendees at this year’s conference. I managed to catch some really […]

After a cold and dreary winter in Boston, I was excited to spend a little bit of time in the sun. Luckily for me, I went to West Palm Beach, FL for the first half of the week to attend the Descartes Users Conference. The conference itself was fantastic, with lots of great sessions, and […]

Thirty-three years ago today, five high school students in Shermer, IL spent a full Saturday in all-day detention for various offenses. The five students were labeled a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal. To pass the time, the students talked, argued, snuck out of the library to explore the school, […]

Over the last few years, there has been a lot of talk about sustainability, green initiatives, and the reduction of carbon emissions from major companies around the globe. This is especially true as companies look at their supply chain. In the same light of making supply chains more responsible, a growing trend is the fight […]

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, a day where everyone is Irish. Or, at the very least, pretends to be. And like any holiday, Americans sure love to spend money. In fact, according to the National Retail Federation (NRF), Americans will spend a record amount of money this year. Just how much money? Well, according to the […]

It’s been a few years, but the first case of highly pathogenic avian influenza (bird flu) has struck the United States. Earlier this week, a chicken farm affiliated with Tyson Foods discovered a flock had been contaminated. The flock consisted of about 73,500 birds, which were used for breeding. As a result of the outbreak, […]

Everybody makes mistakes, right? And often times, these mistakes are minor and no one notices, or, we are able to fix them before anyone does notice. But then there are times where mistakes are made on a grand scale, or should I say, the grand stage. At this past Sunday’s 89th Academy Awards ceremony, a […]

On Monday of this week, Kurt Cobain would have turned 50 years old. I remember being twelve years old and watching MTV with my 15-year-old brother the first time I heard Smells Like Teen Spirit in 1991. From the opening chords until the last note, I sat there with my mouth open, not quite sure […]

Last year, I wrote extensively about omni-channel fulfillment, including data from both my strategic research and market study. The market study was a labor of love which incorporated total revenues from transportation management, warehouse management, distributed order management, inventory management / store replenishment, and demand planning. Key Trends Omni-channel is perhaps the hottest trend in […]

A couple of weeks ago was Groundhog day, where we “learn” whether we have to endure six more weeks of winter or can expect a rush order to spring.  I, for one, did not believe Punxsutawney Phil when he saw his shadow and called for six more weeks of winter. This was due to the […]

The Patriots have done it again. And I’m still in shock. In a comeback for the ages, the Patriots scored 31 unanswered points over the final 17 minutes of regulation and overtime to claim their fifth Lombardi trophy. This time, they were finally on the right side of a game-defining circus catch. And while the […]

Over the last 4 years, I have released an annual analysis of the global transportation management systems (TMS) market. The research combines the analysis of large amounts of information with interviews with executives from numerous TMS software companies. The end result is the publication of ARC’s TMS Global Market Research Study, which analyzes the market […]

The Super Bowl is this Sunday – the Atlanta Falcons are seeking their first championship while my beloved New England Patriots are seeking their fifth. If you’re planning on going to the game, you’re going to have to shell out some serious cash. Looking at the secondary market, data from TicketCity indicates that the average […]

Donald Trump has now been President for a full week. And it’s been a busy week for him. Trump has acted or made his intent to act on a number of important issues (some of which are highlighted below), including the affordable care act, immigration, the Supreme Court, regulations, infrastructure projects, voting rights, the TPP, […]

Last week, I attended the National Retail Federation’s (NRF) Big Show at the Jacob Javits Center in New York, NY. This was my ninth straight year attending the show since becoming an analyst, and my fourth year of attending as a member of ARC Advisory Group. This show has historically been a very large and […]

For the ninth year in a row, I attended the National Retail Federation’s (NRF) Big Show in New York City. Not surprisingly, the show was packed again, with new and innovative solutions across all areas of retail (more to come on that in a future column). The Big Show always makes me think of the […]

After 8 years, it is time to say goodbye to the 44th President of the United States Barack Obama. Earlier this week, he gave his final address as POTUS, where he reflected on the accomplishments of his administration as well as the challenges that lay ahead. One of his biggest accomplishment was the growth of […]

As I mentioned in last Friday’s news round-up, Amazon has won a patent for a flying warehouse or fulfillment center that will deploy drones to deliver parcels. Basically, the plan for Amazon is to have a blimp or airship of some sort hovering at an altitude of around 45,000 feet, stocked with lots of products. […]

Welcome back! I certainly had a relaxing end of the year and was able to re-energize for 2017. One of the more fun things I did with my time off was to go skiing with my son. Unlike last year, I saw something new out on the slopes this year – RFID readers. In an […]

It’s been another fast and busy year here at Logistics Viewpoints. Today’s column is our final column of the year, as we take a few weeks to rest and re-energize to bring you more exciting articles in the new year. For today’s column, I want to revisit some of the top supply chain and logistics […]

And like that, the year is basically over. I’d like to thank all of our readers, sponsors, guest bloggers, and of course, my fellow Logistics Viewpoints contributing authors for another great year. This is our last Logistics Viewpoints weekly news roundup. We’ll have a new article for you on Monday, but then we are going […]

Much like the last few years, we here at Logistics Viewpoints thought our readers would be interested in seeing what 2016 posts obtained the most views over the year. It is nice to see articles written throughout the whole year garnering so many views, not just those that have been on the site since the […]

Tom Brady is the GOAT. And by GOAT, I mean the greatest of all time. At least according to some people. And according to some stats. The one stat that people are referencing are his record setting 201st win, collected last Sunday afternoon against the LA Rams. This win put Brady one win ahead of […]

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are in the books. And by all accounts, Americans spent a lot of money. Call it the Amazon effect if you want, but more and more consumers are flocking to the Web for holiday deals than in stores. And traditional retailers are pushing their online inventory to keep up with […]

