Latest
What’s Choking Food Supply Chains?
After the Thanksgiving holiday in the US, a co-worker in Florida commented that her grocery store was restricting cream cheese purchases, creating a buzz and taking national airtime during the Christmas season. Yet [...]
A Strategic Approach to Direct Procurement
Outsourced manufacturing is the norm today, often involving thousands of suppliers and sites scattered around the globe. Direct procurement departments — those responsible for purchasing materials and components for end products — are [...]
Time to Flip the Calendar
Many of you reading this recall a time when the close of the year also meant receiving a new calendar. It might have been from a non-profit group you support, a gift from [...]
The Power of a Network
For decades, supply chains have operated the same way — and it worked just fine. The industry made minor changes to their internal business processes to reflect market and industry shifts. But bringing [...]
The Logistics Relay Race
Not too many people are familiar with the Ragnar relay races. In these endurance competitions, teams of 12 individuals run various segments (or legs) of a 200-mile race, some teammates running through the night. [...]
Time to Go Big on Sustainability
The close of COP26 was a bittersweet moment. There has never been so much awareness and urgency to address climate change, yet there is still so far to go. Anyone participating in or [...]
Where’s the Bottleneck and Who’s Going to Straighten It Out?
A few weeks ago, when the US port crisis boiled up enough to garner the attention of every major media outlet in the world, children everywhere began preparing their Christmas lists well in [...]
CBP Is Tracking Further into Your Supply Chain—but Are You Prepared?
Identifying and tracking principal players in the global supply chain is of great importance to US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and its partnering government agencies. The year 2020 was significant due to [...]
Embarking on Digitalization with MSC and E2open
If there was one thing to learn from the way the global pandemic affected the shipping industry, it was to expect the unexpected. While some experts predicted that reopening economies would cause gridlock [...]
“Open the Gates. We Need More”: How Governments Control the Flow of Goods through Regulations
Soybeans are a high-volume commodity, especially for China, the largest importer of soybeans in the world. China imports around 90% of its soybeans from the United States, Brazil and a few other nations. In [...]
What Does “AI” Even Mean?
My last blog post about artificial intelligence (AI) covered some of the technology’s history, including how engineers, scientists, writers and readers all understood the rise of AI would change everything. Decades later, it [...]
The Ages of Channels
Sales channels have always been evolving. Historically there were middlemen. More recently, there were influencers. Now, the world is entering the third age of channels: the ecosystems. Each age builds on the previous [...]
Pharmaceutical and Life Science Manufacturing: Are You in Control?
Modernizing your supply chain is a worthy goal, and for pharmaceutical and life science companies, a big part of modernization is to outsource manufacturing and other business functions to various trading partners across [...]
“You’re going to be audited”: Automating Your Compliance Audit
Hearing the unwelcome words, “You’re going to be audited,” always sends folks into a frenzy and a flurry of activity. Customs organizations all around the globe have become more and more explicit about their [...]
Good Governance Starts at Home
If your company engages in global trade, you know that you have no choice but to screen every party to an export transaction. Government agencies require you to “know your customer”— as well [...]
The International Language of Trade Gets an Update: Harmonized System Revisions Published
Change is good but often challenging. This is especially true when massive changes occur to regulatory data that affect international commerce. Yet a mammoth change in regulatory guidance occurs every five years that [...]