Tag Archives: supply chain

It is now clear that the supply chain transparency and resilience provided by digital innovation is the difference-maker between companies that can respond, recover and thrive when disruption hits and those that cannot. COVID will not be the last disruption and future survival depends on investment in innovation driven resilience. This issue of MHI Solutions focuses on the top technologies ...

By John Paxton, CEO, MHI Digital supply chain innovation has been the common theme over the last eight MHI Annual Industry Reports. However, the pandemic drove home the necessity of digital innovation as a core supply chain competency—and it has catapulted this opportunity to the top of CEOs’ agendas. For some, the pandemic served as a proof of concept for ...

By Mary Lou Jay “I think of visibility as akin to being able to simply see something. But transparency literally means to see through something and how it connects to other things. Transparency is like the extra medical information you would get if you had access to an X-ray,” said Darren Prokop, professor of logistics at the College of Business ...

By Carol Miller Big Data—the massively complex and exponentially generated data businesses generate and gather from multiple sources (including structured databases, unstructured machine outputs, and semi-structured records) at an increasingly fast pace—has long been on the radar of supply chain organizations as the source of potential competitive advantages for those who leverage it successfully. The organizations that harness, process, and ...

By David Coburn Over the span of a few days last March, COVID-19 created an urgent need for organizations of all kinds to communicate critical information to their employees. Suddenly, the economic and operational challenges presented by the virus had workers fretting about everything from new sanitizing and social distancing protocols for offices, distribution centers and factory floors to the ...

. By Sara Pearson Specter Before the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus was declared a pandemic by The World Health Organization on March 11, 2020, pharmaceutical companies and governments worldwide were already creating plans to develop, manufacture and distribute vaccines to the global population. Within two months, the U.S. had announced the formation of Operation Warp Speed, ...

By Tom Gresham In today’s corporate landscape, sustainability has fast developed into a necessary point of emphasis. Experts say a key ingredient to pursuing sustainability in a meaningful way is transparency in the supply chain, where much of a company’s environmental impact lies. Gopal Iyer, supply chain delivery lead at procurement consultancy 4C Associates, said he has seen estimates indicating ...

By Sheryl S. Jackson In the quest to improve productivity, decrease costs and enhance safety in the warehouse or distribution facility, owners and managers look to a variety of equipment, technology and training. There is, however, one area that usually does not top the list of actions considered essential for performance improvement. “Batteries and battery charging technology are often overlooked ...

Companies big and small continue to invest in emerging supply chain technologies in a major way. Blockchain along with radio frequency identification (RFID) asset-tracking technology, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), artificial intelligence (AI) and quick response (QR) codes are all technologies promising to provide transparency, efficiency and cost savings to players at each end of the supply chain and every ...

By Nicole Nelson Scott Shaw recalls a time in the not too distant past when he attempted to help a food manufacturer calculate an optimal scheduling scenario to grind grain. As the Clarkston Consulting senior consultant was well aware, the utilization of big hammer mills was extremely energy intensive, yet inevitable, as said grain served as the necessary basis—mixed with ...