With Black Friday and Cyber Monday in the rear view mirror, the holiday shopping season, and the rush to deliver packages, is in full swing. The last few years of holiday shopping, and the shipping crunch associated with e-commerce orders, has produced its share of ups and downs. Late packages will never be eliminated fully, […]

As hard as it is to believe, next Thursday is Thanksgiving. I’ve written before about the intricacies of the Thanksgiving supply chain, and how over 730 million pounds of turkey will be consumed in the United States during Thanksgiving (or about 45 million individual turkeys). The bigger story, however, is the fact that the holiday […]

I’ve been researching and studying omni-channel commerce, logistics, and fulfillment for the last eight years, and once again, I am getting ready to publish my annual omni-channel fulfillment strategic report. This year, I put a little different spin on things. While I looked at the current status and likely future development of the numerous elements […]

In what most people are calling a shocking upset, Donald Trump has won the 2016 Presidential Election. Almost everybody was predicting that Hillary Clinton would become the country’s first female president, but it was not to be. So on January 20, 2017, Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 45th president. This, of course, […]

Cubs win! Cubs win! Cubs win! I’m being serious – the Cubs won the World Series. Let that sink in. And like that, the 108 year old curse is broken. This World Series was already great, featuring two teams with a combined 174 years of heartache and baseball agony. But game seven was the type […]

Earlier this year, ARC developed a supplier selection tool for Transportation Management Systems. The selection guide contains general guidance, around 200 specific selection criteria, ROI data, market data, and supplier profiles to help an organization’s team members make more informed, fact-based decisions.  This version of the guide has been updated with extensive criteria related to […]

The iPod turned 15 years old this week. While I don’t remember seeing the original commercial, featuring a man listening to music on his iBook and transferring songs to his iPod, I can vividly remember the silhouette commercials that ran for many years. At the time, I remember thinking “why would I need this?” I […]

Bob Dylan has won the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature. This recognition has caused quite a stir, with many people weighing in on Dylan’s merits as a poet. The funny thing is, none of it really matters to Dylan. In fact, it took a full five days before the artist even acknowledged the award – […]

Halloween is a short 12 days away, and spending for the holiday is soaring. According to the National Retail Federation’s (NRF) annual survey conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics, total spending for Halloween is expected to reach $8.4 billion this year. This marks an all-time high in the survey’s 11-year history. US consumers are expected […]

Over the course of the last few years, I have written about autonomous trucks and the future of self-driving vehicles (see here and here for examples). These vehicles could be one of the solutions to the ongoing driver shortage, but are still years away from being a reality. Earlier this week, my friend and neighbor […]

I heard a fascinating piece on NPR this week about why dogs have such an incredible sense of smell. It turns out that dogs essentially have “stereo smelling,” which means that they are able to use each nostril independently to take in scents. Additionally, dogs possess up to 300 million olfactory receptors in their noses, […]

As mentioned here a few weeks ago, Walmart has officially completed its acquisition of Jet.com, paying $3 billion in cash and $300 million in Walmart stock for the e-commerce start-up. Walmart is the second largest e-tailer in the US, and the big news around the acquisition was Walmart’s desire to become a bigger player in […]

I’ve written about it many times before, but one of the things I enjoy most about my job is learning new things, whether that is from a conference presentation, client briefing, or end user interview. Learning new things is not something that is confined to my job though, as I love to learn new things […]

Fall is officially here. The autumnal equinox, which happens the moment the sun crosses the celestial equator, occurred yesterday at 10:21 am EDT. On this day, we see almost equal amounts of daylight and darkness. From here on out, the days (by daylight that is) will get shorter until the Winter Solstice, which is the […]

Last week I attended MercuryGate’s annual user conference at the Royal Sonesta in New Orleans, LA. The conference’s theme was “Dominate.” To do this, MercuryGate is striving to make their customers smarter, stronger, faster, and better, and the presentations that I attended all hit on this. Over the course of the last year, MercuryGate has […]

This week I traveled to New Orleans for the annual MercuryGate User Conference. As always, I find these conferences to be fantastic opportunities to learn, network, and think about how companies are solving problems in new ways. And this one was no exception. Next week, in my Wednesday column, I will have some takeaways from […]

I cannot believe that summer is over. Yes, I know there are technically 13 more days of summer, but with the passing of Labor Day, it is now meteorological fall. This summer flew by quicker than any I can remember. Somehow my son has now started first grade and my daughter had her first day […]

I’ve written on here recently about our GTM study, and about the market dynamics that impact the growth of GTM solutions. Similarly, ARC Advisory Group conducts an annual analysis of the global transportation management systems (TMS) market. The research process includes the analysis of large amounts of information and interviews with executives from numerous TMS […]

Two weeks ago, I wrote an article about our just released market study on the Global Trade Management (GTM) market outlook. GTM solutions streamline and automate processes related to customs and regulatory compliance, global logistics, and trade financing.  By doing so, GTM solutions facilitate the flow of information, money, and goods in global trade supply […]

Wage discussions have certainly been in the news lately, especially with the “Uberization” of last mile deliveries. Just last week, I wrote about how Deliveroo, a food delivery start-up based in London, recently raised another $275 million in funding. This actually brought their total private funding up to nearly half a billion dollars since 2012. […]

The Olympic Games are in full swing, and have been incredibly entertaining so far. As most of us remember from four years ago, the Olympics are not just about the winners, losers, and magical athletic feats. They are also about the memes that are created. Who could possibly forget “McKayla’s not impressed” in London? Well, […]

ARC Advisory Group conducts an annual analysis of the global trade management (GTM) market. The research process includes the analysis of large amounts of information and interviews with executives from numerous GTM software companies. The process concludes with the publication of ARC’s GTM Global Market Research Study, which analyzes the market shares across numerous categories […]

