News and Insights for Logistics and Supply Chain Professionals
Prepare your ERP for 3PL Adopting a 3PL (third party logistics) provider model is common practice as businesses seek to exploit value throughout the supply chain. During adoption, supply chain directors tend to focus on commercial contracts, logistics between the production site and the warehouse, warehouse staffing and training, picking returns procedures and so on. [...]
Customer Service: The Source of Supply Chain Innovation In December’s issue of InBound, editor Keith Biondi cited customer service as the source for supply chain innovation. Not technology. Not business process re-engineering (BPR). Interesting, right? When you focus on your customer, you’re focusing on his/her success. When you make them successful, you become successful. Before [...]
Click to register for this free webinar: Selecting a 3PL: 8 Things the Great 3PLs Do (Wednesday, February 12, 1:00 pm - 1:30 pm) Companies with logistics needs are increasingly using 3rd party logistics providers (3PLs). Contracting with a 3PL is a great choice as long as you pick the right 3PL. The right 3PL can [...]
Transportation and Logistics Industry Trends These trends stand to impact the transportation and logistics industry, with some already taking hold and others unfolding gradually. Each trend has the potential to transform the logistics industry. Trend #1: Cloud Computing Becomes the New Way of Doing Business. Cloud computing shows promise for further growth and transformation [...]
Hottest Growth Sectors in Supply Chain Management Staying ahead of the game with critical information is a key to success. Over the last several months, I have had the opportunity to speak with hundreds of CEOs, vice presidents, directors of operations and various management personnel within the supply chain management (SCM) industry. Thousands of conversations later [...]
“3PLs bundle services to better serve their clients. The logistics industry is huge and the service offerings are very diverse. There are 5 major categories of logistics services: warehousing, transportation, special services, technology and logistics management.” Ultimate Guide to 3PL Services Have you ever nodded your head cluelessly and pretended to know what those [...]
Introduction Today, biopharma distribution is experiencing surging demand and burdening cost. Distribution networks are being asked two opposing options: first, to plan for a 3-4x expansion and secondly, to plan for closing down the activity. Unique to biopharma are two different working parts of distribution - clinical and commercial. On the clinical side, a greater [...]
The Divide How many times have you been pestered to do a survey in the past year? Month? Week? My guess is: plenty! As a professional, you are likely bombarded with survey requests, most of which you may ignore due to sheer volume! Many of these requests probably come from academics, like me, trying to [...]
Importance of Cost Reduction for Shippers Shippers work in a tough environment. Cost pressures dominate, constrain and impact shippers – daily. But shippers have a lopsided preoccupation with costs. In its 2013 Annual 3PL Survey, InBound Logistics found that shippers’ number one concern is transport costs. Specifically, 63% of shippers said their greatest challenge is cutting [...]
[pullquote align="left|center|right" textalign="left|center|right" width="30%"]Value Stream Mapping Workshop Materials are available for download [/pullquote] A few years back, I conducted a series of value stream mapping workshops. The workshops were focused on value streams for an automotive company and their suppliers. I recently ran across my value stream mapping workshop materials and I decided to share [...]
A service level agreement (SLA) is a contract between a logistics service provider and a customer that specifies, in measurable terms, what services the logistics provider will furnish. Many customers manage their Logistics providers with an SLA. In this free webinar, the basics of service level agreements will be presented. Topics will include: when to [...]
As a project manager, I am always learning new lessons about managing projects, sometimes the hard way. Below are some of my project management lessons. Project Management Lesson #1 - Projects are Everything Without projects there is no progress. The money saving software never gets implemented, the new car doesn't get launched and the new house doesn't get built.. [...]
