The speed of data and the speed of technology change are driving major changes in supply chain and logistics strategies. The ability of industry leaders to stay ahead of the changes will be a big factor in how the industry responds to the rapid rate of change.

MODEX 2014 is a done deal. All thoughts now turn to Chicago and ProMat 2015. Well, maybe not all thoughts. Here’s a few impressions I took away from the trip to Atlanta this week.

Automatic Guided Vehicles (AGVs) are transforming a big swath of industrial life. Along with carmakers' gradual recovery, orders for AGVs have been increasing over the past three years for manufacturing facilities as automation becomes more common in distribution facilities and warehouses.

The UK has risen from tenth to fourth in the World Bank’s list of top logistics performers as measured by the Logistics Performance Index.

 

The index ranks 160 countries on a number of dimensions of trade - including customs performance, infrastructure quality, and timeliness of shipments.

Atoms. Electrons. Forces. They are all changing. They can redefine the chemistry, physics and information flows of supply chain management. It is a bright future. The possibilities are many; however, the rate of change is slow. How so? Let’s start by looking at the changes.

Amazon’s recent decision to create an e-commerce storefront for 3D-printed products could finally bring 3D printing to the mainstream, but not in the way you might think.

 

If you take a quick look at some of the nylon plastic products on offer via Amazon’s partner, 3DLT, it’s easy to come to the conclusion that the new pilot program is really just about an incremental e-commerce push at Amazon. In other words, Jeff Bezos now allows you to buy groovy new jewelry designs and quirky plastic toys made by 3D printers on Amazon.com rather than on a third-party site from Shapeways, Cubify or MakerBot. You’ll now be able to pick up a designer $18.86 plastic belt buckle and $28.26 designer iPhone 5 case at Amazon.com along with your books and lawn products and fashion items and have it all delivered via Amazon Prime. But is that all there is to it?

Former Wal-Mart CEO outlined some of the business and life lessons he learned during his journey to the top job at the world's biggest retailer.

As retailing becomes more of an omnichannel business, merchandise management has grown increasingly challenging. Supply chain operations have evolved from single-channel transactions to all-channel order orchestration. Processes have become more complex and more prone to escalating costs. 

 

How do retailers ensure the profitability of all-channel operations? Here are five ways retailers can optimize practices and help ensure success in the omnichannel world.

When Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced the company's plans for 30-minute delivery drones with Amazon Prime Air in December, it became clear that ecommerce has exciting days ahead.

 

But Amazon isn't the only company ramping up digital business, nor is the U.S. the only region in the game. In fact, Africa may have already stolen a march on personal delivery from the air, and Nigeria — specifically the rapidly growing city of Lagos — may produce the next great ecommerce company. 

Today marks the conclusion of Modex 2014, four days of comprehensive problem solving and networking to provide solutions to the complex manufacturing and supply chain challenges faced by industry today.

You have seen these challenges addressed in more than 100 educational conference sessions, including three keynotes and several collocated education sessions. You have experienced the solutions demonstrated on the Modex show floor by 800 exhibiting companies, first hand.

Lightweighted containers, reduced material use, improved recycling awareness—many shifts in the US waste stream points toward food packaging having a better impact on the environment than ever before.

All business-to-business companies today develop, sign, and store their fair share of contracts. While these contracts hold valuable information about partner relationships, incentive structures, and payment timelines, contract management is rarely seen as a crucial source of value.

Instead of viewing contract management as a vital part of the corporate infrastructure, companies tend to accumulate contracts in large data stores, managing them through paper filing, disparate electronic repositories, or makeshift solutions being labeled contract lifecycle management (CLM) systems. Not only are these rudimentary systems cumbersome and time consuming, they offer little contract visibility, poor access capability, and pose serious threats for organizations -- such as lost contracts, missed milestones, compliance risks, and significant revenue leakage.

Air freight’s share of total global containerized or unitized cargo transported declined from 3.1% in 2000 to 1.7% in 2013, according to research by Seabury Group and the International Air Transport Association (IATA). Around one third of this market share loss is due to ‘modal shift’ from air to sea or surface transport. Commodity mix factors and value effects were the other main causes the study identified.

While the shipment of raw materials and perishables was affected most by modal shift, fashion, high-tech and machinery parts shipments also experienced significant shifts from air to ocean freight. Trade lanes from Asia have been hit the hardest, the report revealed.

In September 2013, China's net imports of petroleum and other liquids exceeded those of the United States on a monthly basis, making it the largest net importer of crude oil and other liquids in the world. The rise in China's net imports of petroleum and other liquids is driven by steady economic growth, with rapidly rising Chinese petroleum demand outpacing production growth.

 

U.S. total annual petroleum and other liquids production is expected to rise 31 percent between 2011 and 2014 to 13.3 million barrels per day, primarily from tight oil plays. In the meantime, Chinese production will increase at a much lower rate (5 percent over this period) and is forecast to be only a third of U.S. production in 2014.

In October 2013, WERC surveyed select Research Panel members and a separate set of General Members.  Responses: 180 individuals total; 147 considered statistically viable.  Fifty-two percent of respondents (77 out of 147) use some type of outreach program to attract logistics candidates. Not surprisingly the majority of those who do (96 percent), conduct outreach at a college or university level. 

More interesting is that 38 percent are also reaching out to high school or younger students. Community colleges and high school programs are increasingly looking to offer skills training for entry-level positions and some companies, at least, are looking to jump start interest in the field.  This is an important goal, as most students will form an opinion about their future and receive career counseling before they complete high school.

As the economy continues to improve, we in supply chain find ourselves once again in the position of searching for talent to replenish our organizations. The problem whether we have the talent pool with the right set of skills for the challenges we face in the market today? According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, logistics jobs are expected to grow by 22% by 2022 or nearly double the rate of all other professions.

Accompanying this growth is a rapidly shrinking pool of qualified professionals to address the growth of our industry and the continued effectiveness of our logistics and supply chain organizations to support corporate competitiveness and profitability.

Recycling cans, bottles, paper and plastic has become a no-brainer in households across the country as Americans and the towns they live in strive to grow greener. That said, what happens to the package at the end of its life is only one of several factors that go into a package’s sustainability score.

 

Food, beverage and consumer product manufacturers will cut about 4 billion pounds of waste from the packaging they generate between 2005 and 2020, according to  a 2011 study from the Grocery Manufacturers Association, with a combination of efforts, including using fewer materials in the process, using more sustainable materials, and making more packaging that’s recyclable and that degrades faster.

As I explained in my previous post (How a Profession Went from Zero to Hero), supply chain management (SCM) has become a critical competitive differentiator in almost every industry. While it is relatively easy to reverse engineer a new product, supply chains that deliver consistent, high-quality services across the globe are much more difficult to replicate. Companies that master the art will be difficult to beat.

SCM has evolved rapidly over the last decade or two to attain this lofty status. Now the profession and the business community must move even quicker to develop the supply chain expertise they need to excel in a rapidly changing world.