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Companies leaning heavily on global sourcing? Theyre feeling the heat most, as sudden trade policy curveballs throw procurement plans into chaos. manufacturer I know saw their import costs jump overnight, forcing a rethink of a decade-old sourcingstrategy. What Is Agile Procurement?
Treating suppliers as essential partners in the field of direct spend management—almost like customers—can be a key component of a successful company strategy. Access to Unique Process and Asset Capabilities: Some suppliers offer unique skills, technologies, or processes that are not available in-house or through other sources.
The manufacturing sector is facing unprecedented volatility in global trade, with tariffs becoming the latest in a series of uncertainty drivers that are impacting virtually all industries. Manufacturing plants are deeply entrenched; tied to infrastructure, suppliers, skilled labor, and regulatory requirements.
A data gateway is essentially a connective tissue across your supply chain, providing unified access to supply chain data from various sources, including enterprise systems, data feeds, data warehouses, data lakes, data marts, and business entities. Achieving these goals requires visibility into the entire supply chain.
Speaker: Rod Robinson - SVP of the Supplier Diversity Practice, Insight Sourcing Group
Supplier diversity programs are impactful and effective tools in your business strategy because they guarantee a diverse supplier base and ensure inclusivity within your ultimate procurement plan.
For example, if I improve the cost structure in transportation, procurement, manufacturing and sales independently, what decision support framework decides the right trade-offs? I think the rewiring starts with the education of the executive team, and that process should follow strategy. You are right. What should we do?
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.
(TSX: KXS) an end-to-end supply chain orchestration, today announced a new partnership that will deliver improved alignment of supply chain plans with business objectives and strategies for midmarket discrete manufacturing companies. Were thrilled to partner with Infor to help manufacturers be more agile and resilient in the long term.
Strategic sourcing and innovative solutions are often viewed as two distinct procurement tools, but they should not be seen in isolation. Think of them as apples and gearseach essential and effective on its own, yet when combined; they create a formidable mechanism for achieving procurement excellence.
Speaker: Olivia Montgomery, Associate Principal Supply Chain Analyst
The supply chain management techniques that dominated the last 30 years are no longer supporting consumer behavior or logistics and manufacturing capabilities. Procurementstrategies in response to network delays and bottlenecks. Curious to know how your peers are navigating ongoing disruption? So what’s working now?
The modern supply chain is a complex network of suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, and customers, all interconnected and reliant on a shared ecosystem of trust and accountability. Ethical sourcing entails: Labor Practices: Ensuring fair wages, safe working conditions, and compliance with local and international labor laws.
Scaling manufacturing operations is crucial for business growth but presents unique challenges. Balancing increased demand with consistent quality and controlled costs is difficult but essential for manufacturers looking to expand. Successfully scaling manufacturing requires more than just adding resources.
Let’s examine Amazon’s approach as well as the limitations of traditional supply chain planning, the operational benefits of AI, and the necessary steps for implementing AI-driven strategies. This enables companies to adjust sourcing, production, and logistics well in advance of potential disruptions.
Automotive: Can JIT manufacturing survive legal disruptions to tariff policy? Automakers must model dual-path sourcingstrategies and reintroduce buffer inventory—not just for parts, but for regulatory flexibility. They should also adopt rolling sourcing contracts with dynamic pricing clauses based on tariff exposure.
From raw material sourcing to logistics and regulatory compliance, stakeholders across the value chain will need to prepare for structural adjustments. Sourcing and Ingredient Availability A central impact of this policy is the need to replace synthetic colorants with natural alternatives.
Factors like automation, massive investments in at-scale, fit-for-purpose technologies, specialized training, low labor rates, and effective demand and supply planning capabilities, have woven themselves like threads into the fabric of efficient global manufacturing ecosystems. Batteries are sourced from South Korea and China.
A data gateway is essentially a connective tissue across your supply chain, providing unified access to supply chain data from various sources, including enterprise systems, data feeds, data warehouses, data lakes, data marts, and business entities. Achieving these goals requires visibility into the entire supply chain.
Reducing cost was the primary objective, and most operational decisionsfrom sourcing to fulfillmentreflected that mindset. Resilience is the ability to respond to disruption while maintaining core operations, and more companies are shifting their strategies accordingly. For years, supply chains were engineered to be lean.
Automotive Supply Chain: Production Shifts and Border Congestion The North American auto industry is among the largest impacted, as Mexico occupies a significant role in parts manufacturing and vehicle assembly. auto parts are sourced from Mexico, making the tariff impact immediate and severe. Approximately 40% of U.S.
In May 2025, one in seven home-purchase agreements fell through resulting in the cancellation of 56,000 purchase contracts. Supply chain was defined in 1982 as interoperability between source, make and deliver. Ask a procurement or transportation professional if they have a good demand signal and expect a laugh.
This article outlines key factors driving supply chain change, the limitations of outdated strategies, and how Walmart is restructuring its supply chain using AI and automation. Just-in-time (JIT) inventory models, lean supplier networks, and offshore manufacturing reduced expenses but left companies exposed to disruptions.
On the positive side, companies such as a small manufacturer of advanced plastic components used across various sectors, such as medical, industrial, automotive and consumer products has experienced increased interest from clients eager to purchase American-made goods. Where do industrial companies focus to prepare for tariffs?
