October 17, 2017 I have been attending APICS 2017 in San Antonio, and there is LOT of talk about the digital transformation of the end-to-end supply chain. I listened to executives from J&J, Cisco, Microsoft, Whole Foods, Caterpillar, and innovative high-tech, rapidly growing companies, and the consensus is to [...]
October 10, 2017 Thanks to my client Dan Vest, I read a fascinating article about Sears and Amazon. Who knew Sears and Amazon had so much in common? Pretty startling! The Reader's Digest version is as follows: Sears was the former Amazon just about 100 years ago, growing 50-fold [...]
Dyson just announced it will build a radically different electric car by 2020. What is particularly interesting is that Dyson is not who you'd expect to get into electric cars. They are spending far more (one billion pounds) to develop the car than they are on the rest of [...]
August 24, 2017 Recently, I went on a tour of Skechers with my ProVisors group. We had heard so much about the building and related innovations from the developer, Iddo Benzeevi, previously that we were really excited to see it in action. There are truly jaw dropping savings - [...]
Wisconsin granted $3 billion in tax incentives to Foxconn to entice them to manufacture in the state of Wisconsin. This is not only the highest government subsidy ever for a foreign company to locate to the U.S. but it also entices production that goes into the ever-popular Apple iPhone. [...]
IBM has said it plans to spend $240 million over the next 10 years to develop an artificial intelligence research lab with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Anytime these two powerhouses collaborate and put their money where their mouth is, we should at least pay attention and consider the [...]
August 31, 2017 Hurricane Harvey has been wreaking havoc on Texas and is now threatening Louisiana and more. Flooding is tremendous. People are still trapped in their houses. Refineries are shut down. And more. Unfortunately, this is the devastation caused by a hurricane although it reminds us about natural [...]
August 16, 2017 Talking about “Women in Supply Chain” at the Western District Conference for APICSWhether a man or woman, if you are in the end-to-end supply chain, you should be thinking about women in supply chain. There is a serious skills gap in the next several years in [...]
Time is ticking – do you know your OTIF score? One of my clients forwarded this Business Insider article about Walmart’s supply chain metrics. Walmart is not only requiring an increase in OTIF (on-time-in-full) delivery performance but it also will charge penalties for suppliers that don’t live up to [...]
August 7, 2017 One of my clients forwarded this article about Walmart's supply chain. Walmart is not only requiring an increase in OTIF (on-time-in-full) delivery performance but it also will charge penalties for suppliers that don't live up to the metric! Creating an efficient supply chain is critical for [...]
