November, 2015

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Want to be a Strategic Sourcing Rising Star? Think New Products.

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If you happen to be a strategic sourcing professional within the manufacturing industry, you probably are experiencing many challenging days at the office. For example, bad supplier choices can hurt your company’s reputation, lead to production line shutdowns, and contribute to loss of profits. And the C-suite knows just who to come see and hold responsible when such events occur.

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In Remembrance of Those Who’ve Served

Supply Chain Collaborator

Today, UltraShipTMS would like to offer sincerest thanks and deepest expressions of gratitude to all those men and women who have served while wearing the uniforms of the American Armed Forces. To those who have served, to those who have fought, to those who have laid down their lives to protect the safety and sanctity of the American way of life, an enormous debt is owed by each and every one of us.

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15 Reasons Why Holiday 2015 Will Exceed Expectations

The Network Effect

Image Credit: Flickr user Joakim Jardenberg. Black Friday is over 3 weeks away and retail sales are predicted to hit new highs this holiday season. Holiday 2015 will go down in the record books as a phenomenal success. Here are my top 15 reasons why: Holiday 2015 began earlier than ever before. Consider: Several retailers began promoting Holiday 2015 in July.

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Experts Reveal Top Transportation Trends to Watch

Supply Chain Opz

In this article, leading experts from various sectors in transportation industry will discuss transportation trends you should take a closer look. 1. James Winebrake, Dean of College of Liberal Arts, Rochester Institute of Technology There are a number of important trends happening in the freight industry, spanning all modes of transportation: trucking, shipping, rail, pipeline, and air.

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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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Why Strategic Sourcing and Supplier Management Can Make or Break Your Customer Experience

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Today in many executive boardrooms, the conversation often centers on how to improve the overall customer experience. Why? Simply put, it’s a lot more expensive to get a new customer than it is to keep one. And if you produce multiple products, selling into your existing customer base is far easier than making that first sale to a new customer. So how do you economically keep and grow existing customers?

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As manufacturing business models evolve, your supply partners will be the difference between winning and losing

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For product manufacturers, the concept of ‘supply partners’ has changed dramatically in the last 50 years…and they will change more than ever in the next ten. Business models have evolved to a point where suppliers are so important to success that they are now considered an extension of the manufacturer’s enterprise. What has changed? Let’s look at a quick history of the manufacturing business model evolution and the shifting nature of supplier relationships.

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For Food Shippers, Variety is the ‘Secret Ingredient’ in TMS

Supply Chain Collaborator

Variety is said to be the ‘spice of life’, and as any chef or grocer will tell you, access to quality ingredients of every imaginable variety helps drive business volume. Food shippers understand this dynamic and spend considerable time and money on developing strategies to source, process and deliver quality ingredients in the most cost effective, quality-focused way possible.

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Free Donuts or Freight Cost Savings?

Supply Chain Collaborator

November 5 was one of several annually-observed “Free Donut Days”. Did you get your free beignet, cruller or zeppole? Everyone likes free stuff; especially freight carriers who haul for organizations without TMS and the rules-based tendering such software delivers. Here’s a donut-themed tale underscoring one of the many risks a shipper faces if they resist using a TMS for better visibility and cost control over transportation spend.

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8 Reasons Every Retail Shipper Needs a TMS

Supply Chain Collaborator

An article by similar name was published this week in Logistics Management magazine by the inimitable Bridget McCrea who is a leading voice in the media serving the logistics industry. We highly recommend you visit the article on the LM website , but for our busy readers, here’s a synopsis of the 8 reasons every retail shipper needs a TMS. Proven Return on Investment – an argument we’ve been making for years.

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Skype co-founders are launching a robot that will deliver groceries for… £1

The Network Effect

Yes that’s right. Forget Amazon’s same-day delivery or even drones. Skype’s co-founders, Ahti Heinla and Janus Friis, are building an autonomous, self-driving robot that will deliver up to 20lbs (9kg) of groceries for £1 ($1.50) in under half an hour, starting in 2016. Business Insider has more details about the project , but I thought it would be a good idea to revisit the increasing likelihood that the way that consumers interact with retailers is on the cusp of major di

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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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Brilliant Boredom (Supply Chain Management)

The Network Effect

Are you bored? Chances are, you’re not and that’s a problem. As a society we’ve won the battle against boredom. You probably have a smartphone in your pocket, maybe a game console in your den, perhaps a Kindle or iPad in your briefcase. Congratulations, you’ll never suffer a minute without stimulation. Yippee! Here’s the problem. Experts say our brains need boredom so we can let our minds wander and be creative.

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DHL Global Forwarding scraps IT system…what’s next?

The Network Effect

Air Cargo World has an interesting article regarding DHL Global Forwarding’s decision to abandon a €750 million project to modernize it’s new forwarding environment IT system. As best we can tell, the new system couldn’t scale to DHL’s massive business, and lacked flexibility. Given that this is the largest forwarding operation in the world, this news will surely have ramifications throughout the industry.

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Why the automotive aftermarket spare parts supply chain is such a complex problem

The Network Effect

Image Credit: Dave Parker. Being successful in delivering superior results in the aftermarket parts business is a difficult proposition. Aftermarket parts inventories must be made available at the right time in the right quantities in the right mix at the right location within a supply network in order to provide targeted levels of after-sales services at targeted cost levels while being able to guarantee the achievement of customer service metrics.

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Why This Holiday Season is Creating Winners and Losers in the Transportation Industry

The Network Effect

Image Credit: Flickr user Queen Bee. There is an excellent piece in today’s WSJ on how retailers’ changing inventory management strategies are affecting the fortunes logistics and transportation companies. Leading up to the holiday season, shipments by ocean carriers, railroads, and truckers have all been flat, while parcel delivery companies like UPS, FedEx, and USPS are projected to shatter previous holiday season records.

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Freight Procurement Simplified: Bids from Hours to Minutes

Speaker: Eric Berdinis, Ran Sun, & Chris Chmielewski

Procuring freight can be cumbersome, time-consuming, and error-prone. If you’re frustrated with the complex and manual processes for obtaining bids for your contract and spot freight, you’re not alone. In today’s fast-moving supply chain environment, optimizing these processes is critical to staying competitive and cutting costs. Join this exclusive webinar with experts from Uber Freight to learn how the latest digital tools and automation can transform your freight procurement strategy by strea