When supply-chain problems arise — such as short inventories or slow deliveries — fingers often point to the warehouse.Especially amid the pandemic, modernizing operations is a requirement for maximum productivity and happy customers, and automated solutions are a good place to start.&nb

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s important for shippers to think of transportation as an ecosystem. Each diverse player is being influenced by different factors to varying degrees, creating new challenges and opportunities when it comes to moving freight.As you work to create new su

Forecasting true demand has always been a challenge, and it’s especially difficult for food companies operating in fresh and perishable categories. At the same time, accurate forecasting is essential for upstream supply-chain planning and execution, and reducing food and financial waste.In tim

Back to business as usual. That’s what companies, workers, and families across the country are looking forward to. But there’s one critical economic component that cannot — and should not — go back to what it was: single-source supply chains.How businesses respond to thi

The Northern Sea Route (NSR) refers to a multitude of passageways along the Russian Arctic connecting Europe and Asia. It is deemed a potential alternative to routes crossing the Suez or Panama canals, potentially reducing distances up to 45%. Shipping from Rotterdam to Tokyo via the Suez Canal, for

The coronavirus pandemic has been defined in large part by shortages. Healthcare workers continue to suffer from a dearth of personal protective equipment. Hospitals have rationed ventilators, and no human can tolerate this kind of intensive support without sedation and other drugs — illuminat

Once-busy airports are barren, planes are parked, and the future of travel is uncertain. After years of consistent growth, the COVID-19 pandemic has shattered the aerospace and defense (A&D) industry and manufacturers that support air travel. With more than 95% of airplanes still grounded a

The COVID-19 crisis has forced many companies into managing remote workforces. Giants like Google and Facebook have determined that their employees won’t go back to the office full-time until 2021. Smaller companies are evaluating essential workers versus those who can work from home. The land

Ocean carriers, shippers and truckers can’t stop bickering over an issue that has plagued the transportation industry for years, and shows no sign of being easily solved: the ownership and management of chassis.It seems unlikely that something as basic as a set of wheels for ocean containers w

It wasn’t that long ago that we were talking about post-holiday returns and what apparel retailers could do to tackle them. Today, the problem of holiday returns seems like small potatoes compared with the impact of COVID-19. Apparel retailers are facing a mounting pile of overstock, unlike an

For our annual customer conference in March, we overhauled our agenda to focus on the planning challenges posed by the global COVID-19 pandemic. This year, customer presentations were rife with language like “commercial overrides,” “exceptional demand filtering” and “du

Procurement hasn’t always been seen as the ideal, agile strategic partner of the enterprise. Cumbersome sourcing processes, lengthy buy and contracting cycles, and gaps in domain expertise have resulted in a separation between procurement and the various business units it serves.Those of us wi

As the COVID-19 pandemic has spread, companies have been forced to adapt their distribution and logistics operations accordingly. For many, the rapid changes have exposed weaknesses in what they believed were reliable processes — revealing worrying fractures.With dramatic shifts in demand, flu

Southeast Asia has been severely hit by the coronavirus, posing significant challenges to businesses in the region. In the face of plummeting external demand and widespread disruptions to supply chains, we predict a sharp increase in insolvency growth for the region — as much as 30% for Hong K

In just a few short months, the coronavirus pandemic has transformed how supply chains are run.Companies are adapting to a new remote-work environment, and the crisis has come with a surge in shipping demand as well as constrained capacity, causing rate spikes across the industry. From February to M

There’s an old consulting adage: If you want to know where the rocks are in the stream, lower the water. This was true in the 2008 financial crisis, as the lowered “water” of depressed economic activity revealed unsustainable amounts of financial leverage and fraud in mortgage

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is having an unprecedented adverse impact on trade and commerce. Businesses throughout the globe that rely on or service supply chains, whether simple or complex, domestic or international, are experiencing the pandemic’s disruptive effect.Purchasers and suppliers

As if the global economic downturn weren’t bad enough, U.S. exporters are confronted by a raft of vessel cancellations that hinder their ability to fulfill what overseas sales they’re still able to make.Since the coronavirus pandemic began early this year, ocean carriers have cancelled h

As consumer demand and buying patterns rapidly undergo changes in a digital economy, the supply chain that supports these emerging needs has to be both responsive and lean — and that’s a difficult balance to achieve.The recent disruptions and demand-supply imbalances in healthcare due to

In the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, our faith in existing enterprise systems, protocols and technology has been severely tested. Many retailers who once relied on brick-and-mortar stores as their primary point of sale have been forced to pivot to e-commerce and delivery strategies. Meanwhile, gr