Europeans and North Americans talk about this managed transportation in different ways. In Europe, they often refer to this as a 4PL (fourth party logistics) service. When Europeans talk about a 4PL arrangement, what they are referring to tends to be more tightly defined and less flexible than what North Americans mean by “managed transportation.”
Read More →
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; namely, less people are visiting malls these days. The result is empty storefronts, which can result in the death of […]
Read More →Last year after the MODEX exhibition I stated that autonomous mobile robotics (AMR) had moved from the concept phase to commercial availability and practical consideration. At this year’s Promat show I set out to evaluate the commercial progress of AMR in the warehouse. Ideally the progress would be confirmed by referenceable customers willing to discuss their operational success along with the financial feasibility of the solutions. Just yesterday I had the pleasure of speaking with Cindy Traver, the senior director of operations at […]
Read More →Supply chain visibility hinges upon knowing the location, quantity and availability of raw materials and inventory at any moment in time. This information needs to be acted upon and applied across all touch points in the supply chain — from supplier, to end customer — in order to maximize supply chain performance. The Challenges of Diverse Partners and Disparate Systems Achieving this clarity within the four walls of an enterprise is difficult enough, but it […]
Read More →On June 1st, the US withdrew from the Paris Climate deal. Many of the largest companies in the world have embraced sustainability. almost all organizations (97 percent) place a high level of importance on sustainable procurement.
The problem is that initially most companies don’t focus sustainable procurement on greenhouse gas reductions.
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 related to automated vehicle tech and then left the company to found Otto. As a result, Uber fired Levandowsi. However, […]
Read More →Connecting to a global trade network for an RFP is like signing up for a match-making service. The network has all of your company’s must-haves for a good carrier match. It also has a statistical scorecard of every single carrier in the network, which provides their strengths and weaknesses. Using actionable intelligence, the global trade network can provide you with a list of new carriers that align well to your business needs. This allows you to strategically cast a wider net when inviting carriers to your RFP.
Read More →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 categories of the leading TMS suppliers. Aside from the market share analysis, the study looks at the trends that are […]
Read More →One of the most discussed topics in supply chain management today is the “Amazon Effect.” Clearly, the Amazon business model has affected many industries, including retail, manufacturing and distribution. Consumers now expect — and get — free next-day or second-day delivery on everything from electronics to shoes. To ask your customers to accept anything less in an Amazon world would be like telling your teenager that their iPhone is going away, but they are welcome […]
Read More →Charter Sponsors
Platinum Sponsors
Gold Sponsors
Supply Chain Brief
Bid Activity Strategies and Trends
Bid optimization and procurement are truly foundational for companies to achieve supply chain excellence and drive value. Procurement process and bid activities have a significant impact on shippers and carriers, making it critical for companies to establish good sourcing practices. With 2016 being a record year in terms of bid activities for shippers – due to an industry-wide desire to align shipper and carrier networks in the anticipation of an uncertain 2017 – we wanted […]
Read More →