supply chain

Sports footwear retailer ASICS increased the control and visibility of its European supply chain, and boosted inventory management when it brought in a warehouse management system from Infor.

The retailer, whose name is an acronym for Anima Sana in Corpore Sano - a sound mind in a sound body, has five distribution centres across Europe.

It installed the system at its main centre in Neuss, near D?sseldorf, which distributes shoes, apparel and accessories via ASICS' retail channels across Benelux, Germany, Austria and Switzerland and Eastern Europe, and handles some 5,000 order lines per day from a range of 300,000 SKUs.

Dr. Chris Caplice

Executive Director

MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics

The most obvious prediction for 2010 is that the level of uncertainty in the financial markets, commodity prices, consumer demand, and virtually every other facet of the economy that supply chain managers are concerned with will only increase.  Greater uncertainty makes all aspects of a supply chain manager's job more difficult. It increases the need for more flexible and sophisticated forecasting methods, contractual arrangements, operational models, sourcing strategies, etc.   But the biggest challenge that firms and supply chain managers will face in 2010 is talent management - ensuring that they recruit and retain the right people who possess the right skills.

Семинар построен на базе МВА курса с учетом современных тенденций в отрасли. В ходе семинара слушателям будут предоставлены:

конкретные практические решения по снижению затрат и оптимизации цепи поставок;

«кейсы», основанные на реальных примерах оптимизации управления цепью поставок ведущих мировых и российских компаний;

самые востребованные технологии оптимизации цепи поставок в логистике.

Термин Supply Chain Management - «управление цепью/цепями поставок» был предложен американскими специалистами (в частности, компанией Arthur Andersen) в начале 1980-х годов и впоследствии приобрел большую популярность. С 1989 г. ученые разных стран пытаются структурировать это понятие.

Одно из наиболее распространенных определений цепи поставок, основанное на обобщении мнений многих ведущих зарубежных специалистов, звучит следующим образом: цепь поставок - три или более экономических единиц (юридические или физические лица), напрямую участвующих во внешних и внутренних потоках продукции, услуг, финансов и/или информации от источника до потребителя.

The December Supply Chain Index from Cortera provides additional evidence that retailers were cautious in their 2009 holiday inventory strategies, resulting in less debt and better cash positions. The monthly index measures accounts receivable activities among manufacturers, distributors and wholesalers, retailers, services, and transportation companies.

The December results were largely consistent with levels from November 2009, marking the second consecutive month of conditions historically seen in the months following a holiday shopping season but rarely seen during peak shopping months.

A new report from Research and Markets provides a comprehensive analysis of the applications of RFID technology in the pharmaceutical supply chain. The report is titled Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) in Pharmaceuticals -- Supply Chain Security Concerns Provide Impetus for RFID Adoption.

A few weeks ago, SCDigest once again published its annual review of the supply chain predictions from a number of leading supply chain pundits, which as usual drew very favorable comments from our readers.  

In those articles, we lightly referenced some of the predictions from the supply chain analysts at IDC's Manufacturing Insights group, but felt those prognostications were interesting enough to merit their own focused article. 

The predictions come from IDC analysts Simon Ellis (formerly of Unilever) and Kimberly Knickle (formerly at AMR Research). 

Great Lakes WIND Network (GLWN), a supply chain network and advisory group, has named the Advanced Manufacturing Institute (AMI) at Kansas State University as its center of excellence to expand its supply chain development efforts across the state of Kansas.

As wind energy original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and component suppliers continue to expand across the U.S. market, there is a growing need to develop the component supply chain in order to increase industry capacity, reduce logistic costs, and increase U.S. manufactured content. The GLWN works with OEMs to assess readiness and capabilities of prospective component suppliers who wish to enter the wind industry's manufacturing supply chain. The organization also helps connect OEMs with competitive component suppliers across the United States.

Retail giant Wal-mart Stores Inc. has announced a goal to eliminate 20 million metric tons of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from its global supply chain by the end of 2015. This represents one and a half times the company's estimated global carbon footprint growth over the next five years and is the equivalent of taking more than 3.8 million cars off the road for a year.

"Energy efficiency and carbon reduction are central issues in the world today," says Mike Duke, Walmart's president and CEO. "We've been working to make a difference in these areas, both in our own footprint and our supply chain. We know that we have an opportunity to do more and the capacity to do more."

Procurement professionals can add value in their companies’ businesses by taking a stronger role in supply chain management, according to Accenture’s new 2011 procurement research study, Compulsive Contributors: Accenture Research and Insights into High Performance in Procurement. The report designates this type of procurement professional as a “master,” and according to Accenture’s research, many such Chief Procurement Officers are now poised to influence their companies' financial performance. Supply chain visibility plays a key part here, but still represents a huge growth opportunity.