Educators, administrators and students from technical high schools, colleges and community colleges around the country will attend Wednesday, March 19’s day-long Technical Career Education Conference. The second annual event is presented by MODEX show sponsor MHI in support of its Technical Career Education Program (TCEP).

"The goal of the conference is to share MHI’s resources with these program leaders and offer them an opportunity to partner with MHI as they educate and develop tomorrow’s workforce. It also gives students an opportunity to see exhibitors’ solutions first-hand," said Carmen Murphy, MHI’s education coordinator. 

More companies are using some type of "big data" software and analysis to drive their entire supply chains. Almost all supply chain organizations recognize this to be a competitive necessity. Big data is being used along all supply chain levers, from buy, make, move and sell. Successful applications require coordinated decisions across organizations and along the entire supply chain. 

There are two major challenges companies face. First, companies need to ensure that they don’t follow the hype but use the technology to meet their own competitive priorities in a cost-effective manner. Second, is to develop organizational processes to turn the huge amounts of data into business intelligence.

Supply chain risk has become one of the top five concerns in many boardrooms as awareness of vulnerabilities has increased, yet few shippers have developed adequate strategies to address that risk. An extensive range of issues can cause disruptions, and an ‘all-risks’ insurance often does not cover losses caused by delays.

 

"The ability to manage supply chain risks often is the difference between success and failure," observes Jamie Crystal, executive VP, Crystal & Company, a strategic risk and insurance advisor. Breaking through siloed mindsets is one of the keys. One fallacy is that companies attribute risk primarily to manufacturers. But, Crystal says, "If you have a physical product, you have supply chain risk exposure. It’s not just a concern for manufacturers."

If you are a manufacturer or distributor, most likely you use many modes to ship your freight, such as less-than-truckload freight shipping or LTL shipping. If you have any experience in shipping LTL, you know how volatile, process driven, and challenging it can be to make sure you get the best carrier, best time, best rate, and are making the best long term decisions.

There are many things that go into effectively managing LTL freight and many factors that determine pricing. One of the most important factors is freight classification (read our post about how to determine freight class to understand freight classification at length).

So you've climbed the rickety old corporate ladder and made it to the top. Congratulations. Now the real work begins. If you're a first-time manager, you probably have a thing or two to learn. Switching from producing to managing production is quite a stretch.

Obviously, you're already equipped with many skills, abilities, and experiences needed for the job. Otherwise, you wouldn't have been promoted. However, it's always good to add proven tools to your repertoire. Read on to learn about the essential manager tools that will keep you evolving in helpful ways.

Whether you're in supply chain management or not, you would benefit from each of these tools.

There has been a lot of breathless coverage of 3D Printing, more accurately called additive manufacturing.  In the supply chain realm is has been speculated that additive manufacturing could be able to transform the spare parts supply chain.  The idea is that instead of carrying a plethora of slow moving parts across a network of warehouses, these warehouses could just manufacture the parts as needed.

But ARC‘s expert on Additive Manufacturing, Sal Spada, believes the potential is being over-hyped.  Further, at ARC’s annual automation forum held in Orlando, Florida, attendees heard perspectives on 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing from two of the world’s leading experts in the field. The message was clear regarding additive manufacturing, "if you are considering additive manufacturing on the horizon as part of a manufacturing strategy then you better start now."  The technology limitations and required process knowledge are nontrivial.

Distribution center design has always been a key aspect of supply-chain management. Now it's becoming a "science." Russ Meller, vice president of research and development with Fortna, explains what that means.

The science of distribution center design involves using mathematical models to estimate picking productivity, then scaling the resulting values to a larger group within the warehouse. The key, says Meller, lies in combining the automation of financial models with basic calculations and processes in facility design. "By bringing those together," he says, "you’re able to design a more efficient and productive facility that gets to the bottom line of the organization."

A pickup in global manufacturing will spur an across-the-board annual 5% gain in pallet sales through 2017, according to "World Pallets," a new study from The Freedonia Group, Inc., a Cleveland-based industry market research firm. That represents 5.1 billion units, which exceeds the relatively sluggish pace of the 2007-2012 period.

Those gains will be more prominent in large, mature regional markets such as North America and Western Europe, according to analyst Zoe Biller.

One indisputable fact exists for most manufacturers and distributors: Warehouse automation stands as one of the last areas where long-term costs can be significantly reduced.

Given this fact, the decision to implement an Automated Storage/Retrieval System (AS/RS) should be an easy one to reach. Yet, many executives have reservations that center on two distinct, yet interrelated, issues. The first concern is captured in the question: "What happens if the AS/RS breaks down?" The second issue focuses on implementation cost: "How will I be able to afford an AS/RS?"

Supply chains move goods, but they run on information. The global, interconnected and technology-enabled supply chain operates like a giant neural network, carrying ‘signals’ at lightning speed throughout the network. Creating this neural network has improved efficiency, reduced costs, expanded commerce, accelerated product flows and created all kinds of value. But the network is only as good as its connections and the visibility they provide.

 

Ideally, the goal of the information supply chain is end-to-end visibility. Without adequate end-to-end visibility, including all internal and external tiers, the globally connected supply chain is doomed to suffer the consequences of volatility – and in many cases, experience amplified consequences.

When the business migration movement began in the electronics sector, there was a fairly clear-cut disaggregation of product development and production -- design in one location and manufacturing in another low-cost, developing region. As domestic demand in emerging economies has grown, manufacturers are increasingly looking to design products specifically to meet niche local customer requirements. Often, this means setting up satellite development centers in these regions with their own design and supply chain strategies.

 

This is a natural evolution of the electronics supply chain's penetration into emerging markets, and it clearly makes economic sense. The problems begin, however, when OEMs fail to maintain the integrity between the engineering and new product introduction disciplines among their regional operations.

Manufacturers across Europe and Asia changed down a gear last month as falling demand from abroad hurt Chinese output and European factory growth dipped from January's 2-1/2 year high.

But while the surveys across Asia were more downbeat, data from the euro zone showed output rose in all of the bloc's four biggest economies for the first time in almost three years.

Sluggish economic growth will continue to be a dominate factor affecting the logistics landscape for the next 12 years, according to a global study conducted by Penn State University, Capgemini Consulting and recruiting firm Korn/Ferry International, with such slow-growth conditions helping spur more "near-shoring" of manufacturing activity back to the North and South America in the future.

The 18th annual study of the global logistics market – also supported by Penske Logistics and the eyefortransport forum – is based on responses from 581 third-party logistics (3PL) firms, 633 users of 3PL services, and 179 shippers that don’t use 3PL providers.