Growth in worldwide demand for packaging machinery is expected to climb at a 4.6% annual pace through 2017 to $41.8 billion, according to a new study by The Freedonia Group. The study analyzes the currently $33.4 billion world packaging machinery industry. 

It presents historical demand data for 2002, 2007 and 2012, and forecasts for 2017 and 2022 by machinery type (e.g., filling and form/fill/seal; labeling and coding; wrapping, bundling and palletizing; case forming, packing and sealing), market (e.g., food, beverages, pharmaceuticals and personal care products, chemicals products), world region, and for 31 countries.

The Canadian government earlier this week announced infrastructure investments aimed at improving efficiency and marine container inspection capacity at Port Metro Vancouver (PMV). 

The federal government and PMV will invest $106 million for improvements, including $49.9 million for two new marine container examination facilities that will help the port handle anticipated container volume growth through Deltaport, British Columbia. 

U.S. ports followed by Global Port Tracker handled 1.43 million TEUs in July 2013. That was a 5.4% increase over June and up 1.1% from July 2012

In what could be a sign of happy holidays for retailers this year, import volume at the nation’s major retail container ports is expected to grow 5.1% in September over the same month last year, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report from the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates.

"Retailers are making up for the slow imports seen earlier in the year," says Jonathan Gold, NRF’s vice president for supply chain and Customs Policy. "It’s too early to predict holiday sales, but merchants are clearly stocking up."

Everyone wants a better-run business, but sometimes it's hard to know where to begin. Metrics are, by far, the best launch pad to use to move the organization forward.

By defining and using clear metrics, supply chain organizations are able to drive improvement and apply resources, in the form of people, time, and money, to the activities and programs that will get the organization where it wants to go. The key to developing strong metrics is focusing on creating measurements that support the strategic goals of the organization.

But where to start? It's simpler than you might imagine. Every business can benefit from a close look at the following measurements.

Panama has spent over 5 billion US dollars to widen and dredge the Panama Canal to support a new class of supersized cargo ships – known as Post Panamax ships – that are more than twice as big as the historical cargo shipping fleet.  The expanded Canal will open in 2015.

The North America to Asia trade lanes have mainly relied on the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.  Then intermodal shipments via rail and truck have brought a high proportion of this cargo to the Midwest and East Coast.  But now, a higher proportion of freight can start to flow to East Coast and Gulf ports.   In fact, this is already happening:  Colliers International reported that "for the first time since World War II, the East Coast surpassed the West in container traffic growth.  Eastern ports saw traffic grow by 5.5 percent in Q1 2012 over the same quarter in 2011, as compared with 3.0 percent in the Western ports."  And that trend is expected to accelerate once the widened canal is open.

The realities of supply chain disruptions have become top of mind for executives in every industry. Sub-standard and unsafe working conditions, product shortages due to extreme weather-related events and the discovery of counterfeit or contaminated components are examples where companies have encountered risks that ultimately affect their ability to serve their customers. The food industry is no different.

The driving objective for every supply chain operation is to meet all customers’ orders with the right product delivered on time and at the lowest possible total cost to serve. The problem is that this objective operates under the key assumption that your suppliers, manufacturing locations, transportation providers, third-party service providers and other supply chain functions will operate and produce as expected.

Your produce and frozen foods could soon arrive at grocery stores in trucks that release fewer emissions. Researchers are developing a clean technology to keep your food cool while it travels.

Engineers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory are working to replace refrigerated trucks' diesel-burning cooling system with fuel cells. These fuel cells mix hydrogen and air to create energy; the byproduct is water. Researcher Kriston Brooks says that means fewer greenhouse gas and particulate emissions than from diesel engines.

Major events such as the Olympics, the World Cup or even the birth of a royal baby capture attention around the globe. These positive world events can result in a tremendous boost for local economies as well as the wider global economy. Companies begin to plan months or even years ahead to ensure that they are prepared. There is one area that businesses often forget though - their supply chain.

An inevitable side effect of increased, changing demand is the impact it has in the supply chain. Most companies do try to prepare for changing demand, but few think carefully enough about the impact of a serious disruption, particularly in the extended supply chain, in areas that are outside their control. Many companies believe that there is nothing that they can do beyond managing their end-to-end supply chain as best they can.

Mobility in the workplace is here to stay: more than 100 million U.S. subscribers are on smartphones, and 90 million Americans will own tablets by 2014. Recent studies project that 72 percent of the global population will be mobile by 2016, and by 2017, there will be 1.4 mobile devices for every person alive. In combination, the increase in BYOD (bring your own device) workplaces, the ubiquity of tablets and smartphones, and the availability of mobile business applications together are driving the trend for supply chain organizations to implement mobile functionality for efficient data collection and tracking.

Supply chain organizations must adopt mobility plans to stay competitive. Mobility in data collection and inventory tracking activities presents opportunities for significant ROI and quickly realized benefits.

The Panama Canal’s tolls are a work in progress, with a good portion of that work being done through discussions with industry groups. It was with that in mind that The Panama Canal Authority (ACP) met with the Japanese Shipowners Association (JSA) and several car manufacturers in Japan, as part of the ongoing discussions with the vehicle carrier segment on the Expansion Program’s future toll structure upon the project’s completion.

During the meetings, the Panama Canal provided an update on the Expansion Program and presented the analysis of the results for the potential pricing structure for the car carrier segment—taking into account recent feedback from this group.

There's little doubt that logistics is getting more expensive, but we don't have to roll over and submit to the inevitablity of rising costs.

Earlier this summer, the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals released its 24th annual State of Logistics Report. According to the CSCMP report authored by Rosalyn Wilson, the cost of the US business logistics rose $43 billion or 3.4 percent in 2012 to $1.33 trillion. Inventory carrying costs rose 4 percent, warehousing costs increased by 7.6 percent, trucking costs increased by 2.9 percent, and rail transport costs rose 4.9 percent. And though business logistics costs stayed at 8.5 percent of US GDP from 2011 to 2012, the report's bottom line is that prospects for growth in the sector are likely to be limited at least through 2015.

Take a look inside many of Greater Cincinnati’s largest industrial parks and you’ll find plenty of warehouse and distribution space. But inside those buildings, there’s a lot more than just workers moving product around these massive spaces.

Jerry Koch, director of corporate marketing and product management for Intelligrated, said the challenge for companies today is to increase the speed and accuracy of fulfillment.

To do that, many companies are using technology, ranging from worker headsets that tell employees what to pick next to massive systems that move product all over warehouses that dwarf football fields.

For most of history, the supply chain that links the world together today would have been unimaginable. The road to market is now a superhighway. It is a 24/7 operation. Global trade does not sleep. In fact, it never even pauses for a nap. Wheels on the ground, wings in the sky, keels in the water connect a largely borderless world economy.

At the same time, supercharged as the global superhighway may already be, no one in the shipping industry doubts that faster, cheaper, safer, simpler remain the fundamental currency of success for anyone in the shipping business. The world’s insomniac global companies demand, and deserve, nothing less.