Transportation

An international producer of healthy, convenient and affordable foods was stuggling to maintain an effifient, cost-effective supply chain. The third-party logistics (3PL) provider managing its West Coast distribution was failing to deliver on commitments, leading to unacceptable results.

Within UPS, Scott Abell is known as Mr. Peak. He spends the entire year obsessing about Peak Season, the busiest time at the world's largest shipping company. This Peak Season, UPS will deliver an estimated 300 packages per second. So how does it all work? Bloomberg Businessweek takes a look at how the company prepares for the holiday season.

In just one night, Santa has to visit millions of homes to deliver presents. If he could travel at the speed of light, the task would be simple. However, Einstein’s formula, E=MC², tells us that anything with mass cannot travel faster than the speed of light. And as we all know, Santa has mass.

Transportation network design is a rapidly-growing analysis approach that enables companies to create digital “models” of their end-to-end supply chains to evaluate new strategies and identify break-through performance improvements.

For companies across all industries, 2013 brought a number of challenges that significantly impacted supply chains and presented even greater uncertainty around the state of the transportation industry. Shippers were forced to adapt to a slowly recovering economy and increased regulatory mandates, compounded by the continued pressure to cut costs and maintain service levels – all while effectively planning for the future.

FedEx Corp. and Cardinal Health, announced today that they have formed a strategic alliance that will enable the companies to leverage their market-leading capabilities to provide 3PL solutions.

I would be shocked if a companies like UPS and FedEx aren't considering this," says Ryan Calo, a law professor specializing in drones and robotics. "If you want to compete in logistics and delivery, drones and unmanned robots have to be part of the conversation about where things are headed."

Google is looking at shoring up the same kinds of deficiencies that UPS and FedEx may be exploring, like the transport method for shuttling goods from central depots to local sort and delivery facilities.

Amazon's plans for using drones to deliver packages is just one example of the potential this technology offers consumers, and a reflection of the ingenuity of American business.

Sourcing your goods usually means dealing with multiple suppliers located everywhere - time zones, cultures, distance, and languages - it's logistics.

Third party logistics (3PL) companies have become an important part of today’s supply chain. They have grown as their clients decided to become leaner, conserve capital, and focus on core business strengths and processes. On the other hand, many enterprises view distribution/fulfillment as a strategic tool driving their business models. For them, the supply chain is much more than a transactional process, it is a competitive weapon.

In today’s dynamic global marketplace, increasing logistics flexibility is critical as shippers look for greater collaboration with their third-party providers on the way to seamless integration of supply chain activities.

For 18 years this study has documented the significant transformation of the 3PL industry. In that time 3PLs have evolved from tactical service providers to become, in the most evolved relationships, collaborative partners delivering in many instances a comprehensive suite of integrated logistics services.

While vendor compliance programs offer value in the form of improved intelligence and savings, the real value and greater savings are attained by identifying and mitigating potentially non-compliant activity before it occurs, rather than simply reporting on it after the fact. Improved vendor management offers several important implications to your business, including: improved customer service, minimized lost sales and significantly increased profits. Simply put, companies need to move beyond vendor compliance to develop strategic vendor management programs because seven-figure savings...

This Market Spotlight combines past research with current thinking about the challenges that continue to face manufacturers. It also discusses how visibility defined, and then enabled through cloud-based collaborative networks, can be a powerful tool in both solving existing business problems and anticipating new ones.

As the shale energy revolution is gaining speed in the U.S., transportation and logistics companies are experiencing an immediate and dramatic impact, according to a new PwC US report, Shale Energy: A potential game changer – Implications for the US transportation & logistics industry.

In a press release early Monday morning, Amazon announced it would be using the United States Postal Service to help deliver packages in the New York and Los Angeles metropolitan areas on Sundays.

We examine how warehouse and distribution center design and operations have evolved to play a critical role in meeting overall business objectives in today’s multi-channel world.

Chances are, like most logistics professionals, you're looking for creative ways to control costs, improve visibility, and increase speed to market. One solution gaining traction in the logistics arena is total quality management (TQM).

This report presents the findings of the 2013 annual survey and analysis, and compares the results of previous years’ surveys, creating a predictive indicator of emerging priorities in the trucking industry.