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How CPG leaders can reducecosts without hurting supply chain performance fbaker Tue, 06/03/2025 - 09:18 In the consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry, SG&A (Selling, General, and Administrative) costs have long been a go-to target for improving margins. But today’s market is anything but typical.
Are you making the fatal mistake of underestimating the importance of inventory rebalancing? Many retailers treat inventory management as a mundane task rather than a strategic lever for success. This oversight can lead to hidden costs that not only erode your profits but also jeopardize your customer loyalty.
For senior leaders, understanding and integrating the three pillars of sustainability—environmental, social, and economic—into supply chain strategies is essential. Reducing carbon emissions is a cornerstone of this effort. Meanwhile, advances in AI-driven route optimization reduce unnecessary mileage, cutting emissions and costs.
If so, optimizing your inventory management strategy can be a game-changer. Imagine shipping products directly from your supplier to your customer while maintaining the appearance that your business is the source. That's what you get from blind shipping, and we're here to tell you all about it!
In todays volatile global landscape, wholesale distributors and aftermarket companies face an uphill battle to maintain service levels, manage costs, and ensure competitiveness. Lets explore these challenges and strategies to overcome them. Conflicts in critical regions disrupt access to essential materials.
They integrate AI into demand forecasting, inventory optimization, and logistics operations to improve efficiency, reducecosts, and mitigate risks. When unexpected disruptions occura factory shutdown, a shipping delay, or a supply shortagethese models provide little flexibility.
These steps include sourcing and receiving inventory, storing inventory, order processing, picking and packing an order, shipping the order, and returns management. Standard sizes and categorizations play a crucial role in determining the costs associated with shipping products that meet standard criteria in fulfillment centers.
Successive governments have determined that applying zero duty on wine is the best strategy to help winemakers keep producing and selling. It may seem like a small detail, but wine has multiple component costs that affect the total price—such as production, land, labor, and oak barrels. Do You Think Fedex Ships Live Pandas?
In the competitive industrial landscape, efficient spare parts inventory management is crucial to maintaining seamless operations and driving profitability. Spare parts supply chains, however, come with their own set of complexities, requiring targeted strategies and specialized tools to meet these unique demands effectively.
The 25% tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports and 20% tariffs on Chinese goods are expected to increase production costs, disrupt logistics networks, and force companies to rethink supply chains. Vehicle production costs in the U.S. production at its South Carolina plant to reduce reliance on North American imports.
Blind shipping is a strategic method of drop shipping where the supplier's identity is concealed, and products are shipped directly from the supplier to the customer, maintaining confidentiality along your supply chain. What is blind shipping? And why does it matter to businesses?
Bloated inventories. Tightening of organizational belt-cutting to improve cash. Despite investments in planning, today, industries hold 28 more days of inventory than in 2004. The larger the number of days of inventory, the greater the cash drag.) Changes in Inventory Year-end inventory values by industry from Y Charts.
These facilities produce and ship 150,000 order lines per day. Like many companies, the French multinational produces a significant amount of its products in low-cost nations. For the first few years, the company created regional models to determine how to maintain or improve customer service levels at lower cost.
In the dynamic landscape of modern supply chains, one of the key challenges is the efficient management of resources to eliminate waste and enhance overall productivity. Standardized carton sizes also facilitate more efficient stacking and storage within the warehouse, reducing space utilization and improving overall operational flow.
Shippers that rely on imports have obviously been among the first to feel the financial strain as rising costs disrupt supply chains and profitability. Companies now must make strategic decisions regarding pricing, shipping, supply chains and overall logistics. The newly implemented 2025 U.S.
Once the order amount and timeline are agreed upon between the parties, advanced shipping notices are used to track delivery. 18,000 suppliers ship 70,000 different types of parts to 72 Molex manufacturing plants across the globe. It will certainly be a subject of conversation before the next contract is cut. Gainsford said.
Delays, excess inventory, missed handoffs, and reactive decision-making are all signs of a supply chain that lacks coordination. This doesnt eliminate those systems, it organizes the data they produce. This reduces reliance on manual tracking or last-minute phone calls. The system also contributes to better forecasting accuracy.
In the automotive sector, manufacturers are simultaneously reducinginventorycosts and delivery times. Additionally, we’ll discuss best practices for optimization and strategies for balancing efficiency with resilience. Technology integration: Leveraging digital tools to enhance visibility and decision-making.
Introduction Inventory management is the backbone of a successful supply chain operation, but it’s often a source of persistent frustration. Mobile inventory management offers a transformative solution, providing the real-time data and streamlined workflows needed to optimize operations and gain a competitive edge.
The adoption of AI in supply chain automation is enabling companies to make more accurate decisions, reduce cycle times, and better manage complexity. Use Cases: Spend Analytics: Machine learning models analyze historical purchasing behavior to identify opportunities for costreduction, supplier consolidation, and policy enforcement.
In May, the total number of job cuts in the US were 696,309 – an increase of 80% from the 385,859 jobs cut in the first five months of 2024. During the first week of June 2025, job cuts continued with 90,000 layoffs with iconic brands like Kimberly-Clark (1500-1900), Microsoft (6,000), P&G (7000), and Wal-Mart (1,500).
Picture this: You’re a warehouse manager, and with a few taps on your smartphone, you instantly know the exact location and quantity of every item in your inventory. That’s not science fiction—it’s the power of mobile inventory management. Ready to turn your inventory from a headache into a strategic asset?