Later tonight, the 2016 Summer Olympic Games officially kick off. There are so many story lines to follow: Can Usain Bolt sweep the 100, 200, and 4 X 100 meter relay again? How many more medals will Michael Phelps win? Will Simone Biles lead the US women’s gymnastics team to another gold medal? But athletic […]

This may very well be the last Logistics Viewpoints article ever. According to Armageddon News, the world is going to end today. They say a polar shift or flip will trigger worldwide tremors setting off earthquakes and a “rolling cloud” that will destroy the world. Luckily NASA has clarified that the polar flip is actually […]

There is no denying that the trucking industry is in a state of flux right now. Even though demand is rising, the industry as a whole is facing a monumental shortage of qualified drivers. Just how big is that shortage? By the end of 2015, the driver shortage had ballooned past 45,000. Some estimates indicate […]

In the summer of 1992, my parents decided I was too young to go to a Guns n’ Roses / Metallica concert alone. They also decided they did not like either band, and would not be joining me. I was lucky enough to grow up about 1.5 miles from what is now Gillette Stadium in […]

Today marks the 10 year anniversary of Twitter’s full public launch. Work on the project started on March 21, 2006 with the very first tweet sent by Jack Dorsey. However, the full public version was not released until four months later. Today, Twitter is a little bit popular, with over 310 million active Twitter users. […]

A few months ago, I attended the ToolsGroup Supply Chain Transformation conference in Boston. I am always interested in case study presentations, as I find that I learn a lot about how companies are applying their technology and business processes to solve a problem. These case studies are also an opportunity to give other practitioners […]

Welcome to Jupiter! NASA has received a signal from its Juno Spacecraft that it has entered Jupiter’s orbit. That signal came from 540 million miles away. Juno was launched five years ago to study Jupiter’s composition and evolution. It is also the first spacecraft to orbit Jupiter since Galileo, which was purposefully crashed in 2003. […]

This weekend I am heading to New York for my wife’s cousin’s wedding. I’ve never spent a 4th of July in New York, but I assume we will have to head to Coney Island for the annual Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest. Last year, Matt Stonie ended Joey Chestnut’s 8 year run as hot dog eating […]

As of Friday, the year is half over. So what better time to examine what have been the most popular Logistics Viewpoints articles for the first half of the year? It’s nice to see a wide range of topics on the list, including the 3PL market, last mile deliveries, robotics in the warehouse, predictive analytics, […]

I was so excited to write about the fact that Cleveland’s 52 year sports championship drought was over. The Cleveland Cavaliers had finally broken the streak. However, a much more important news event has taken place. Brexit is a reality. And even though the average of the last six polls was basically a 50-50 split, […]

It turns out that online shoppers want more for less. Shocking, right? Well, in its latest survey of over 1,000 US consumers, supply chain consulting firm AlixPartners LLP found that consumers expect to wait an average of 4.8 days for delivery, down from 5.5 days in 2012. And the share of those who are willing […]

There is still a little over a week left to complete your Father’s Day shopping. Apparently that is a good thing, because people are buying a whole lot of stuff for Father’s Day this year. According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), Father’s Day spending this year is estimated to hit a record high of […]

A few weeks ago I attended the ToolsGroup Supply Chain Transformation conference in Boston. One of the more interesting sessions I attended was “Predictive Commerce and Machine Learning” featuring ToolsGroup CEO Yossi Shamir. While Yossi obviously touted the benefits of the ToolsGroup product suite, the session focused more on the big concept of why supply […]

I certainly write a lot about Amazon in the news round-up, from their testing of drone delivery to leasing jets to make cross-country shipments cheaper. And I have certainly mentioned how the company is building out its own private fleet of vehicles and expanding last mile delivery plans to reduce its reliance on UPS and […]

This weekend is Memorial Day weekend in the United States, a Federal holiday that honors the people who have died while serving in the armed forces. For many people it is a somber day to honor loved ones. Memorial Day weekend also kicks off the unofficial start to summer. And I, for one, could not […]

I recently spoke to Trace White and Travis Parker from HP Inc.  (HP) about using supply chain network design and visualization tools to respond to supply chain risks. This is something that their team at HP started to examine about two to three years ago. They had built a supply chain visualization tool in response […]

There was a lot of buzz this week insisting that time travel is possible, and we now have video proof of it. Or do we? On August 19, 1995, Mike Tyson made his return to the boxing ring after serving a three year prison sentence. His unlikely opponent was the little known “Hurricane” Peter McNeeley, […]

I cannot believe how fast time is going. And I don’t just mean the fact that it is already mid-May. Or that it is somehow 2016 (didn’t the Y2K scare just happen?). It is more the fact that today is my son’s sixth birthday. I can remember the day he was born like it was […]

JDA Software Group, Inc. held its annual user conference in Nashville last week. The event was a big one, with well over 2,000 attendees, over 50 sponsors, 100 customer presentations, roundtables, and discussions, and a concert at the Grand Ole Opry featuring Darius Rucker. The customer case studies spanned multiple industries, solutions, and geographies, and […]

Earlier this week I attended JDA Focus in Nashville, TN. It was one of the larger events I’ve been to in the last couple of years, with well over 2,000 attendees, hundreds of presentations, and a concert featuring Darius Rucker and his band at the Grand Ole Opry. Now I’m generally not a big country […]

On Monday, we celebrated a little known global holiday that has only been around for 14 years. I personally had never heard of it until this year, when I heard an interesting piece on NPR about the holiday and its significance. The holiday, of course, is International DNA Day. This holiday commemorates the day in […]

LeanLogistics held its annual user conference in Chicago, IL last week. I had not attended a Lean conference in the past, so I was excited to see what the conference would be like. In his opening remarks, LeanLogistics Chief Commercial Officer Chris Timmer mentioned that this was the largest conference they had ever put on. […]

