MHI Newswire

"Cloud Computing is an emerging phenomenon and is helpful in boosting supply chain performance but for supply chains to achieve their upside potential, more efficient means of collaboration, communication, shared risk and orchestration are needed," says, Louis Columbus of the Contributor.

A recent study authored by SCM World titled Supply Chain and The Future of Applications provides several interesting insights into how cloud computing applications and platforms are improving supply chain performance. The scheme is based on a combination of qualitative interviews and data analysis to rationalize the queries regarding cloud applications and to simplify the issue for operational leaders.

Many companies unintentionally have created departmental silos within their organizations. Information and products go back and forth between the different functional areas, but the customer is often missing from the process. 

When lean supply chain strategies, which focus on eliminating waste, are implemented, once again the customer is often times left out. Instead of focusing on the client, the company focuses internally to improve processes. Research shows that undertaking a lean supply chain journey that extends outside the four walls of the organization significantly improves the customer experience, company productivity and the bottom line.

Retailers with the most efficient, transparent and dexterous supply chains overwhelmingly do better in terms of both costs and revenue gained in comparison to competitors. The 2013 Global Supply Chain Management System Survey says retailers with elite-performing supply chains turn over their inventory up to 15 times per year, while those with the poorest-performing supply chains turn over their inventories as few as four times. 

Timothy D. Garcia, founder and CEO of Apptricity, provider of mobile enterprise software solutions, has outlined three suggestions for how retailers can gain and maintain a competitive advantage through quality supply chain management applications.

Each year, nearly 25 million containers and trailers are moved in the United States using intermodal transportation, according to the Intermodal Association of North America. Intermodal transportation initiatives have resulted in a multi-billion dollar US intermodal industry where shippers now routinely look for the most efficient combination of truck, rail, ocean, and air to get goods to market.

 But if shippers are to optimize intermodal shipping further, new steps must be taken to ensure that goods arrive safely, in great condition, and when customers want them. Shippers looking at these four key areas can take their intermodal logistics strategies to the next level.

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) had existed for decades prior to being applied to consumer packaged goods (CPG); and, of those applications, the most ambitious is at the item-level. What's envisioned could not be more ambitious: every packaged good, worldwide, individually identifiable by means of an RFID-enabled tag. For practical reasons, the tag would be on the package in the overwhelming majority of instances; therefore, given the ubiquity of packaging in modern life, little imagination is required to grasp the potential scope and breadth of item-level RFID.

The stakeholders are diverse and their competing positions (more so than technological hurdles) have been the main impediments to the fulfillment of early predictions about RFID, which, in the main, have proven to have been overhyped. That's the past; and although the once predicted stampede has slowed to a crawl, is a complete stop (or even a reversal) inevitable?

Factory production in the U.S. unexpectedly declined in January by the most since May 2009, adding to evidence severe winter weather weighed on the economy. 

The 0.8 percent decrease at manufacturers followed a revised 0.3 percent gain the prior month that was weaker than initially reported, figures from the Federal Reserve showed today in Washington. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for a 0.1 percent advance. Total industrial production dropped 0.3 percent even as utility output climbed the most in almost a year.

Distribution centers are getting bigger, and, along with the potential benefits, there are plenty of potential problems. Good planning, though, can help organizations navigate around them.

Thirty-eight percent of respondents in the 2013 Motorola Warehouse Vision Survey reported that they would increase the size of their warehouses and distribution centers over the next five years. Bigger can be better, but bigger can also lead to failure. 

There is significant talk in Washington about the need for comprehensive corporate tax reform. Such reform could be the most important economic policy decision Washington makes. Its effects would likely have critical implications for the health of the U.S. economy for years to come.

But despite the talk, it’s not clear when or even if Congress will pass legislation. Indeed, it may not be until after the 2016 Presidential election that Congress is able to do this.

Lise Bourjot, senior implementations manager of Celestica, explains why smaller companies can benefit from the use of an outsourced logistics provider -- all the while ensuring continued operational effectiveness.

Supply chains are growing increasingly complex, says Bourjot, and companies are finding themselves under more and more pressure to drive down logistics costs. The tasks of carrier selection, contract and operations management, and freight audit and payment can be a drain on internal resources.

President Barack Obama used his appearance yesterday at a Safeway warehouse to order the Environmental Protection Agency and the Transportation Department to issue a first draft of fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas rules for medium and heavy duty trucks by March 2015 and to finalize the rules a year later.

This marks the second phase of Washington’s efforts to reduce pollutants put out by trucks. In 2011 the administration completed fuel standards calling for a 20 percent reduction in heavy-vehicle emissions by 2018. Those rules applied to trucks made between 2014 through 2018. The second phase sets standards for trucks beyond 2018.

Sales (RSTAMOM) at U.S. retailers declined in January by the most since June 2012 amid bad weather and uneven progress in the labor market, signaling the economy was off to a slow start in 2014. 

The 0.4 percent decrease followed a revised 0.1 percent drop in December that was previously reported as an increase, according to Commerce Department figures released today in Washington. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for no change. Jobless claims unexpectedly climbed last week, other data showed. 

Indian regulators will be told when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is inspecting plants that produce generic drugs in that country, and will join to observe FDA standards. 

The agreement between Indian government officials and FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg came during her visit to India this week, the FDA said yesterday. Hamburg, who told Bloomberg News last week she will expand overseas plant inspections, also met in a closed-door session with 16 drug companies and affiliated groups in India to discuss manufacturing quality. 

Capstone Strategic surveyed 75 midmarket executives from multiple industries on their growth and M&A outlook for 2014. The survey was conducted in December 2013.

 

More than half of the respondents (54 percent) expect increased M&A activity in their industry in 2014. An even higher number (63 percent) expressed interest in pursuing M&A in 2014.