Companies that previously prioritized cost-cutting and centralized sourcing quickly found themselves exposed to serious production and distribution risks. For years, supply chains have focused primarily on reducingcosts, often prioritizing efficiency over resilience.
For retail and consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies, the busy shipping season came early. But shippers looking to avoid disruptions and ensure that tight inventory levels don’t lead to missed sales opportunities pulled their orders forward. However, over-the-road transportation costs remain low.
But between rising costs, complex logistics, and the constant struggle to optimize space and labor, staying ahead can feel like an uphill battle. By maximizing space utilization, improving inventory control , and boosting workflow efficiency, you can unlock significant cost savings and elevate your customer service game.
As Black Friday rushes past, you may be reviewing your inventory performance, especially if certain items sold out too fast or if slow-movers are now taking up too much space. Even worse, maybe you did have inventory in your network, but it was in the wrong location to meet customer demand.
You’re expected to ship more orders, faster, with fewer errors — all while managing rising costs and shrinking labor pools. It’s a tough challenge, and if you’re relying on outdated processes and technology, it’s likely costing you more than you realize.
He also hosts the “Parcel Perspectives with Glenn Gooding” podcast, providing actionable insights and strategies for making informed shipping decisions and delivering exceptional customer experiences. Industry Expertise: With years of experience, iDrive offers expert guidance on designing efficient supply chain strategies.
Featuring Our 10 Best Inventory Management Articles! Ensuring your inventory management processes are streamlined and efficient is key to the success of your business operations. Navigating inventory management challenges There are several challenges that businesses face when it comes to inventory management.
If your business depends on freight shipping, you've likely felt the effects of a world that seems to change overnight. From port congestion and fuel surcharges to weather events and labor shortages, the threats to your shipping network are real and growing. Even businesses that ship only within U.S. The good news?
Traditional contracts rely on manual verification, third-party intermediaries, and complex legal frameworks, leading to delays, disputes, and increased costs. Intermediary costs Third-party auditors, banks, and brokers drive up expenses. Lost goods, fraud, and counterfeiting cost businesses billions of dollars annually.
Large companies with a supply chain risk strategy already in place couldn’t fully cope with the impact of the pandemic. It’s the result of a deliberate strategy that may require tradeoffs compared to other approaches. The coronavirus disruptions highlighted the stressed nature of lean and just-in-time inventories.
Leveling up your inventory life cycle can be crucial, but keeping all the fundamental factors jumping is essential to let the life cycle evolve. However, if the life cycle stock is healthy, inventory management is smooth. Inventory management revolves around the pivotal concept of the product life cycle. Click here!
Three months into 2025, we have seen a barrage of on-again, off-again tariffs that have supply chain and logistics teams reeling, as they must rethink everything from next weeks shipping route to their foundational network models. The Ukraine-Russia conflict is ongoing.
” Accurate transit time predictions have become more crucial than ever given customer demands and expectations, the cost impacts of late shipments, and dynamic nature of today’s supply chains. Increased lead time accuracy reduces risks involved in transportation and logistics, improving your overall supply chain.
Rising costs, geopolitical tensions, and tariffs demand a strategic and holistic approach to maintain profitability and competitive advantage. There are many ways an organization can cut supply chain costs. For many large enterprises, procurement makes up a large part of a company’s total costs.
Tariffs are reshaping sourcing strategies, forcing tech upgrades, and making inventory planning a lot more complicated. For global businesses relying on real-time logistics and lean inventory models, the question is how prepared is your supply chain when tariffs hit? The cost of these downstream hurdles is lost time.
However, building such a supply chain requires smart strategies , the right partners, andmost importantlythe ability to adapt quickly when things go wrong. In this article, well explore proven strategies to safeguard your supply chain, minimize risks, and keep your business running smoothly, no matter what obstacles lie ahead.
Economic downturns can disrupt the flow of goods, increase operational costs, and reduce profit margins. In this blog post, well explore the importance of robust supply chains, the key risks they face during economic downturns, and practical strategies. Recession-proofing a supply chain doesn’t mean eliminating all risks.
Managing inventory effectively is a constant challenge for businesses. Misunderstandings about the dynamics of inventory fluctuations, like the bullwhip effect, can exacerbate these challenges. Misunderstandings about the dynamics of inventory fluctuations, like the bullwhip effect, can exacerbate these challenges.
Supply chain reports are data-driven documents that provide key metrics and insights into various aspects of your supply chain, including: Inventory Levels Tracking stock levels in real-time to ensure adequate inventory to meet demand while minimizing holding costs.
It allows brands to start selling internationally without the upfront investment of holding inventory abroad. Cross-Border Shipping vs Local Fulfillment Cross-border shipping refers to fulfilling international orders from a domestic warehouse, typically from the brands home country or primary market. For example, a U.S.-based
The manufacturing industry faces many challenges, such as a skilled labor shortage, supply chain instability, and inventory management issues. GlobalTranz works with manufacturing shippers every day to move their goods and streamline their logistics strategies. Supply Chain Management and Maintaining Inventory.
E-Commerce Expansion and Fulfillment Complexity The surge in online shopping has dramatically increased the demand for sophisticated warehouse operations with shorter shipping deadlines. These technologies enhance decision making, reduce downtime, and improve warehouse intelligence.
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