I spent the week out in Chicago at the LeanLogistics ClientConnect conference. It was a great week – great content at the conference, a great event at Pinstripes (I bowled a 119), and great weather for a run through Millennium Park and the lakefront trails. This marked my third consecutive week attending a conference. So […]

Another week, another conference. This time I was in Boston for the ToolsGroup Supply Chain Transformation conference. The conference was full of great presentations and sessions, and I’ll share some of those in the coming weeks. The odd thing, though, was that for the second straight week, and second straight conference, during the CEO’s keynote, […]

Descartes Systems Group held its annual user conference last week in sunny West Palm Beach, FL. This was my first time attending the event, and it did not disappoint. There were over 400 attendees at this year’s conference, making it their biggest yet. The theme of the conference was “Logistics in Motion – Company in […]

It’s been a busy week. I spent the day Monday shoveling out from a ridiculous April snow storm. I don’t say ridiculous because we got a lot of snow – we probably only got about six inches. I say ridiculous because it’s April. It’s spring. The Red Sox season opener was scheduled. While it was […]

This morning I read an amazing story that will change the way packages are delivered around the world forever. While there has been a huge focus on last mile technology lately, Cyberdyne Systems’ Skynet division is working on teleportation capabilities that will eliminate the need to wait for products to ship entirely. While still in the early stages of […]

Last week, I mentioned that Americans spent an estimated $4.4 billion on St. Patrick’s Day this year. That number blew my mind. Then I read the estimates for this weekend’s holiday – Easter. According to the National Retail Federation, spending for the holiday is expected to reach $17.3 billion, up nearly $1 billion from last […]

Last Friday, in my weekly news roundup, I mentioned that A.P. Moller Maersk A/S, the world’s largest containership operator by capacity, is studying deploying drones aboard its giant vessels and at its port operations around the world. The driving factor here is to cut the cost of supplying ships at sea. This piece of news […]

Yesterday was St. Patrick’s Day, a fun holiday where people everywhere either stretch their lineage to show that they are Irish, or at the very least, pretend to be Irish for the day. With such a large celebration, Americans this year spent an estimated $4.4 billion on St. Patrick’s Day. The National Retail Federation (NRF) […]

While we here at Logistics Viewpoints bring you thought provoking stories, industry expertise, and a weekly round-up of the most important logistics news, there is someone else that we need to thank for the actual delivery of these insights: Ray Tomlinson. The name may not be familiar to everyone, but his contribution to society is […]

Two weeks ago, I wrote an article about my now just released market study on omni-channel fulfillment technology. The study incorporates transportation management, warehouse management, distributed order management, inventory management / store replenishment, and demand planning. In the article, I outlined the key growth drivers for omni-channel fulfillment technology. These included the growth of e-commerce, […]

Hate driving behind trucks? Me too. A lot of people certainly get that “boxed in” and “claustrophobic” feeling when they are following a truck on a roadway. This feeling becomes more apparent when it is time to pass the truck, as the road up ahead is unknown. Well, Samsung is here to help. My colleague […]

In a normal year, this weekend would spell the end of February. But this is no ordinary year; this is leap year. Our quadrennial interruption of the shortest month of the year. As I’m sure everyone knows, a leap year occurs every four years to help synchronize the calendar year with the solar year, which […]

ARC Advisory Group conducts annual analyses of the major technology components within the global supply chain management market. These market studies include a deep analysis of the transportation management system, warehouse management system, supply chain visibility, supply chain collaboration, managed transportation services, warehouse automation, and global trade management markets, among others. The research process includes […]

Last month I shared a news article about the state of Rhode Island’s proposal to install $43 million worth of toll gantries that would target class 8 trucks. Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo said trucks were wrecking the state’s roads and bridges and proposed a 10-year, $1.1 billion plan to repair the state’s worn infrastructure. […]

With the Super Bowl in our rear view mirror, it’s time to look ahead to the beginning of a new season. That’s right, one week from today, pitchers and catchers report for spring training. This past Wednesday was a big day in the Boston sports scene. While we didn’t get to celebrate another Super Bowl […]

Over the last two years, I’ve done extensive research on omni-channel fulfillment at ARC. My most recent survey was completed toward the end of 2015. One of the biggest growth opportunities for retailers and other B2C companies is the rise of e-commerce. Based on our survey respondents, digital retailing is continuing to grow in prominence. […]

Oil prices have been sliding, hitting a 12 year low of $27 a barrel just last month. As recently as September 2014, oil traded at over $100 a barrel. As a result, fuel prices are creeping towards levels we haven’t seen in quite a while. For example, I saw gas around the corner from my […]

Last week saw a major snowstorm cripple much of the Mid Atlantic. Luckily, living just outside of Boston, we were dealt just a glancing blow. After last year’s winter, it was nice to have a two-foot plus snowstorm not slam directly into us. But the storm certainly left many states to our south reeling and […]

Last week, Clint Reiser and I attended the National Retail Federation’s (NRF) Big Show at the Jacob Javits Center in New York, NY. This was my third straight year attending the event as an analyst for ARC Advisory Group and eighth consecutive Big Show overall. In years past, there has always been a main theme […]

This past Monday marked the one year anniversary of “Deflategate.” And with the NFL considering whether to release PSI measurements from the 2015 regular season, one would think that the game officials would have been on top of all things game ball related last weekend. However, upon arriving at the stadium for last Saturday’s Patriots […]

It’s the middle of January so that means it is NRF time. For the eighth straight year I will be attending NRF’s Big Show in New York. It is always an interesting trip – meeting with customers and potential customers and learning about new technologies and solutions. Clint Reiser and I will have a recap […]

