Autonomous vehicles, such as yard and shuttle trucks that operate in in controlled environments, such as ports, manufacturing plants, and distribution center yards will be the first to go mainstream. ZF revealed autonomous Terminal Yard Tractor to the world last year. Running defined lanes within a restricted area, the yard trucks present an easy use case for moving freight from point A to point B autonomously.

Managing inventory in 2019 has become an even more complex challenge according to our industry peers and PINC customers. In my previous article titled “The High Cost of The One Percent Inventory Accuracy in Your Supply Chain“, I explored significant challenges, costs associated to inventory management, and what one percent of inventory accuracy represents to […]

If your company is experiencing inventory accuracy problems, the problem extends across your entire logistics network—and right to your end customer. Here’s how digital inventory technologies are helping companies solve those challenges. The supply chain industry is going through a transformation because customers’ expectations are changing and labor is hard to find and retain. If […]

Humans and robots can work in harmony to create a safer, more efficient working world. Here’s what that might look like. In Robots in the Supply Chain: The Perfect Employee? Merril Douglas paints a picture of a time in the near future when robots and humans will work side-by-side to help companies gain speed, increase […]

Take a calculated approach to robotics procurement and you’ll stand the best chance of successfully aligning it with your company’s mission, values, and future plans. In Robots in the Supply Chain: The Perfect Employee? Merril Douglas paints a picture of a time in the near future when robots and humans will work side-by-side to help companies […]

In the United States, 250,000 manufacturing plants and warehouses support the activities of 4 million retail stores and e-commerce websites – and all of these operations carry inventory. But in the warehouses, less than 10 percent are using automated storage and retrieval systems (AS/RS) to manage and move their inventories. That means the vast majority […]

Even though 90% of inventory is stationary in the supply chain, inventory accuracy at distribution centers, warehouses, and plants ranges from 89% to 99%*. In retail stores, this number drops to below 60%**. That’s because most of the inventory management process is still a manual activity. Knowing what inventory is on hand at any given […]

They are: Increased frequency of inventory checks Increased certainty of inventory levels Reduced losses due to inventory shrinkage More reliable financial reporting Better visibility to out-of-stock and excess inventory Increased velocity of order picking Savings in personnel costs or operations downtime Elimination of resources and equipment Staff redirected to handle high value activities Safer environment […]

Also known as “the 80/20 rule,” the Pareto Principle states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. Management consultant Joseph M. Juran suggested the principle and named it after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who noted the 80/20 connection while at the University of Lausanne in 1896, as […]

By definition, an ecosystem is a group of interconnected elements, formed by the interaction of a community of organisms with their environment. The same concept applies in the supply chain, where networks of organizations—including manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, retailers, customers, and carriers—are all involved in the hands-on delivery of a specific product or service. While few […]

With the millions of trailers nationwide sitting idle and unhooked 80% of the time, it’s time to take your yard out of the dark ages and into the digital world. When it comes to the warehouse or DC yard, traditional supply chain management software tools like Transportation Management Systems (TMS), Warehouse Management Systems (WMS), and Enterprise […]

Whether we like it or not, every company on the planet with any significant supply chain operation has an inventory reconciliation problem. It doesn’t matter if you are a retailer, manufacturer or logistics service provider, or if you have the latest and greatest warehouse management system. The fact is, if humans have to physically touch or […]

Organizations continue to look for areas of opportunity and inspiration on the quest to improve the operational efficiency of their supply chain. While technology capabilities are plentiful, for many, it’s not immediately obvious where one should start. What I have attempted to do here is provide a staged view on how I would categorize significant […]

We all know that Supply Chain Execution (SCE) is composed of Warehouse, Yard and Transportation management components.  But have you ever considered the relative importance of these three components?  Even though organizations usually prioritize their Yard Management System (YMS) as the final component of this trio, implementing an enterprise YMS is just the beginning of […]

I often get asked the question “What can a Yard Management System do for my organization”. Below, I’ve compiled the Top 10 most common benefits: Visibility: Without an advanced yard management system, organizations are reduced to doing a daily yard check with pen and paper and spending hours reconciling what they found with previous checks. […]

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the catalyst in creating more responsive supply chains by providing real-time, autonomous insight into your operational execution. DHL and Cisco recently published a report (linked here) that indicated the Internet of Things will deliver a $1.9 Trillion boost to Supply Chain & Logistics Operations. The report estimates that there […]

I have often been struck by the stark contrast in sophistication, automation and control inside the walls of our customer’s facilities, compared to the outside. Inside the walls, lean and six-sigma thinking prevails, while outside, beyond the dock, yard checks are commonly performed by scribbling notes on yesterday’s printout. I am always on the lookout […]