Fulfillment

To truly understand e-commerce’s impact on supply chains, follow the movement of goods through the middle mile, e.g. from port to warehouse/DC, between warehouse and from warehouse to e-commerce storage areas. * By Mary Lou Jay * Last mile delivery is often the focus of discussions about e-commerce’s impact on supply chains. But movement of goods through the middle mile—from ...

Supply Chains Worldwide Are Coming Up With Innovative Solutions to Address the Environmental, Financial and Logistical Aspects of Parcel Delivery * By Sheryl S. Jackson * The cost of global parcel delivery, excluding pickup, line-haul and sorting, is more than $78.5 billion, with last mile delivery costs reaching or exceeding 50% of the total, according to a McKinsey & Company ...

Turning Pressure Into Inspiration Pressures on the supply chain have changed over the years. It is partially because of these pressures that the supply chain industry has evolved as much as it has—and continues to do so. * By Sheryl S. Jackson * Remember when taking inventory meant manually counting everything in the warehouse? Or, when fast delivery was counted ...

Retailers and manufacturers are evaluating the pros and cons of handling tasks in-house versus outsourcing to a third-party logistics partner. * By Sheryl S. Jackson * As retailers and manufacturers strive to meet fulfillment and distribution challenges in today’s Amazon-led competitive e-commerce market, companies must evaluate the pros and cons of handling these tasks in-house versus outsourcing to a third-party ...

*  By Katie Kuehner-Hebert * As the automobile industry ramps up testing of self-driving vehicles at facilities like University of Michigan’s Mcity and the American Center for Mobility, next generation autonomous vehicles are already being deployed across the retail fulfillment chain—and one day, up to consumers’ doors. They are not being embraced without going through “boot camps,” though, at all ...

A number of improvements to the fulfillment process are now catching fire industrywide, while early adopters are exploring other innovations, MHI members say. By Katie Kuehner-Hebert— Amazon is driving e-commerce, but brick-and-mortar stores are just now trying to adjust, and so omnichannel is becoming an even bigger issue, says Antonio Rodrigues, sales executive at MHI member DMW&H. “A lot of ...

Distribution Centers “Popping-Up” Closer to the Customer to Meet eCommerce Demand By Katie Kuehner-Hebert— When it comes to ecommerce fulfillment, it’s all about location, location, location. And that location must deliver speed and agility. That’s why more and more retailers with ecommerce operations are augmenting their traditional larger distribution centers with “pop-up locations”—which can be temporary to handle orders during ...

The Industry 4.0 ‘Horse Is Out of the Barn’ By Katie Kuehner-Hebert Industry 4.0—incorporating the Internet of Things (IoT) into intelligent industrial machines—is set to transform the fulfillment process, greatly boosting visibility, efficiency and accuracy of shipments, and in turn, customer satisfaction and everyone’s bottom line. IoT is “a fait accompli,” says Kevin Reader, director of business development and marketing ...

More and more end-customers are demanding that automated material handling solutions be integrated to address the “full stream” of order fulfillment and bridge the gaps created by the islands of automation. In the past, MHI member companies would often work with customers seeking a single solution, such as pick-to-light or voice-directed picking, to address a specific fulfillment area or process, ...

MHI’s Order Fulfillment Solutions (OFS) Industry Group is presenting two must-see sessions this year at ProMat 2017 in Chicago: a review of the “latest and greatest” solutions on the show floor and practical ways to approach omnichannel distribution centers. On Monday, April 3, Ed Romaine, vice president, sales and marketing at MHI Member SI Systems, will be presenting the session, ...