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However, as carbon taxes and emissions reporting requirements continue increasing, supply chain professionals face mounting pressures from inside and outside their organizations to measure and improve performance against new, nebulous sustainability metrics. Sustainability is high on the list of favorite corporate buzzwords.
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. With the global e-commerce market predicted to reach $8.1 We were wrong. billion to $23.07
The Warehouse Management System market nearly grew by $1 billion in 2024, following a robust four-year climb since the pandemic. E-Commerce Expansion and Fulfillment Complexity The surge in online shopping has dramatically increased the demand for sophisticated warehouse operations with shorter shipping deadlines.
Procurement and supply chain management are often used interchangeably—but in practice, the lines between them can blur in ways that create real friction. Misaligned priorities, siloed systems, and unclear ownership can directly impact key performance indicators like cost savings percentage and procurement cycle time.
For most CPOs and CFOs, deciding on the right purchasing setup — centralized or decentralized — is no small task. Each model has its perks, and choosing the best fit can feel like walking a tightrope. Keep reading to learn: What is centralized purchasing? What is centralized purchasing?
Supply chain efficiency is the cornerstone of success and involves the effective management of processes, resources, and technologies from procurement to production, transportation to warehousing. In the automotive sector, manufacturers are simultaneously reducing inventory costs and delivery times.
In the age of same-day delivery and rising consumer expectations, there is immense pressure on warehouses to perform at peak efficiency. But between rising costs, complex logistics, and the constant struggle to optimize space and labor, staying ahead can feel like an uphill battle. That’s where warehouse optimization comes in.
Analytics and business intelligence (BI) are no longer optionaltheyre essential. But to do that effectively, they need more than just spreadsheets and static dashboards. They integrate, align, and activate data across the business to drive better, faster decisions unlike legacy reporting tools that can’t.
Supply chains around the country are in great need of warehouse and transportation workers. Just last month I noted that warehouse labor productivity was hindered extensively by COVID-19 and that 80 percent of ARC’s warehouse survey respondents anticipate an increase of order throughput volumes in 2021. Why is that?
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. In today’s business world, real-time data isn’t just nice to have; it’s essential.
By embedding analytics across logistics, sourcing, and fulfillment, businesses gain the visibility and foresight needed to stay competitive.Analytics-driven leadership is no longer a luxury; it’s the foundation of operational survival in todays volatile business environment. Analytics allows organizations to move beyond intuition.
However, over time, they slowly feel comfortable. It takes time. In companies, there is no standard model for demand processes. New forms of analytics make new capabilities possible. Let’s start with these: Demand Sensing: The reduction of time to sense purchase and channel takeaway. Confusion reigns.
Opportunities for Procurement Technology As we look toward 2025, European businesses are reshaping their supply chains to navigate an increasingly complex global landscape. A recent report by Maersk and Reuters Events highlights that 68% of companies are making supply chain visibility and monitoring solutions a top priority.
Understanding how your Procurement and Supply Chain KPIs are performing isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s essential for survival and growth. Is inventory bloating your costs? Why You Need Visibility of Supply Chain and Procurement KPIs? Decoding the Metrics: What Are They Telling You?
Some logistics involves transportation or warehouses or both. Logistics encompasses certain subsets of practices within the supply chain, such as just in time logistics, mission critical logistics, and more. We’ve already listed the top 10 manufacturing blog posts and the top 10 supply chain blog posts last week.
I never republished the report, because not enough has changed to warrant it.) The report centers on the concept of moving from inside-out to outside-in technologies. At the time, one of the people (let’s call him Noel) that I great respect for in the industry called me to say, “Lora, I don’t get it.
The good news is that these peaks come at about the same time every year and can therefore be easily planned for. The hype usually revolves around just one item and can easily be managed by a modern logistics system. Here, it’s extremely difficult to predict which sales volume will be reached for which goods.
When the ball drops on Times Square to welcome in 2022, the employees at the Port of Long Beach will celebrate moving 9 M TEUs in imports: a 26% increase year-over-year. Not only did the cost increase, but variability tripled. The dramatic increase in cost is a major factor in inflation: driving the 11.5% I am worried.
As physical stores opened, shut down and re-opened again, consumers became more flexible in the way they shop for, and purchase, just about every product. According to a recent article in Forbes , 48% of consumers today prefer a hybrid shopping model that combines online and in-store components.
FourKites CEO, Matt Elenjickal One of the two leaders in the real-time transportation visibility market is FourKites. ARC considers real-time visibility solutions, like the one from FourKites, one type of SCCN solution. ARC considers real-time visibility solutions, like the one from FourKites, one type of SCCN solution.
But the rapid shift from retail to online purchasing for staples and the surge for protective equipment, as well as unanticipated products like bread makers and home-schooling items, left many retailers flatfooted. The demand caught off-guard those retailers and suppliers who relied on just-in-time inventory practices.
For example, an ERP for automotive distributors needs to include not just a standard sales function but also allow for automotive-specific processes like call-offs and contract pricing, as well as other processes like returns and lot traceability. Inventory management and warehousing Thousands of parts are used in automotive distribution.
What Contractors Need to Streamline Procurement in 2025 By Ian Summers (pictured) Content Writer 111 Views You’re on-site before dawn, the framing crew’s ready, but the steel shipment’s stuck in limbo, the invoice isn’t approved, and your project management app just pinged you for the fourth time.
