Companies are not making the most of technology in emerging market supply chains, according to research by Accenture Strategy.

It found that only 48 per cent of the 1,014 surveyed use technology "extensively" in their emerging market supply chain "despite the vital role it plays in helping manage the complexity and volatility in global operations".

With more and more businesses using cloud storage and cloud-based applications, there is a greater risk for cybersecurity threats. There are many businesses using highly-secured cloud services; however, there are many who are not. Consumers are also at risk. Hundreds of personal celebrity photos were leaked online in September after iCloud accounts were hacked. Apple, a global technology leader in both consumer and business electronics, was unable to secure the data. Even worse, the threat was not detected until the accounts were hacked and the photos were leaked. Businesses and consumers alike are in need of security for their data that develops as quickly as the cloud storage technologies.

With e-commerce growing quickly and mobile technology emerging as a force in supply chains, data security is becoming increasingly important as payment and transaction information as well as secure files are at risk of being accessed by hackers. For consumers, many are losing confidence in the security of their file protection through cloud services. Cloud services be secure and storage capacity must continue to increase as business and consumer data grow in size and number.

Global demand for material handling products is projected to increase close to 5% annually through 2018 to $140 billion, according to new research by the Freedonia Group.

According to the report, gains will be strongest for sales of advanced equipment such as automated conveyors and automated guided vehicles (AGVs), which help to curtail labor costs. Energy efficient products such as electric lift trucks, the report continued, will also see solid gains as end users seek to reduce costs.

When it comes to driving continuous improvement at the plant level, lean has a long and well publicized history, thanks to its laser focus on eliminating waste from all aspects of the production process. 

However, in a world that increasingly looks at the global marketplace through a wide-angle supply chain lens, the advantages possible from lean initiatives are now being sought throughout the extended enterprise, not just the shop floor. Clearly, lean is not just for production anymore.

The EPA announced the 2014 winners of the coveted SmartWay Excellence Awards. The awards honor freight industry companies who model environmental leadership and innovation as they move goods across America.

 

Winners are in the top 5 percent of SmartWay performers in improving fuel efficiency, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and reducing air pollution.

"For more than 10 years, SmartWay partners have shown how reducing carbon pollution is good for business and good for the environment," said Janet McCabe, acting assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation. "The SmartWay partners are examples of how American companies are cutting costs, saving fuel and reducing pollution while meeting the needs of their customers."

In a standing-room-only conference session, the moderator asked for a show of hands: How many in the crowd truly believed that there was a shortage of truck drivers, that it’s not just "carrier rhetoric" to drive rate increases?

 

The show of hands was nearly unanimous.

 

The setting was "State of the Union," a transportation industry executive panel at the 2014 CSCMP Annual Global Conference. The gathering of some 3,000 supply chain professionals in San Antonio this week features an array specialized tracks and dozens of focused presentations and discussions.

Multi-channel distribution is likely to fuel the demand for on-demand packaging as companies continue their search for more cost-effective solutions.

 

Only 7% of companies are making their boxes on demand. However, that figure is set to grow quickly. The explosive rise of e-commerce and all the uncertainties it entails in terms of order fulfillment will likely prompt a growing number of companies, especially those serving multiple sales channels, to seek the answers in on-demand packaging.

 

The potential savings of always getting the right-sized box at just the right time should speak to all those multi-channel distributors. In a recent Peerless Research study, distributors were asked to name the areas where fulfillment costs have gone up. The three most popular answers were transportation, labor, and packaging and materials.

Shipping companies probably will miss out on exports from the record U.S. grain harvest because the shale-oil boom is clogging up rail lines to ports. 

While the U.S. will reap the most crops ever, fourth-quarter export cargoes will be 15 percent lower than last year, according to RS Platou Markets AS, a Norwegian bank specialized in shipping. Rates for Panamaxes, the most commonly used vessels for grains, averaged $7,574 a day this year, headed for the lowest level since at least 1999, Baltic Exchange data show.

Many businesses are challenged by the dual demands of the internal economic drivers of an organization and the external customer requirements for quality and efficiency. As the customer is increasingly empowered and publicly vocal, product quality and safety have become tightly integrated with traceability and supplier scorecards. Bob Ferrari, a leading supply chain consultant, succinctly put it this way: "You never want to hear about the guys who run the supply chains for multinational companies. When you do, usually it means something really bad has happened." 

In addition to safety and quality concerns, compliance regulations can affect the supply chain in finance, shipping, and outsourcing. This article gives an overview of the key risk areas and provides measures to help you improve quality and mitigate risk.

Trucking industry lobbyists, transportation officials, equipment manufacturers and a host of other concerned businessmen and women sent a letter to Capitol Hill today urging that congressmen pass a "robust" long-term highway funding bill before May of next year when funding runs out, and protesting the "devolution" of the federal-aid program. 

The letter called funding under the Transportation Empowerment Act or TEA "ill-conceived," and stated that "by stripping away most federal funding for surface transportation projects" it would "virtually eliminate the federal government’s constitutionally mandated role in promoting interstate commerce." 

UPS announced last week that it expects to hire between 90,000 – 95,000 seasonal employees to support the anticipated holiday surge in package deliveries that will begin in October and continue through January 2015. The company is gearing up for increased holiday delivery volume in 2014 as it prepares to play a pivotal role in helping retailers take advantage of the holiday gift-giving season.

FedEx Corp. is adding 50,000 seasonal jobs for the coming holiday season.

Double digit growth in the robotics and machine vision industries is driving global shipments for motion control products—growing it by 6.2% to $1.5 billion in the first half of 2014, according to the Motion Control Association (MCA), the industry’s trade group.  

"Manufacturers and distributors are optimistic that we’ll see continued growth in 2014," said Dana Whalls, MCA vice president.

The generally soft global commercial property insurance market and reduced number of major natural catastrophes during the past year may help corporate insurance buyers stay on budget. It may also give them an opportunity to improve risk management programs and prepare more effectively for potential disasters.

 

One lesson learned from the series of large-scale natural disasters that occurred in various parts of the world in recent years is that managing catastrophic risk requires more than effective planning and crisis management. Good management also requires a thorough knowledge of a company’s most significant risks. For example, businesses that depend on complex international supply chains cannot underestimate the implications of a regional disaster event or the potential downtime of a key supplier.

Canada is a prime market for merchants to access, with an estimated 2013 GDP of $1.52 trillion. Other sources, including the Luxembourg Income Study Database, indicate the after-tax median income in Canada is now higher than the U.S.

 

For marketers, Canada represents a new and lucrative opportunity. However, for companies unfamiliar with the intricacies of Canadian regulation, the transition can seem confusing and costly.

In a fundamentally changed world, your approach to strategy, and your supply chain, must also change. Andrew Winston, author of The Big Pivot, discusses how business can profit from this fundamental change.