All Features Entries

Saturday, September 01, 2012

Our “Pricing” columnist contends that it’s time for shippers and their 3PL partners to fundamentally change their approach to contract creation in an effort to yield more sustainable relationships.

The merging of leading Asian economies is proceeding quickly, giving U.S. shippers more trade alternatives. Here’s our current analysis of this dynamic region.

In the midst of tremendous growth, one of the leading distributors of natural and organic products successfully reinvented its supply chain by leveraging a new voice-enabled WMS.

The 2012 ranking of supply chain leaders from Gartner includes a broad mix of global companies—a few new to the list, but most having recorded multiple appearances. These leaders share certain characteristics that drive day-to-day performance while solidifying the foundation for future growth. Their standout performance is raising the supply chain leadership bar for companies everywhere.

Thursday, August 02, 2012

Which carriers, third-party logistics providers, and U.S. ports will walk away with a gold medal for their outstanding service performance over the past year? Our readers have cast their votes, and now it’s time to reveal this year’s winners of the coveted Quest for Quality Awards. The editorial staff of Logistics Management (LM) is proud to unveil the results of the 29th Annual Quest for Quality Awards.

Wednesday, August 01, 2012

The editorial staff of Logistics Management (LM) is proud to unveil the results of the 29th Annual Quest for Quality Awards. This year, 127 providers of transportation and logistics services have received the ultimate vote of confidence, posting the highest scores across our lists of critical service criteria.

While the recession left the national less-than-truck (LTL) carriers reeling, we’re happy to report that this sector is more “in balance” than in past years, with capacity now aligning with demand. For the first time in at least five years, the sector is showing positive operating margins—albeit scant—while rates have started to clearly reflect that equilibrium.

Being nimble, quick, and responsive to constantly changing customer demands has kept many of the nation’s top regional LTL’s alive over the past four years. But this year’s story revolves around the improved scores cross the entire regional category, signaling that this year’s Quest for Quality winners have come out of the Great Recession with a full head of steam.

Well, you wouldn’t know it by the scores, but the 30 winners represented in these five market sectors have just gone through a few of the toughest operational years of their existence. In fact, the number of winners in the category along with the overall scores have ticked up, marking an overall service improvement in this category according to LM readers.

Not even the great recession could slow down progress on the nation’s rails. In fact, over the past four years, rail and intermodal service provider Quest for Quality scores have steadily improved as more shippers put this time-tested mode to work to cut costs and mitigate capacity issues on the road.