Shortly before the holiday break, I had the privilege of speaking with Manny Ohonme, Founder and President of Samaritan’s Feet. Samaritan’s Feet is a non-profit organization that, in their words, “shares a message of hope and love through washing the feet of impoverished children around the world and adorning them with new shoes.” The organization […]

Happy New Year!! It’s hard to believe the holidays are over and we’re back into the swing of things. One of the last big news items I wrote about last year was the recently published federal requirements for truck operators to use electronic logging devices. The devices, which keep records of duty status, will take […]

Once again, it’s hard to believe another year is coming to an end. I’d like to thank all of our readers, sponsors, guest bloggers, and my fellow authors for making it a great year. There have been an awful lot of newsworthy items to keep you abreast of. We wrote about mergers and acquisitions, new […]

The holiday shopping season is in full swing, and retailers are doing everything they can to lure consumers to stores, websites, and mobile apps. However, this holiday shopping season is being regarded as “lukewarm” so far by many analysts. In fact, recent surveys have shown that over a quarter of Americans still have not started […]

The holiday shopping season is here! The holiday shopping season is here! And things are about to get busy. The National Retail Federation (NRF) announced that 151 million consumers shopped online or in-person this holiday weekend and spent an average of $299.60 each. That equates to roughly $45.2 billion spent over the holiday weekend. However, […]

Just like last year, the Logistics Viewpoints team thought our readers would be interested in seeing what 2015 posts obtained the most views over the year. It’s nice to see posts written throughout the year (not just the beginning of the year) on this list. It’s also nice to see articles written by Logistics Viewpoints […]

I’ve written about the TMS market multiple times on here, mainly due to the market studies I’ve done the last two years. These studies look at the TMS market from the supplier point of view – namely they determine and analyze the market shares across numerous categories of the leading TMS suppliers. They do touch […]

Over the last few months, I’ve done extensive research on omni-channel fulfillment processes and technologies. One of the findings from my study was that one of the biggest questions retailers face when they move to an omni-channel initiative is where to start? With the continued growth in online shopping, retailers are trying to figure out […]

Tomorrow is Halloween. Pumpkins have been carved, pumpkin seeds have been roasted, candy has been bought (and opened, eaten, and more has been bought), and costumes have been purchased or made. And tomorrow, children across the land will go door to door asking for candy, while dressed in these scary, funny, cute, or ridiculous costumes. […]

Halloween is only ten days away, but for the shipping industry, all eyes are on the holiday season. The last two years have seen their fair share of problems. This was due to the influx of last minute online orders that overwhelmed shippers. Additionally, brutal weather brought shipping lanes to a standstill, or at the […]

Cubs win! Cub win! And for the first time in the 100 years the Cubs have been playing at Wrigley Field, they clinched a post-season series at home. As Jason Stark pointed out, this was the 7,907th game played at Wrigley – and they finally clinched a series at home. This series also marked the […]

Omni-channel is all about the convergence of channels to provide a unified brand experience for the customer. Each channel has its own experiences, advantages, and challenges. The key is to connect the business processes and technology to create a holistic experience. One aspect of fulfilling the unified brand experience is to maintain control over the […]

Sunday night brought a lunar eclipse. But this wasn’t any ordinary lunar eclipse. This was a total lunar eclipse of a super moon (a super full moon). A rising super full moon looks much larger than a normal full moon as it is closer to the Earth. Total eclipses of super full moons are not […]

The Transportation Management System (TMS) market has grown at a steady and impressive rate over the last decade or so. There is one market segment that has historically been underserved: the SMB market. Until recently, a typical SMB simply didn’t have enough freight spend to justify implementing a TMS; they would typically outsource to a […]

Just a few weeks ago, in my Friday news roundup, I vowed not to do any back-to-school shopping until Labor Day. I was successful, and got everything done in a very short period of time. But that is my M.O. when it comes to doing any kind of shopping. So you can imagine my outrage […]

Earlier this week I attended the first day of MercuryGate’s annual user conference at the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas, NV. The conference’s theme was “Smarter. Stronger. Faster. Better.” That is what MercuryGate is trying to make their customers, and the presentations I attended all hit on this theme. Since last year’s conference, there have been […]

It’s September, which means Fall is just about here, kids are back to school, and cooler weather is on the way. It also means that football season is here. Last night The Patriots and Steelers kicked off the 2015-16 NFL season. Talk about logistics – on top of all the logistical issues of a standard […]

As a concerned parent, I certainly pay more attention to product recalls now than, say, six years ago. But it also seems like product recalls are making the headlines a lot more often these days. This is due in large part to contamination outbreaks in the food and beverage industry. These recalls are often voluntary, […]

Where has the summer gone? I am having a very difficult time wrapping my head around the fact that summer is basically over. And my oldest child, now 5, will be starting kindergarten in just over two weeks. And I also can’t believe that I haven’t given a single thought to back to school shopping. […]

At the heart of everything omni-channel is inventory. The customer needs to be able to get the merchandise they want, when they want it, and through their channel of choice. There has to be inventory visibility across channels, so stores, warehouses, and distribution centers can see real-time inventory levels as part of the order fulfillment […]

All good things must come to an end. On Thursday, John Stewart taped his final episode of the Daily Show, and fans lined up before sunrise for their chance to witness the final episode. According to Comedy Central, The Daily Show was center stage for at least 2,500 episodes. During that run, John Stewart has […]

A few months ago, I attended the Home Delivery World, Click & Collect Show USA, and ETail Show USA joint conference in Atlanta. I’ve written a few Logistics Viewpoints articles from presentations that I attended at the show. The majority of those presentations and articles were geared around store operations, and the role of the […]

Uber is at it again. With the crowdsourced livery service growing, and facing scrutiny and regulatory issues, the company is branching out again. Much like last year, Uber is offering ice cream day today, July 24th. While hours and prices vary by country, state, or city, the gist is that instead of ordering a ride, […]