For senior leaders, understanding and integrating the three pillars of sustainability—environmental, social, and economic—into supply chain strategies is essential. Transportation, warehousing, and manufacturing collectively contribute significantly to carbon emissions, making these areas critical for meaningful change.
Functional Metrics and the Lack of Alignment to Strategy. Process-based companies continue to focus on manufacturing efficiency (OEE) and discrete on procurement (PPV) without designing the supply chain to balance transportation, manufacturing, and procurement to a balanced scorecard. Clarity on Value. Guess what?
Since many organizations currently purchase carbon offsets, they can easily define the carbon cost of avoided emissions by translating the price of offsetting. For example, when implementing air-to-ocean logistics strategies, the solution will weigh ocean freight more favorably than air freight.
If you’re evaluating procurement technology or exploring ways to drive more value from existing systems, chances are you’re looking beyond tactical fixes – you want a smarter, scalable strategy. Misaligned priorities across finance, legal, and procurement create friction that delays decision-making and reduces impact.
Let’s take a closer look at how four key industries—automotive, consumer packaged goods (CPG), high tech, and industrial manufacturing—are navigating the tariff rollercoaster and adjusting to the shifting landscape. Key takeaway Top challenge: Sourcing volatility driven by EV component shortages and fluctuating global tariffs.
It is crucial for organizations to understand the importance of Purchase Order collaboration to effectively manage their direct spend, optimize operations, and mitigate risks. Configure to Order: This strategy involves customizing standard products based on customer specifications.
Now for the Do’s & Don’ts In the dynamic world of FMCG, your Route to Market (RTM) strategy and distributor partnerships can make or break your brand’s success. Don’t Neglect Last-Mile Execution : Even the best strategy fails without strong in-market execution. Ensure margins are fair and sustainable.
That strategy can lead to thousands of scenarios, and still no number of scenarios will answer all questions. Another strategy is to dedicate resources and build the best algorithm for demand forecasting. While this sourcingstrategy is the most cost-effective one, the business might not want to operate like that.
Optimizing fulfillment requires a series of steps to get a shipment from its source to the end customer. These steps include sourcing and receiving inventory, storing inventory, order processing, picking and packing an order, shipping the order, and returns management.
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the key elements of warehouse optimization and provide actionable strategies you can implement today. Eight proven optimization strategies, combining technology, best practices, and sustainable solutions. Data-driven forecasting improves purchasing and cuts storage expenses.
They emphasized being an Industry Cloud Complete Company with industry-specific solutions for over 2000 micro verticals across Process Manufacturing, Distribution, Service Industries, and Discrete Manufacturing. Industry-specific content is available for processes like Source to Settle, Procure to Pay, Order to Cash, and more.
The shortage has not impacted Charlottesville’s other major healthcare provider, Sentara Health as this organization sources its IV solutions from a different manufacturer. While this pricing strategy impacts other producers, including those in Portugal, it has also forced Chinese companies to reduce output and cut jobs.
That’s the power of manufacturing data collection. Manufacturing data collection is your secret weapon for boosting efficiency, cutting waste, and staying ahead of the competition. Manufacturing data collection is your secret weapon for boosting efficiency, cutting waste, and staying ahead of the competition.
However, this approach ignores real purchasing behavior, such as customers buying complete sets of four tires. Probabilistic demand forecasting, in contrast, provides a full probability distribution, revealing actual purchasing patterns and enabling inventory planners to align stock levels with demand realities. The result?
However, this approach ignores real purchasing behavior, such as customers buying complete sets of four tires. Probabilistic demand forecasting, in contrast, provides a full probability distribution, revealing actual purchasing patterns and enabling inventory planners to align stock levels with demand realities. The result?
In this research, 81% of brand owners and contract manufacturers primarily depend on communication through email and spreadsheets. Approximately 32% of manufacturing, across industries, is outsourced. Purchase order data, while not as important, has the smallest gap. Seldom do you see this addressed in enterprise strategies.
In todays rapidly evolving manufacturing landscape, building a modern tech stack is not just a strategic advantage but a necessity for maintaining competitiveness. EMBRACING INTERCONNECTIVITY: SEAMLESS INTEGRATION IN MANUFACTURING TECH Interconnectivity is a cornerstone of a modern manufacturing tech stack.
In Orlando, thought leaders, procurement professionals, and supply chain executives came together under the theme of building resilient, responsive supply networks. Both scenarios carry hidden dependencies, but overreliance on single or sole sourcing is increasingly a hidden challenge.
Robotic Process Automation Deployment According to the APQC data, organizations are exploring Robotic Process Automation across a number of supply chain areas, including supply chain planning, sourcing and procurement, logistics and warehousing, and manufacturing. Many technologies are implemented as a source of cost cutting.
How AI is Transforming Manufacturing: Strategies, Benefits, and Use Cases Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a huge topic and one that is constantly changing as research and development efforts push out the boundaries of whats possibleand whats already happening! Manufacturers now generate and own vast volumes of it.
Yes, a time when well-meaning supply chain leaders share their strategy decks for the upcoming year and ask me for an opinion. How do we seamlessly connect outcomes from optimization to policy, strategy, and rules? And, in the strategy documents that I review, most teams are rebranding historical work as digital. The reason?
In an era where the threat of supply chain disruptions is constant, reshoring manufacturing has become a strategic imperative for manufacturers worldwide. Additionally, the desire to shorten supply chains and improve responsiveness to customer demands is encouraging more manufacturers to explore reshoring.
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