Every fall, for 23 years, Dr. John Langley of Penn State, along with annual sponsors, has published what he has titled “Annual Third-Party Logistics Study”. It is a comprehensive report on the current relationships and the progress of logistics service providers and their customers. This year’s study was particularly interesting in that we are in […]
Last week, the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) the research arm of the American Trucking Associations (ATA), released its annual Top Industry Issues report. This report identifies the top ten critical issues facing the trucking industry in North America. The analysis also includes the major strategies for addressing each. This year’s report was based on […]
The current growing concerns about the U.S. trade environment are focused on two fronts. One is the (hopefully completed) renegotiation of NAFTA, and the other is what some believe could explode into a major trade war with China. As we have written before, President Trump campaigned against what he called “the worst trade deal ever…the […]
Our industry, like so many others, has long been blessed with a wretched excess of buzzwords and terms. We have spent so much time thinking out of the box about the paradigms of globalization in the new millennium that we have not had time to push the envelope in the development of our E-commerce business […]
Over the past few years, millions of words have been written about “big data” and how to manage it. It has often been considered as one of the major disruptions to supply change management. The fact of the matter is that big data is simply a new term for an old condition. Almost from the […]
On August 27, President Trump announced that the U.S. and Mexico had reached a “preliminary agreement in principal subject to finalization and implementation” on new trade provisions. While those words seem to be the mother of all hedging, at least they represent some progress. While it has been a part of the NAFTA negotiations, Canada […]
As the so-called millennials are becoming the predominant members of the workforce, they are coming face to face with those baby boomers (51-70) who are continuing to work. An increasing percentage of the workforce is by-passing the traditional retirement age of 65, and working well into their seventies and beyond. The result is a generational […]
Most in the industry are aware that most over the road trucks and buses are now required to be equipped with electronic logging devices (ELDs); but like many major changes in the industry, the journey to get there has been tortuous. Since 1938, bus and truck drivers have been required to keep logs of their […]
Unless he or she just returned from Mars, every supply chain manager has encountered, or certainly heard of the “Amazon Effect”. Driven by the aggressive customer techniques of Amazon, the term has come to stand for rapid and dependable service, often same day deliveries, free shipping, and instant visibility. To accomplish this, Amazon has established […]
As we wrote last month, negotiations for a new North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) are not going well. President Trump has criticized the agreement repeatedly and succeeded in antagonizing both Mexico and Canada through the U.S. negotiating team. In spite of overwhelming support among U.S. businesses, we have delayed negotiations long enough that any […]