Omni-channel is arguably the hottest topic in retail today. The evolution that has occurred over the years has been impressive, if only from a naming convention standpoint. First there was multi-channel, where a retailer sold goods through more than one channel. Then, it become cross-channel, where retailers tried to enable the customer to move between […]

This week was a week of goodbyes. The United States Women’s National Soccer Team won a record third World Cup championship. In the process, they said goodbye to Abby Wambach (the all-time international scoring leader) and Christie Rampone, who played their final World Cup matches for the United States. Over the weekend, the Grateful Dead’s […]

I have been conducting a lot of research around TMS applications recently, and my colleague Steve Banker and I began to discuss how TMS providers keep their implementations on track. We determined that the providers must use a set of criteria and KPI’s to make sure that the project stays on time and on budget. […]

It’s finally summer. Which means a mixed bag of good and bad. The good? Less traffic heading in to the office, warm weather, no snow, summer vacations, longer days, and the disappearance of the winter blues. The bad? Mosquitoes, humidity, another disappointing Red Sox season, and cargo theft (see below). One of my favorite parts […]

As I mentioned in last Friday’s news round-up, the United States will begin to import eggs from Europe due to a massive shortage. This marks the first time in more than a decade that the US has been forced to import eggs. The cause of the shortage is avian flu. According to the US Department […]

Last week I had the opportunity to speak with the team at MercuryGate (a Logistics Viewpoints sponsor) about their latest transportation optimization (TO) release. The company’s TO engine, named Mojo, had already upgraded to include multi-pool routing, a secondary costing model, and advanced green calculations. However, the newest release of Mojo has a new product […]

ARC Advisory Group conducts an annual analysis of the global transportation management systems (TMS) market. The research process includes the analysis of large amounts of information and interviews with executives from numerous TMS software companies. The process concludes with the publication of ARC’s TMS Global Market Research Study, which analyzes the market shares across numerous […]

I spent the last week and a half in Israel attending my wife’s cousin’s wedding. The trip was wonderful and the wedding was beautiful. However, traveling 12 hours with a 7 hour time change with 2 small children is no easy feat. We packed light in terms of clothes, but heavy in terms of books, […]

As I’ve noted in my two previous columns, last month I attended the Home Delivery World, Click & Collect Show USA, and ETail Show USA joint conference in Atlanta. It is always interesting to see presenters give differing viewpoints on a given subject. Today’s column is one example from the show. As I wrote about […]

This Sunday is Mother’s Day, a modern celebration of mothers and motherhood. According to the National Retail Federation, families will spend more on moms this year than ever before – an average of $172, or $21 billion in total. One of the biggest gifts this time of year is flowers. Fresh flowers are shipped all […]

Earlier this month I attended the Home Delivery World, Click & Collect Show USA, and ETail Show USA joint conference in Atlanta. One of my favorite parts of these conferences is getting a new perspective on an existing problem. And more importantly, I get to learn from my peers who are implementing creative solutions. One […]

Monday, April 20th marked the 119th running of the Boston Marathon. Think about the logistics behind this event. 26.2 miles. 34 elite runners racing for $100,000 in prize money. 30,000 other runners trying to record a personal best, re-qualify, raise money for charity programs, or just finish. Thousands of volunteers at the start, finish, along […]

As I mentioned in last week’s Friday News Roundup, I spent some time in Atlanta attending the Home Delivery World, Click & Collect Show USA, and ETail Show USA joint conference. I had the pleasure of catching Tom Barone, VP of North America Operations at eBay Enterprise present on the changing nature of commerce. Tom […]

Yesterday morning, I had a nice relaxing cup of coffee outside and finally enjoyed some warm weather. That’s because I spent most of the week in Atlanta attending a conference. Well, in reality it was three conferences wrapped up in one: Home Delivery World, Click & Collect Show USA, and ETail Show USA. The three […]

During the second half of 2014, Clint Reiser and I worked on an extensive survey examining the omni-channel commerce landscape. One of the key findings from that research was on the growth of e-commerce. According to our research, the lion’s share of revenue is still driven by the store. Brick and mortar locations accounted for […]

C3PO. R2D2. Johnny 5. Optimus Prime. Voltron. HAL 9000. Wall-E. Terminator. Rosie the maid. Bender. You might notice a theme here. This a short list of some of my favorite robots. These robots can do lots of things: help save the galaxy from evil, understand mortality, travel through time to kill (or protect) Sarah (or […]

One of my favorite parts of being an analyst and a columnist for Logistics Viewpoints, aside from expounding on omni-channel retail and supply chain logistics trends and technologies, is the opportunity to learn. As much as I may know about supply chain logistics, there is always room to learn. I learn from my peers, and […]

The unemployment rate edged down slightly in February 2015, to 5.5%. While the unemployment rate for teenagers decreased 1.7% to 17.1%, the rate for adult men (5.2%) and women (4.9%) remained relatively unchanged. This is a good sign for the US economy, as jobs continue to grow. There is one area, in particular, that has […]

Look up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a remote controlled drone delivering a package to my house? It appears as though the future is here. Well, not so fast. As noted in last Friday’s news roundup, the FAA revealed a proposal over the regulation of commercial drones in the US. […]

The times they are a-changing. This week’s news reflects some major changes, especially in the retail world. The West Coast port work stoppage has come to an end with a formal agreement in place after 9+ months of discussions. Major retailers are branching into new, and often unlikely spaces, as the global e-commerce market soars. […]

Things are certainly changing in the trucking industry. Even though demand is rising, the industry is facing a monumental challenge in its shortage of qualified and licensed drivers. The driver shortage has been at the forefront of trucking news for some time, and we have certainly covered it here at Logistics Viewpoints. With the ongoing […]

