Logistics Blog and Supply Chains Blog

Doing the wrong thing. Allowing impoverished children to make the products you sell is not the road to higher profits, but to unwanted publicity about your corporate practices – mobile phones and social media are available and cheap. Put yourself in the shoes of a buyer within a large retail business. A supplier with whom you have dealt with before … Read More

A training challenge. Productivity is a term not far from the lips of politicians and industry leaders. But while bemoaning the lack of productivity by workers, they conveniently ignore the fact that productivity is actually driven by the managers of enterprises. In the March Newsletter (subscribe at www.learnaboutlogistics.com) I discussed supply chain challenges for foreign multi-brand retailers who consider investing … Read More

Economies are changing. Industries, or companies within them, can change how they operate depending on changes in markets, competition and supplies. This can affect a business’s contracts with its logistics service providers (LSPs). For example, changes in the competitiveness of America is making it more attractive for some companies to ‘on-shore’, that is to once again manufacture in America. In … Read More

Understanding can take a long time. A recent survey of about 400 companies in America, conducted through Supply Chain Digest, indicates that Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) remains ‘a fairly immature process in the majority of companies’. And this is more than 30 years after the concept was first described! Why is it that a process designed to overcome a … Read More

The going on in metals. We assume the spot and future price of commodities are established on trading exchanges through an open market that prices the imbalance between supply and demand. True, but events can influence perceptions and therefore the price. For example, events can be short term, where traders think that a disturbance (man made or natural) in countries … Read More