All Columns Entries

Sunday, April 01, 2012

As is tradition, the cover of the April issue of Logistics Management (LM) is devoted to the findings of our Annual Salary Survey, a research project that not only fuels our best-read editorial feature of the year, but offers us the foundation for the most highly-anticipated webcast that our editorial team produces.

Recently our church choir director retired and a search was immediately undertaken for an interim as well as a full-time replacement. Within a few days, our outgoing director and pastor selected an interim director while a group comprised of choir members and parishioners were sent off to find the full-time replacement—all was well, or so it appeared.

After more than 35 years in the industry, I thought I had seen it all. However, I spent a few days last month with some University of Tennessee (UT) colleagues as well as industry and government leaders discussing the evolution of strategic sourcing and collaborative contracting.

In this first installment of a two-part series, I will look at a variety of risk-focused research efforts. In May, I will offer suggestions for managing supply chain risk—not just responding more effectively but preparing more completely.

Thursday, March 29, 2012

For logistics managers, it’s important to understand what surplus oil production capacity means to oil and fuel prices—and, therefore, your bottom line.

Thursday, March 01, 2012

Our March issue includes coverage of a number of recent collaborative efforts geared toward driving the industry forward through the power of a more unified voice.

I often run home from a store, write down the events of an interaction that I had, and then lose the note. However, in a recent case, the unsolved problem had a built-in, daily reminder. Almost every night my Droid smart phone automatically turned itself back on after I powered it off—if I could only be so lucky with the other notes I lose.

I want to draw your attention to developments in Washington that threaten to overwhelm shippers with new liabilities that carriers have traditionally controlled.

In Logistics Management’s April 2010 issue, we introduced Profit, Sales, and Operations Planning (PS&OP), a way to align supply chain decision-making with high-level financial goals and long-range strategic planning. Since that time, more companies have begun implementing PS&OP-like approaches—using financial data, scenario modeling, and analytics to concurrently optimize sales, balance demand and supply, and maximize profits.

Refinery closures and sulfur regulations threaten to push diesel prices over $5 this year.