Technological innovations are offering new growth opportunities for the manufacturing sector. However, a lack of talent from "rising generations" threatens its future vitality, according to ThomasNet.com’s Industry Market Barometer® (IMB) research.

The annual survey of more than 1,200 American manufacturers paints a picture of an industry that is thriving and reinventing itself every day, but is in danger of slowing down if it doesn't replenish its talent pool. Most of these respondents are from small and mid-size manufacturing companies, representative of their sector. Currently, the future is bright for these companies: More than half (55 percent) grew in 2012, and nearly two-thirds (63 percent) expect to grow this year. They credit their people, brands, technology, and innovation as the assets that are helping them to compete. In fact, nearly seven out of ten (67 percent) will introduce new or innovative products/services this year.

Some of the world's largest retailers are turning their stores into mini distribution hubs to help them compete better online against Amazon.com. 

Instead of fulfilling Web orders from warehouses hundreds of miles from shoppers' homes, companies including Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Gap are routing orders to stores nearby.

Store employees pick products from shelves, pack them into boxes and drop them into waiting FedEx and UPS trucks that zip off to homes a few miles away.

Today, the first draft of the U.S. Roadmap for Material Handling & Logistics was released. Its purpose is to help the industry determine how material handling and logistics challenges can be turned into action plans to develop needed capabilities in the U.S. between now and 2025.

Published on www.MHLroadmap.org, the Roadmap’s report and action plan draft is open for review, comments and additional input from the public until Tuesday, October 15, 2013. Coordinating the review and comment process is Roadmap report editor Kevin Gue, Tim Cook Associate Professor of Industrial Engineering at Auburn University’s Samuel Ginn College of Engineering. He particularly looks forward to getting feedback and additional input from the industry in response to this first draft.

It's an issue surfacing in all corporate landscapes: How can companies get Millennials, Gen Xers, and Baby Boomers to work well together, especially if the perception is that they all want different things?

If you've been following headlines, you may have seen that the topic is back is fashion, especially now in the US as the economy recovers and companies look to fill gaps in the workplace. Just last week, I stumbled on two recent stories on the topic while browsing for other news. One was in Time magazine, and the other was a guest commentary at Logistics Viewpoints.

Trade between the United States of America and Sub-Saharan Africa is set for continued growth, as both regions build upon the recent U.S. Presidential Policy Directive (PPD) to achieve sustainable development through increased trade and investment, according to executives of DHL Express, the courier and express company.

"We have already seen this increased trade in specific countries on the continent, as they take advantage of preferential trade agreements and state-led policy change to increase exports and imports with the U.S.," says Charles Brewer, managing director for DHL Express Sub-Saharan Africa. Brewer visited the United States last week to meet with key stakeholders and multi-nationals and promote commerce between the two regions.

As the ice recedes in the Arctic, talk of industry entering the region to take advantage of its economic opportunities is on the rise. The territories contain significant natural resources, including conventional hydrocarbons (natural gas, condensate, and oil), metals, fish, high-value minerals such as diamonds and rare earths, and fresh water. 

If the region’s waters become more navigable, viable new trans-Arctic shipping routes between the North Atlantic and Bering Strait could emerge.

Have you ever wondered why it is so easy for improved processes to go back to how they were performing before improvement? Why it always seems that, even if everybody follows the new instructions, the process still produces defects? 

Why it’s so hard to maintain the benefits in the process after the projects are done? If you have ever asked yourself any of these questions, you might be surprised to learn that the answer lies in the effectiveness of implemented process controls. The better and more robust your new controls are, the greater the resistance of the process to the gradual degradation that commonly occurs.

Trucks play an integral role in moving goods not only within the U.S. but in most other countries as well. Indeed, here in the U.S., trucks haul some 70% of all freight tonnage -- and that number isn’t projected to change much anytime soon.

That being said, though, trucks still yet remain one link the vast supply chains – both domestic and global – that deliver foodstuffs to the grocery store, clothes to the retailer, and raw materials to the factory. And control of those supply chains continues to be increasingly based on data – information collected at every step in the chain to make the process of transporting both raw materials and finished costs faster, more efficient, and less expensive.

A new report, titled Advanced Manufacturing in the American South: An Economic Analysis Supporting Regional Development, finds that the implementation of advanced manufacturing in the American South could help the region realize its economic potential and make a vital contribution to an industry-led strategy for a recovery of the U.S. economy.

The Southern Governors’ Association commissioned the Manufacturers Alliance for Productivity and Innovation (MAPI) to conduct an economic analysis regarding the value of a regional approach to support the advanced manufacturing sector.

Supply chain leaders must invest in developing their team’s skills to meet growing expectations about how procurement can support the business.

A survey of 750 senior supply chain professionals by SCM World, found they are facing five major issues.

In a world of "better, cheaper, faster," transportation often gets a bad reputation for a high carbon footprint. But transportation has made great strides in terms of sustainability. New designs are being deployed for reefers, planes, tires, fuels — virtually every aspect of transportation — that improve efficiency and clean up emissions.

The point is not just to buy sustainable transportation, notes Steve Leffin, director of global sustainability, UPS. "It’s applying it that matters. The skill is figuring out where sustainable projects fit into the business so they can be maintained."

For logisticians and production managers trying to keep their business up-to-date, it can be difficult to follow the latest trends in the material handling industry. And being able to predict consumer demands is essential for a shipping business to succeed.

It’s important to take a close look at your business and identify potential problems, areas in need of improvement and potential solutions. How is your business stacking up compared to competitors? Should you focus your resources on the global market, or concentrate on business in the US? What needs to be changed financially in order to remain prosperous throughout the next year or two? These are just a few questions to consider if you want your business to be successful in the long run.

A well-planned business development program has the potential to build the organization only when implementation is equally strong. Once guidelines and controls are in place, campaign action comes next.

Last month, I covered the challenges of creating a well-understood business development program, including accountability for your company as sponsor and your marketing partners in part one. Now, I want to talk about launching a program.

Potential business development activities can run a gamut far broader than this article could address. Regardless of what you and your partners decide will help move your businesses in any circumstance, everything should hang from an overall marketing strategy, not just a collection of random tactics or someone's pet project.

In many ways, the fateful episode of the Costa Concordia provides a metaphor for the international shipping industry as a whole. Its image is hardly the best. Huge tankers plying the sea, belching noxious gases into the air from low-grade crude and pumping out invasive species when emptying their ballast-water tanks on shore. Oh, and a catastrophic oil spill every now and then.

Yet the shipping industry, which carries around 90% of all world trade, is pursuing its own re-balancing story too. The last 15 years have seen a drop in oil spills (despite a massive increase in oil cargos), a general reduction in harmful gases such as nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide, and an uptake in fuel efficient ship design. That said, the search for perfect equilibrium continues. Shipping is today responsible for around 2.7% of all man-made greenhouse carbon emissions – a figure the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), the industry's UN-backed standard setter, would like to see reduced by 20% come 2020 and 50% by 2050.