Another week, another winter storm in the Northeast. It is a seemingly endless onslaught of snow, with another potential blizzard on the horizon. Last week I wrote about e-commerce grinding to a halt with the back-to-back storms, and Clint Reiser wrote about the weather’s impact on the supply chain (and his pursuit of a roof […]

It’s been a crazy week around these parts. Still dealing with the aftermath of the Blizzard of 2015, the Boston area was pounded by another major snow storm. These two storms set a record for most snowfall in a 7 day period. With the roads and rail systems a mess already, the latest snow made […]

Last week, I spoke with Donald Rowley, CIO at Sleepy’s. Headquartered in Hicksville, NY, Sleepy’s is a privately owned mattress retail company with 1,000 stores and 2,900 employees. The company sells mattresses and bedding accessories through its showrooms, website, and call center. Donald and I spoke about route planning and the impact it can have […]

On Sunday night, I dealt with a logistical nightmare. I was fortunate enough to have tickets to the Patriots – Colts AFC Championship game. As a lifelong Pats fan, it was a treat to witness the victory. As a man with a decent amount of common sense, it was a difficult night. First, the rain. […]

Another year, another NRF Big Show in the books. Not surprisingly, the typical buzz words were thrown around a lot again this year – omni-channel, integration, mobile, etc. But there were three main themes that popped up in just about every meeting I sat through, and I could hear people talking about them as they […]

Happy New Year. It’s hard to believe our little break is over and we are a week back into work. With so much to look back on, I prefer to look ahead. But just to next week. Clint Reiser and I will be off to the National Retail Federation’s (NRF) Big Show on Monday in […]

It’s hard to believe another year is coming to an end. There have been many highs and many lows this year, and an awful lot of newsworthy items to keep you abreast of. We wrote about numerous mergers and acquisitions, new technologies and innovations, customer success stories, drones, overnight delivery, port congestion, drones, 3PL’s, robots, […]

With the Christmas holiday just a week away, retailers and shippers are scrambling to make sure that their supply chain networks are firing on all cylinders for seamless deliveries. And if things couldn’t get more hectic, today is Free Shipping Day. To date, nearly 1,200 merchants are participating in the event, from big box retailers […]

Earlier this year, my colleague Ralph Rio wrote an insightful and very popular article about Amazon’s interest in drones for home delivery. Amazon is continuing to push forward with their drone research and testing. One major obstacle, however, is rules that are in place by the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA). In a letter to the […]

According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), Black Friday fizzled compared to last year, as sales tumbled 11%. An estimated 6 million+ shoppers that were expected to hit the stores on Black Friday never showed up. There are a few reasons why sales tumbled. First, more consumers appear to not be in a rush to […]

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, a time for family, friends, and turkey. Lots of turkey. Just how much turkey? According to the National Turkey Federation, over 730 million pounds of turkey will be consumed in the United States during Thanksgiving. Given that the average weight of a Thanksgiving turkey is 16 pounds, that is about 45 million […]

Thanksgiving is just a week away, which means the countdown is on for Black Friday (and pre-Black Friday deals). Just how big will this year’s turnout be? The National Retail Federation (NRF) expects 140 million holiday shoppers to take advantage of Thanksgiving weekend deals in stores and online. To put that in perspective, that represents […]

Last year’s holiday shopping season could be described as “rough.” An estimated two million packages were delivered late, which really doesn’t make for a happy customer. The reasons were two-fold. First, there was a huge jump in last minute orders that shippers were simply unprepared for, and therefore were unable to get out on time. […]

For many years, “fall back” was a good thing. I could go to the bed at my normal time on Saturday night and enjoy an extra hour of sleep. Sure, it meant that the cold of winter was coming and that it would be dark by 4:30, but for one glorious day, I got to […]

Over the last few months, Clint Reiser and I have been working on an extensive omni-channel data set. We presented our findings at last month’s CSCMP Global Conference in San Antonio, TX. We are planning to release a comprehensive strategic report in the next few weeks that will highlight the key trends, business strategies, and […]

Retailers are gearing up for the upcoming holiday season. While most stores are currently decked out in Halloween gear, come November 1, that will all change. Cue the Christmas trees, lights, and music, because the holiday season is fast approaching. I can’t say that I’m looking forward to it. But the retailers sure seem ready. […]

One of the key aspects of omni-channel retailing is merchandise availability. This pertains to the store, warehouse, and distribution center. With so much effort and focus being spent on building out omni-channel strategies starting at the store, merchandise availability within the store is of critical importance. Another company that presented at the CSCMP Annual Global […]

It’s been a crazy week here for me. I’ve been working on finishing up our omni-channel strategic report, scoping my soon-to-launch omni-channel market study, and took a quick two day trip to the Waldorf Astoria in New York City for SAP’s Retail Forum. It was a great conference with lots of great speakers and sessions […]

Last week I attended the CSCMP Annual Global Conference in San Antonio, TX. The omni-channel track featured in the Customer Cornerstone had a number of interesting sessions (including mine). One that stuck out to me was “Creating a Healthy Omni-Channel Supply Chain: The Vitamin Shoppe’s Transition from Multi-Channel to Omni-Channel Retailer” presented by Rich Tannenbaum, […]

This week I experienced the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) Annual Conference for the first time. The conference brought together thought leaders and practitioners from all industries and backgrounds to San Antonio to discuss, debate, and challenge each other on a host of supply chain topics. I was there for two reasons: to […]

CSCMP is only a week away. Clint Reiser and I will be presenting our findings from an omni-channel fulfillment survey we conducted in partnership with James Cooke and DC Velocity. Omni-channel is all about the convergence of channels to provide a unified brand experience for the customer. Each channel has its own experiences, advantages, and […]

