MHI Blog — Kevin O'Leary is the keynote speaker at MODEX 2016 on April 6 in Atlanta. Kevin is an entrepreneur, investor and Shark Tank's Mr. Wonderful.



Frank and opinionated, speaker Kevin O'Leary is one of North America's leading business moguls. On Shark Tank, he invests in entrepreneurs who have potential, while dutifully deflating those who don't. Now he brings that cutting insight to CTV and BNN. With the same candor, his keynotes help you make sense of the day's financial rumblings-connecting them, entertainingly of course, to your industry.

USA Today — North Dakota prohibits mounting lethal weapons on drones. Arkansas won't allow remote-controlled aircraft to photograph critical buildings such as power plants and oil refineries. Michigan bans using drones for hunting - or to harass hunters. And North Carolina requires commercial drone operators to take a test to ensure they're familiar with the rules of the road.



These are among state- and city-level laws adopted - among hundreds of more bills proposed - to regulate the fast-growing world of drones. But these local laws are on a collision course with the Federal Aviation Administration, which contends it controls the airspace and wants to set a single national policy for drones instead of a  patchwork of local laws.

The Wall Street Journal — The Obama administration on Tuesday unveiled some of the most extensive changes to U.S. regulations on Cuba, including a provision that effectively lifts the long-standing ban on Americans tourists visiting the country. The new measures, which address the issues of trade, transactions and travel, ease restrictions on American financial institutions and significantly broaden Cuba's access to the global economy.

Reuters — U.S. wholesale inventories unexpectedly rose in January as sales tumbled, suggesting that efforts by businesses to reduce an inventory overhang could persist well into 2016 and restrain economic growth in the coming quarters.



The Commerce Department said on Wednesday wholesale stocks increased 0.3 percent after being unchanged in December. Sales declined 1.3 percent, extending December's 0.6 percent drop.

Supply Chain Management Review — Pasternak [who was recently profiled in The New Yorker] turned that dream into what Aeros has become today, one of America's most innovative FAA-certified lighter-than-air (LTA) manufacturing companies. In this exclusive interview, he shares fresh insights on the state of the industry. Supply Chain Management Review: How will airships compete with jumbo cargo carriers currently in the marketplace?

MHI Blog — 2016 attendees are registering in record numbers for the event to be held April 4-7 at Atlanta's Georgia World Congress Center.



Looking at attendees that have registered to date, they are high in quality from a buying authority perspective and represent the majority of the Fortune 1000 and top 100 retailers.

Supplychain247 — GT Nexus set out to discover the top supply chain issues facing manufacturers for 2016 and beyond. By GT Nexus We did so by partnering with researcher, YouGov, a global online community of over four million individuals, to see where senior manufacturing executives stand on things like: The results indicate that manufacturers expect to face major supply chain challenges and risks in 2016 stemming from external factors, often beyond their control.

Industryweek — Scouring China's annual gathering of leaders for clues about business prospects, foreign companies got a clear message: Brace for bigger, stronger local competitors. Reform of the nation's $18 trillion state sector will focus on making companies "bigger and better" with mergers and acquisitions pivotal, said the State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission over the weekend.

Plastics News — One recent study says U.S. manufacturers now prefer Mexico to the United States when it comes to reshoring - the decision to move production from Asia back to North America. It said Mexico combines the relatively lower costs of China with much quicker access to the U.S. market.



Not everyone agrees that Mexico is gaining, however. Other studies and one advocacy group in favor of manufacturing returning back to the U.S. say factors like safety and security are hurting Mexico, putting the U.S. ahead when a company wants to relocate parts of its supply chain closer to home.

Ebnonline — Business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce is far more complex than business-to-consumer (B2C), but the business opportunity is tremendous. By 2020, the market for B2B e-commerce is expected to grow to more than $1 trillion, according to predictions from Forrester Research. Most of this is due to the changing B2B buyer persona: consistently online, mobile, and millennial. While adding an online channel to your business is a major change, it's essential for those in the electronics industry to make the move now in order to stay competitive and increase the flexibility of their supply chain.

The Wall Street Journal — The nation's second-largest port reported a record February for container volume, despite retailer expectations that imports in the first half of 2016 would slow.

The Port of Long Beach, Calif. handled 295,870 loaded 20-foot equivalent units, a standard measure for container cargo, on the import side. That was a February record for the port, and a 45% increase over February of 2015, when protracted labor contract negotiations, among other issues, led to weeks of severe congestion and low container volumes at ports up and down the West Coast.

Logistics Viewpoints — If you see an iceberg coming and don't react quickly or appropriately, you may become the subject of a major motion picture.  And, although the soundtrack was nice, the results were not so stellar for the people on the boat.



While the issues you encounter managing your supply chain on a daily basis are seldom this extreme, you need visibility to actionable information that allows you to predict disruptions or delays and make course changes quickly. It is not enough to know how the network performed last week or month; you need accurate data about the present.

Ebnonline — Getting a positive ROI from a new WMS installation takes less time than distributors usually assume and the new system will continue to produce new improvements long after implementation. Getting a positive ROI from a new WMS installation takes less time than distributors usually assume and the new system will continue to produce new improvements long after implementation.

Supplychain247 — Primed by scenarios from science fiction, as well as by hype and wild speculation from the world's media, we have for many decades anticipated the era of robotics. We are concerned that robots may steal our jobs and spy on us. We imagine that they will arrive not in ones and twos but in vast armies ready to alter forever life as we know it.

MHL News — I was recently on a conference call with a group of managers from one of the world's most well respected freight brokers. During the call one manager stated that the ocean freight market was the softest he has seen in approximately nine years. He went on to say that any purchaser of ocean freight who has not recently spoken with their ocean freight service provider is probably paying too much.

MHL News — Supply chain executives were asked to assess both new opportunities they are evaluating and challenges they are facing. In a report, "What's Keeping Supply Chain Managers Awake at Night", by APICS and Michigan State University, respondents were concerned about the following.

Supplychain247 — The maturation of multi-channel distribution has put added pressure on all major modes of freight transportation, with "Just-in-time" and "just-in-case" strategies now having to meet the "just do it" demands created by today's highly impatient consumer. 

Industryweek — A global auto parts manufacturer was introducing a new engine component and wanted to use more digital technology for its assembly and packaging. Its industrial engineers designed a full-scale prototype and proceeded to testing. Videos and other documentation ensured relentless scrutiny, fine-tuning and consistency.

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.

MHL News — Import cargo volume at the nation's major retail container ports should see its traditional buildup toward the summer despite difficult comparisons with last year's unusual patterns, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report from the National Retail Federation and consulting firm Hackett Associates.