Remember those times when we used to stroll down the block and find local stores such as the mom-and-pop diners and get the chance to relish the coziness and sense of family environment there. Digital commerce efficiently requires the digitalization of many customer-facing operations and sourcing and procurement.
following the reporting of fourth-quarter results. The Salesforce.com model is primarily a pipeline management tool suitable for discrete markets but not process manufacturers. The models are just too different.) Customers will migrate off of the Logility platform onto newer flow-based outside-in models.
At that time, manufacturers talked about customer-centric supply chains, but were afraid to aggressively adopt ecommerce strategies. Get Good at Having a Real-time Perpetual Inventory Signal. Foundational for ecommerce is a real-time perpetual inventory (PI) signal. The proliferation of the business models is exciting.
Table of Contents ** Minutes What are warehouse functions? But they couldn’t be more wrong: a warehouse is a dynamic hub of activity that is the foundation of the entire ecommerce order fulfillment process. What are warehouse functions? However, managing warehouse functions is no simple feat.
It would just print order tickets and permit a picker to create a batch unit of work by scanning a bunch of tickets together into a single unit of work. In the case of this retailer, all its major operational aspects – such as directed put away, replenishment, and inventory management – were running just fine.
While the Halloween season is just getting started, retailers are clearly looking ahead. I keep reading reports that companies such as Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy are planning to kick off massive holiday deals in late October / early November. DHL Supply Chain to hire 12,000 warehouse employees ahead of peak season.
By the time I have finished writing this article, and certainly before it is published, the situation will have changed. One is reminded of the Chinese proverb, Better to be a dog in times of tranquility than a human in times of chaos. And insight is what we got, in spades. As late as the 1990s, supply chains were very local.
Background The Council of Supply Chain Resilience met for the first time this month. Today, I speak at the North American Manufacturing Association, Manufacturing Leadership Conference, in Nashville on the use of data to improve supply chain resilience. Here I share some insights from my research. The reason? We are not clear on definition.
Visibility solutions allow real-time asset tracking across the entire distribution network. This enables improved estimated arrival times of goods. Based on ARC Advisory Group’s new global market report, the five largest providers of TES, listed alphabetically, are Descartes, E2open, FourKites, Infor Nexus, and project44.
Within this setup, an ERP procurement module helps companies make purchases and manage suppliers. Numbers speak louder: According to Procurement Tactics’ top procurement trends in 2025 , 83% of CPOs prioritize digitization. Keep reading to learn: What Is ERP in Procurement?
The days of re-slotting and warehouse at the time of its creation have ended. Today, warehouse managers face an endless battle with a growing number of products and limited storage capacity, and among distribution center managers, the challenge of warehouse slotting is even more difficult.
Months went by, but we were in the thick of the pandemic, with global supply chains under immense pressure, so I just assumed materials shortages were to blame. Multiple calls only muddied the waters, but a few things became clear: inventory was in the warehouse, but my order for it was stuck. I should have known better.
But now, scientists are saying that the fountain of youth could be a reality, but just in a very different form. The company disclosed the total of single-use plastic across global operations for the first time in 2022 after investors sought more details on plans to reduce waste. percent decrease from 2021.
It’s time to focus on how we innovate and optimize our businesses and operations in this permanently altered world. The percentage of purchases made and fulfilled through digital commerce has exploded in the past two years, advancing a pre-pandemic trend by as much as 10 years according to some industry watchers.
Intelligent supply chain management can reduce costs, improve profitability, and enable competitive advantage for your organization. Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming more mainstream, and machine-aided purchases, such as voice ordering thru voice assistants like Amazon’s Alexa, are beginning to permeate everyday households.
When we talk about supply chain automation, we’re not just discussing robots in warehouses (though they’re certainly part of it!). To some younger people, this will be the norm, but in the past, many things that are automated today were manual tasks that took up extensive amounts of time.
Running a warehouse these days feels like a constant juggling act, right? Mobile ERP software is transforming warehousesjust like yours. Here’s a sneak peek at what we’ll explore: Understanding the core benefits of mobile solutions for warehouse ERP. There’s a better way. There’s a better way.
The days of managing channels on an individual basis are over, and consumers are using multiple devices and e-commerce platforms for nearly all purchases. individuals over the age of 15 at some point use e-commerce platforms to make purchases, asserts Business Insider. Use technology to manage warehousing and transportation.
Inventory, in this time of uncertainty, is the organization’s most important buffer to protect against variability. Cash-to-Cash Metrics. In times of uncertainty, cash is king. Cash-to-cash is a compound metric: (Days of Receivables+Days of Inventory)-Days of Payables=Cash Conversion Cycle. Let me explain.
Use this guide to understand warehousing services, prioritize service level agreements, and choose the right warehouse partner for your business. Table of Contents: What is Warehousing? What Is Warehousing? Types of Warehousing Services. By this definition, a warehouse would only provide inventory storage.
3D printing’s effect on the supply chain can be summarized as the following: warehouses no longer need to keep as many parts in stock. this also means that warehouses can carry less physical inventory but potentially more stock keeping units (SKUs). Printing times included: 2×4 Lego: 4 minutes. This vision has not been realized.
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