We’ve written a lot about the truck driver shortage here at Logistics Viewpoints and the impact that this could have on the global supply chain moving forward. Often times we forget about, or simply don’t think about, everything and everyone that makes it possible for us to get the goods we desire. The shortage could […]

ARC Advisory Group conducts an annual analysis of the global transportation management systems (TMS) market. The research process includes the analysis of large amounts of information and interviews with executives from numerous TMS software companies. The process concludes with the publication of ARC’s TMS Global Market Research Study, which analyzes the market shares across numerous […]

I’m sure everyone’s Facebook feed has been jammed with friends and family members (and links to celebrities) taking the ice bucket challenge. For those of you who don’t know what the ice bucket challenge is, I’ll explain. If you are challenged, you have 24 hours to either dump a bucket of ice water on your […]

There has been a lot of talk lately as it relates to “last mile” deliveries, and how retailers can delight their customers at the actual moment of fulfillment. As more retailers venture into the omni-channel space, last mile has taken on more importance. Two behemoths have taken center stage in the battle for perfecting (or […]

It’s the beginning of August and already I’ve been inundated with back-to-school advertisements. I suppose this is better than the Christmas ads that will plague us following Labor Day, but still, it just seems a bit early for me. My son doesn’t go back to school for another 5 weeks. But retailers are all in […]

I finished my first ARC Market Study this week, looking at the Transportation Management Systems market. On top of that, my colleague, Clint Reiser, and I are wrapping up our omni-channel fulfillment survey, with an upcoming presentation at the annual CSCMP show in September. So it’s been a pretty busy week (month) here. Let’s get right […]

Supply chain disruptions are not a new thing. I’ve written about them quite a bit this year, whether they were due to bad weather, political unrest, driver shortages, or faulty equipment. And we’ve certainly seen supply chain disruptions due to employee strikes or walk-outs. These incidents are usually due to what employees feel are unfair […]

#BeforeLeBronDecides Yes, it’s an actual trending hashtag. And thanks to ESPN’s SportsNation, it has been a top trending topic over the last 24 – 36 hours. And fans got creative with their ideas. But fans are also growing impatient. People want to know where LeBron James will play next year. Personally, I’m not overly concerned, […]

This past weekend I tried Uber for the first time. For those of you unfamiliar with Uber, it is basically a crowd sourced taxi that operates at a fraction of the cost of a typical taxi ride. All drivers must pass a rigorous background and driving check, and scheduling a ride is easy. Through their […]

June 6, 1944. It’s a date that stands out in history, and one that most people know by heart. It is D-Day. Seventy years ago 160,000 allied troops landed along the beaches of Normandy to fight Nazi Germany. While the casualties were high, it enabled the allied forces to gain a foothold in Europe. This […]

This weekend marks a number of big occasions. First and foremost, it is Memorial Day, when we honor and remember the men and women of the United States Armed Forces who have died while serving their country. Second, I turn 35 this weekend, which has me officially feeling on the wrong side of “young.” And […]

This week I had the pleasure of attending the Manhattan Associates Momentum user conference in Hollywood, FL. The main theme for Momentum was to get “commerce ready.” What “commerce ready” means may vary a little based on company, industry, segment, and target market, but the key point was clear. Organizations need to be ready to […]

Last week, several colleagues and I attended JDA’s annual user conference in Las Vegas. The theme of this year’s conference was “Outperform” and had over 2200 customer attendees. The customer case studies were very informative, and could pique the curiosity of executives from every walk of life or industry. The show stopper for Day 2 […]

It’s been a busy week here at Logistics Viewpoints as we get ready to head to Las Vegas next week for JDA Focus, and Hollywood, FL the week after for Manhattan Momentum. There’s a bit of everything in the news this week, so let’s get right to it. Amazon tries its own deliveries Freight train […]

This past Tuesday, April 15, marked the one year anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings. It was a moment that brought shock, terror, sadness, anger, strength, and pride to the city of Boston. The local and national media have done a terrific job of capturing the raw emotion of the events, and the healing process […]

Today’s consumer is more informed than ever about the products they are buying. This includes product attributes and information, advantages, limitations, and competitive pricing, among others. The notion of the informed consumer has also taken on a new meaning lately. Namely, consumers care where the products come from, and how it is made. This is […]

March 24 marked the 25th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound in Alaska. The impact of the oil spill is still being felt today. While the majority of species affected by the spill have recovered to pre-spill levels, and the commercial fishing industry has mostly recovered, federal scientists estimate that […]

Retailers have been struggling to meet the omni-channel demands of their customers. In fact, it’s surprising the number of retailers that still do not offer “buy online, pick up in-store” capabilities. In-store fulfillment of online orders poses a few logistical challenges for retailers, including where will the online orders be picked? Retailers have a few […]

Last week, I attended my first ARC Industry Forum in Orlando, FL. There were a lot of fascinating sessions that examined 3D printing, cyber security, the Internet of Things (IoT), predictive analytics, and a host of challenges and changing conditions in the discreet and process manufacturing industries. However, the session that stood out most to […]

Earlier this month, I wrote about my experience visiting the National Retail Federation’s (NRF) Big Show in New York. The big focus at the show this year, much like in years past, was the focus on improving the omni-channel customer experience. As I wrote, customers do NOT expect a similar experience across channels. Instead, they […]

There has been a lot of banter lately about the future of brick and mortar retail. On one side, you’ll hear that the brick and mortar store is still king, and won’t be going anywhere. On the other side, you’ll hear that e-commerce is slowly taking its toll on the brick and mortar store and […]

The 2014 National Retail Federation (NRF) Big Show, one of the biggest trade shows in the country, was once again all about the customer experience. There are a lot of ways to look at the customer experience and what retailers are doing to shape it. And there are a lot of vendors out there that […]