December, 2014

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Expert Explains How to Improve Supply Chain Efficiency

Supply Chain Opz

'Over the years, supply chain professionals have been trying to improve supply chain efficiency so they can gain an edge over the competitions. In this guest commentary, Thomas Roemer, Executive Director of the Leaders for Global Operations at MIT Sloan School of Management will show you where the problem lies and ways we can deal with this issue. Companies seeking to further improve their supply chain efficiency will have to continue fighting their old foe – variability – albeit in a set of new

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Five reasons why cloud-based supply chain tech beats traditional on-premise

The Network Effect

'PhotoAtellier (Flickr). What can we say about supply chains with 100% certainty? First, supply chain processes are inherently collaborative activities involving multiple participants whose actions must be synchronized to deliver maximum business performance. Second, supply chain are also a community in which those parties who are already present and connected will be a superior solution framework than an isolated, inward looking enterprise-centric architecture.

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What are “Analytics”?

Supply Chain Action Blog

“Analytics” is one of those business buzz words formed by transforming an adjective into a noun. . So forceful and habitual is such misuse of language that one might call it a compulsion among business analysts and writers. The term “analytics” commonly refers to software tools that can be used to organize, report, and sometimes visualize data in attempt to lend meaning for decision-makers.

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What is demand sensing?

The Network Effect

'tanka v/Flickr. “Demand sensing” has become increasingly important over the past few years. Why? Because companies believe that improving demand forecast accuracy can drive higher levels of customer service through better shelf inventory availability while simultaneously decreasing overall inventory costs and increasing profits. Furthermore, evolving consumer behavior and rising market volatility have underscored the opportunity to sense and react in near real-time to changes in the demand and

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Load Optimization: A Sustainable Way To Reduce Transportation Costs

Discover strategies to optimize load building and achieve significant transportation cost savings. Plus, learn how load optimization can help reduce CO 2 emissions and align with climate regulations and consumer expectations. Finally, discover best practices for sustainable load optimization.

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CPFR or Demand-Driven replenishment for your supply chain? Choose wisely….

The Network Effect

'Tom Bullock (Flickr). Prior to today’s advanced capabilities around Demand Driven Value Networks, the prevailing strategy was to implement Collaborative Planning, Forecasting, and Replenishment (CPFR). Given the state of technology platforms a few years ago, CPFR was a prime focus for many of the ERP/MRP type vendors. In fact some vendors have even published comparisons of the workflows in their systems to the structure of CPFR.

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Push vs. Pull in your supply chain…what’s the difference?

The Network Effect

'Loren Kerns (Flickr). Today‘s supply chains are undergoing significant pressures to become more “demand-driven”. Retailers, distributors and manufacturers are forced to choose the approach they hope will make them the most profit. Is it producing and making goods available to forecasts of expected consumer demand, or by reacting to what consumers have already bought?

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Our 5 best posts from 2014

The Network Effect

'woodlywonderworks/Flickr. Ok, by “best” we mean the most read. Anyway, here are the 5 posts from 2014 that our readers were especially interested in: 1. 6 MAPS THAT EXPLAIN GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAINS. We all know that supply chains are becoming more and more global, but how often can we actually see them becoming more global? The site vox.com has compiled 38 maps that explain the global economy.

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Where’s the harmony in your supply chain? Why logistics providers play a key role

The Network Effect

'Emily Stanchfield/Flickr. This is the latest installment in a series of posts where I discuss the current landscape for logistics service providers (LSPs). In the first post, I discussed some of the top challenges that they face. In the next, I discussed a broad set of opportunities that I am calling “ Coordination Services “ The second category of opportunities can be broadly labeled as “harmonization” services.

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What are the top opportunities for todays logistics providers?

The Network Effect

'Courtesy of ITU Pictures (Flickr). This is the second post in a series where I discuss the top challenges and most promising opportunities for today’s logistics providers. I’m labeling the first category of opportunities as “coordination” services. The new generation of cloud networks can coordinate many internal functions and activities of an LSP’s users and clients, as well as their customer’s customers and trading partners, giving the entire value chain a “single version of the

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It’s a consumer-driven webinar series….

The Network Effect

'Courtesy of Jake Guild (Flickr). Regular readers of this blog will notice that we often point to useful outside resources, such as whitepapers, analyst reports, and articles from other publications. Well, in that vein, I’d like to point you to something else that you might find interesting: webinars. My company is announcing a new “Consumer-Driven” webinar series… here are the first two that we’ve below, click the links to sign up.

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Autonomous AI Agents Are the Future of Procurement and Supply Chain Operations

As early as next year, procurement and supply chain operations will begin to adopt AI agents, often called “agentic AI,” to work alongside employees to make and execute decisions with precision across procurement and even the most complex global supply chains. Unlike LLM-based generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, these AI agents do not require prompts from humans.

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Implementing RFID for Manufacturing Visibility: A Case Study

Supply Chain Opz

'This article is a guest commentary from Prof Ming K Lim who is Head of Centre of Excellence for Supply Chain Improvement and Professor of Supply Chain and Logistics Operations at Derby Business School. He is a well-known expert in RFID technology and conducting research in this field, leveraging the capability of artificial intelligence, to improve and optimise logistics and supply chain operations to address various business challenges, such as low carbon agenda and complexity due to dynamic c

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Merry Christmas!

Supply Chain Action Blog

Phillips Brooks. On this Christmas, I would like to share with you with the words of Phillips Brooks, penned in 1868, which embody my favorite thoughts at this time of year. I wish you a wonderful Christmas and holiday season and the best of New Years. O little town of Bethlehem, How still we see thee lie; Above thy deep and dreamless sleep. The silent stars go by: Yet in thy dark streets shineth.

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The Value Network, Optimization & Intelligent Visibility

Supply Chain Action Blog

The supply chain is more properly designated a value network through which many supply chains can be traced. Material, money and data pulse among links in the value network, following the path of least resistance. If each node in the value network makes decisions in isolation , the potential grows for the total value in one or more supply chain paths to be less than it could be. .

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