MHI Blog -- "I work in the supply chain" is often followed by "what’s that?" or "what do you do?" Or it can bring to mind negative stereotypes of workers spending endless hours in dark, dingy factories.
The reality is that supply chains are global enterprises led by a diverse group of professionals that utilize innovation, creativity and smart thinking to not only drive operational efficiency but to keep the economy going. Supply chain careers are some of the most rewarding and highly-compensated jobs that are now being seen as the new path to the C-suite. To increase awareness of this reality, MHI is launching a new awareness campaign where manufacturing and supply chain professionals can share their story and help promote the industry.
|
Reuters -- U.S. import prices fell in October as the cost of petroleum and a range of goods declined, indicating that a strong dollar and soft global demand continued to exert downward pressure on imported inflation.
Other data on Tuesday showed a surprise increase in wholesale inventories in September, suggesting that the slowdown in economic growth in the third quarter was not as abrupt as initially believed.
|
Fortune -- If an emerging wave of robotics companies have their way, it will soon be a common experience to walk down the aisle of a store alongside an autonomous robot.
There’s OSHbot, a human-sized robot already leading customers through select Lowe’s to the items they seek. There’s also Fetch, a rolling robot that can use its one arm to pluck items from a shelf and prep them for shipping.
|
Material Handling & Logistics -- Offshore outsourcing has become an important strategy to lower production costs among Western firms. The importance of outsourcing is manifested by its sheer volume. According to the United Nations 2011 World Investment Report, contract manufacturing and service activities, undertaken mostly in developing countries, generated $1.1–1.3 trillion sales in 2010.
This practice however has some risks. One of those is the phenomenon of value chain climbing – suppliers in emerging markets can develop capabilities by supplying, with aspirations to compete with the buyers in the product market.
|
The Wall Street Journal -- Apart from ships getting bigger, not much has changed in the global container-shipping business over the past 30 years. But now, the rise of Web-based booking platforms stands to reduce complexity and wasted time for small-time exporters.
Established shipping companies like Danish giant Maersk Line or France’s CMA CGM will ignore requests to ship anything less than 300 metal boxes on a single sailing, leaving the "small fish" little choice but to call freight forwarders—the international moving companies in the yellow pages—to find prices and available slots on ships.
|
Industry Week -- With the supply chain industry suffering from a lack of available talent for management positions, U.S. companies are stepping up efforts to recruit qualified and skilled professionals for those roles.
The supply chain industry will need to fill about 1.4 million new jobs between 2014 and 2018, according to a study by the logistics trade group MHI. That's roughly 270,000 jobs per year. But the talent shortage is one of the "major barriers preventing innovation in the supply chain," the study found.
|
As part of MHI view's ongoing video program, this new episode focuses on: Envisioning the Future of Supply Chain Networks.
The supply chain industry is undergoing major changes, but where is it headed? Lora Cecere, founder of Supply Chain Insights, gives her thoughts on what the future of supply chain networks may hold.
|
MHI Blog -- Automation is creating improvements in manufacturing and supply chain efficiency that is driving up profits and employment. According to a new white paper titled "Robots Fuel the Next Wave of U.S. Productivity and Job Growth" there is a strong correlation between automation implementation and employment growth.
The paper, published by The Association for Advancing Automation (A3), cites key statistics that during the non-recessionary periods – 1996-2000, 2002-2007, and 2010-2014 – general employment and automation shipments both increased.
|
EBN -- A new form of triage has arrived for the supply chain industry.
Over the past few years, IoT machine data analytics has been generating actionable information from huge streams of information coming from hundreds and often thousands of sources within a host of vertical market devices. Now, innovative supply chain managers are leveraging real time analysis to improve customer service, reduce the cost of that service, improve inventory control, and even identify new services with a potential to increase revenue.
|
Multichannel Merchant -- Much as it has with cloud computing, Amazon is poised to move in a big way into third-party transportation and logistics services, leveraging its vast network of fulfillment and distribution centers as well as its massive data and cloud assets, according to an equity analyst and media reports.
Colin Sebastian, an ecommerce analyst for Robert W. Baird, predicts in a research note that Amazon will find the lure of an incremental opportunity in the estimated $400 billion-$450 billion transportation and logistics sector too good to pass up, even dubbing it "Amazon Transportation and Logistics."
|
Supply Chain Digital -- As a small business, going global may seem like a daunting prospect. In fact the UK is one of the leading countries of micro-multinationals: small, self-starting companies with operations in various international locations.
By operating in this way, numerous small businesses are spreading out production to create products at a lower cost. Manufacturing products across different borders or having different components of the business based overseas, these companies are small yet wield international influence.
|
Fleet Owner -- The rapid evolution and growth of Internet-connected "smart" devices and systems – from phones and tablets to commercial truck telematics networks – is exposing businesses and consumers alike to a higher risk of cyber-attack, one that small businesses may not prepared to meet, according to a new survey.
A poll of 500 small businesses across a range of industries by insurance firm Nationwide indicates that almost eight in 10 small business owners or 79% don’t maintain a cyber-attack response plan even though a majority of them (63%) say they’ve been victims of at least one type of cyber-attack.
|
Logistics Viewpoints -- Do you remember the old days when the hottest topic in supply chain software evaluations was whether it was smarter to go with the "good enough" applications from the major enterprise resource planning (ERP) vendors or to go with the superior functionality of the best-of-breed vendors even though integration was a concern? IT argued that having a fully integrated approach and "one throat to choke" was more important than covering 100 percent of users’ needs. Users argued that enabling them to do their jobs thoroughly and efficiently was more important than minor integration issues. Both sides were right, and wrong.
|
Material Handling & Logistics -- A new report emphasizing the major trends in the areas of leadership, customer experience, information, operating models and workforces was released last week by International Data Corporation (IDC). The group looked at 10 key imperatives that will impact organizations and their ability to digitally transform over the next one to three years.
"Digital transformation is not just a technology trend, it is at the center of business strategies across all industry segments and markets," explained IDC Research vice president Bob Parker.
|
The Wall Street Journal -- Imports declined at the Port of Oakland in October, the second major seaport to report a lackluster month during what tends to be the busy pre-holiday shipping season.
The Port of Oakland received 70,697 loaded import containers in October, down 3.3% from a year earlier. Import volume fell a precipitous 14% from this year’s late-summer peak in August. On Monday the Port of Long Beach, Calif., the nation’s second-largest port for container traffic, reported a 0.8% year-on-year decline and a similar drop from August.
|
MHI’s new Career Forum enables manufacturing and supply chain professionals to view current job postings of MHI member companies. Go to http://www.mhi.org/careers to find the perfect opportunity for you.
|
Computer World -- If you think the Internet's busy now, just wait until next year. Gartner estimates there will be 6.4 billion connected devices in 2016, up 30 percent from this year.
That means people will be adding 5.5 million new objects to the Internet of Things every day. Consumer devices will proliferate most, while the ones for enterprises bring in more money, Gartner said in its annual IoT report released Tuesday.
|
|
| |
|
