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As one of the fastest growing U.S. cities with populations more than 500,000, Fort Worth, Texas, has created positive planning challenges for the Fort Worth Transportation Authority, known as The [...]

TO TAKE FULL ADVANTAGE OF RETAILERS' INTEGRATED and time-phased supply chain plans and translate them into new levels of customer connectivity, manufacturers must harness the synergy of collaborative planning, forecasting [...]

The overall number of physical touchpoints increases as a product is created from global sources and information touchpoints also increases with the proliferation of services being outsourced. Collaboration refers to the joint effort between parties in the supply chain and is essential to both the primary and secondary constituents in the chain.

The American Society for Quality's Indianapolis section is at the center of organizational alliances in the state. The ASQ section agreed to a cooperative effort with the University of Indianapolis to address issues associated with supply chain management. The alliances among professional organizations in Indiana and their efforts geared towards improving supply chain management are discussed.

The benefits of supply chain management have been established and promoted by software companies and vendors. But the focus of business logistics has shifted from process to technology. Details of the new functionalities, hardware, and software systems, are discussed as well as barriers in implementing them.

Methods to be used by companies to ensure maintenance of quality of raw material by suppliers are described.

Link between total quality management and supply chain management is discussed, with reference to global outsourcing scenarios.

Application of techniques of supply chain management for improving efficiency of education systems and increasing graduation rates at schools in Wisconsin is described.

Methods of ensuring effective implementation of radio frequency identification in supply chain management by business enterprises are described.

Smooth conduct of operations at container terminals on West coast of the United States, due to advanced planning of operations by enterprises for peak season of trade, is described.

Hewlett-Packard's Imaging and Printing business knew that it had to overhaul its supply chain. The unit constantly struggled with too much of the wrong products and not enough of the [...]

You've worked hard to trim the fat from your supply chain, eliminating inventory buffers at every turn. Things are working out fine until suddenly a major supply disruption occurs. Now [...]

The relationship between SCOR (Supply-Chain Operations Reference) planning to the actual performance of supply chain management in modern business organizations is explored.

The supply planning of assembly systems under lead times uncertainty is studied. The used criteria is the sum of the average holding cost for the components, the average backlogging cost for the finished product, and the setup cost. The decision variables are the planned lead times of components and the periodic ordering quantity. A new generalized Newsboy model gives the optimal solution under the assumption that the lead times of the different types of components follow the same distribution probability, and that the holding costs per period of the ordered quantities are the same. Keywords: Assembly systems; Supply planning; Inventory control; Optimization

The government is making all efforts to make Korea a key logistics center in the region. The two major ports at Busan and Incheon are being upgraded. The Incheon Free Economic Zone (IFEZ) and the nation's unmatched IT infrastructure could make Korea the key logistical center in the Asian region. Park Nam-Hoon, assistant minister for transport policy, outlines the government's efforts at simplifying the customs clearance procedures. The deputy minister for planning & management and head of task force for promoting the logistics hub, expect the revisions to the Free Trade Zone Act to attract foreign logistics companies to Korea.

Levi Strauss Chief Information Officer (CIO) David Bergen is orchestrating an information technology (IT)-based transformation that depends heavily on a supply-chain partnership with Wall-Mart.

ABSTRACT Companies are increasingly aware that they need to work together with theft supply partners in order to best serve theft customers and achieve business excellence. This paper makes use [...]

Globalization is hardly a recent trend in apparel and footwear, industries that are part of the very fabric of international trade. The bad news for importers in the United States, [...]

A mass customization strategy can be pursued with varying 'intensity,' acting on product and supply chain structure to address competitive environment and manufacturing issues. Managers have to carefully consider production volume and product variety in strategy implementation of mass customization.

One driving force behind continued logistics planning research is firms' need to maintain competitive performance and efficient resource allocation. Operations research has been instrumental in advancing logistics planning research particularly in the petroleum industry. The impact and potential of incorporating performance imperatives however, have been largely unaddressed while the problem's general complexity has grown. This paper focuses on performance planning through resource allocation in supply networks by developing a profit-maximizing network model for distribution planning, and explicitly incorporating order performance criteria for distribution centers and delivery vehicles. The approach has been tested on forty realistic-sized problems, and tradeoff models provide insight and guidelines for assessing the interaction among expected profits, customer service, and operational efficiency for resource acquisition and redistribution. Managerial implications are also provided. Keywords: Supply networks; Resource allocation; Performance measurement

The author discusses a research study in which logistics managers evaluated the benefits of encouraging marketing/logistics interdepartmental relations in organizations. The need for proper management of marketing/logistics cross-functional collaboration is noted.

The authors present a conceptual framework for the use of cross-functional integration and marketing in supply chain management. Topics include supply chain network structures, business process links, business process chains, managerial components of SCM, and mapping the supply chain.

The author provides a framework for analyzing the causes of inventory-related variances in buyer-seller relationships.

The authors discuss the results of a survey of logistics managers with respect to their use of the Internet in supply chain management. Findings address Internet use in purchasing, inventory management, transportation, order processing, customer service, and production scheduling.

The author sets forth means by which organizations can survive the threats of short product life cycles and global economic competition through the creation of responsive supply chains. The effectiveness of hybrid strategies is discussed.

The authors suggest methods of improving the process of supply chain management. A conceptual framework for SCM is provided, along with a method of balancing the costs of operating a supply chain with order quantity costs.

The author outlines techniques that will influence the future of supply chain management. Topics include supply chain management as a multi-dimensional discipline, optimal supply chain design, Internet use in supply chain operations, and measuring supply chain performance.

Commercial logistics providers may offer more services to a company than are possible to execute. Conversely, many companies expect far more from their logistics provider than can reasonably be expected. Communication is a very important part of the business relationship, as is the understanding of the associated risk and value inherent in the contract. Decisions should be made well before the last minute to allow for consideration of option., TIRED OF THE HYPE? IT'S TIME FOR A REALITY CHECK FOR BOTH SHIPPERS AND SERVICE PROVIDERS AS THE CONTRACT LOGISTICS ARENA REACHES NEW LEVELS OF SOPHISTICATION. Offers from some third-party [...]

Analysis of outsourcing activities reveals that logistics is critical to bridging strategy and structure in the new manufacturing environment where distances between production facilities and pressures for faster delivery times increases. The study also finds that enterprise-wide logistics integration is the key to formulating and maintaining the bridge between strategy and structure.

It is speculated that Alexander the Great was a good logistics planner. The factors involved in his success as a warrior and ruler are the same elements for logistics management in the business environment. The strategic planning elements, namely, logistics and supply-chain management, are compared with Alexander's winning battles and the business environment. Alexander is compared to a CEO with knowledge-based decision making and having a central point of control. His Macedonian army is considered as one of history's most effective and efficient organizations.

Warehouse site selection is a complex process which, nevertheless, is essential to an effective distribution plan within the bigger framework of a logistics management scheme. Because of its advantage over traditional methods, a particular warehouse site selection scheme that uses an analytic hierarchy process-based method is favored. Its main advantage lies in the ability to consider both tangible and intangible determinants.

Logistics planners are using decision support software to determine where to open facilities or where to close them. Such software has also helped firms determine the costs associated with a particular facility closure or opening. In Europe, for example, firms are opening fewer facilities because of centralization. Tax breaks and capital expenses are taken into account, in addition to environmental factors., Finding good sites for your distribution network requires the mining of a wealth of data. Here are some tools to help you start digging. Decision support tools for site location [...]

As companies struggle to meet the competitive challenge of a global marketplace, they are increasingly finding a need to review the role and positioning of their value-added processes. In this article, the role and value of the assessment process as it relates to manufacturing and logistics operations is discussed. The assessment process is then used as a foundation to illustrate four decisions a firm must evaluate in developing a manufacturing and logistics-based competitive strategy.

Business forecasts will never be completely accurate, but forecasts can be used more effectively, and proper planning can compensate for forecasting inaccuracies. Logistics planners primarily rely on short-term forecasts, those projected up to about a year in advance. Intelligence gathered by other means can supplement or supplant inaccurate statistical projections., How often have you heard someone complain their inventory management would be much more effective if their forecasting system yielded results closer to reality? Even companies using state-of-the-art statistical forecasting, [...]