Following 45 days of negotiations, the European Council approved a watered-down version of the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive. The EU CSDDD has had a difficult journey, facing delays, changes, and hurdles to overcome. Nonetheless, the direction of travel of European governments is clear: companies need to do more to identify their exposure to unethical practices, human rights abuses, and significant adverse environmental issues, across their value chain. The German Supply Chain Act is currently setting the benchmark in Europe, but in the United States, the Uighur Forced Labo ..read more

Michael Jacobs, Senior Vice President of Supply Chain at Ferguson PLC In 2022, I wrote an article called The Best Supply Chain Company You Have Never Heard Of. The article was about Ferguson PLC, a value-added distributor of plumbing and heating products. Ferguson has an extensive and complex supply chain. When I had an opportunity to catch up with Michael Jacobs, the senior vice president of supply chain at Ferguson, I leapt at the chance. Ferguson provides plumbing and heating products to 9 specialist customer groups – over a million customers – in the US and Canada. They sell over a million ..read more

When it come to smuggling, drug dealers are taking things to a while new level. Colombian drug smugglers are disguising cocaine as “fake coal” within major bulk consignments to try to dupe port surveillance operations, according to a new report. Anti-narcotics investigators have uncovered substantial amounts of the disguised drugs in the past two years as smugglers go to ever-more elaborate lengths to get illicit cargoes on board ships. The authorities need to carry out special chemical tests to prove they are illegal drugs, according to the report by protection and indemnity club West’s corr ..read more

Managing yard and warehouse operations has long been one of the thornier aspects of transportation logistics. A recent conversation with a major distributor of consumer beverages encapsulated many of the most common issues. Yards are a choke point between transportation and warehousing — and wherever you have choke points, you have a higher risk of inefficiencies that drive up labor costs, detention fees and delivery commitments. Missed appointments, dock scheduling mix-ups, crowded yards with insufficient parking, dropped trailers — all have cascading effects up and down the supply chain. Th ..read more

I am coming to you from the sunny confines of San Diego, CA where I am attending the 2024 Körber Elevate conference. This is my first time attending Körber Elevate, and it did not disappoint, with over 800 attendees, 60 thought provoking sessions, and lots of networking and learning opportunities. The theme this year was “Chart Your Course” which Richard Stewart, EVP Americas at Körber Supply Chain pointed out, is all about overcoming supply chain complexities and challenges. And while the industry faced a lot of complexities and challenges in 2023, we continue to face more every day. Sean El ..read more

Mike Carroll, a vice president at Georgia-Pacific, and Ron Norris, director of innovation at GP While Generative AI has sparked great excitement, a form of artificial intelligence called Causal AI might offer much greater potential. Causal AI offers the tantalizing promise of being able to unravel the intricate web of cause-and-effect relationships that govern business operations. Georgia-Pacific (GP) has demonstrated an application of Causal AI to dramatically improve touchless commerce. Georgia-Pacific and its subsidiaries manufacture and distribute a wide range of consumer products, includi ..read more

After months of anticipation, the day is finally here. On February 4 at the 2024 Grammy Awards, Taylor Swift announced that she would be releasing a new album, which had secretly been in the works for two years. The album, The Tortured Poets Department, was released overnight. But in a shocking twist, just two hours later, Swift surprise-released a 15-track expansion of the album, dubbed The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology. The album features collaborations with Post Malone and Florence & the Machine, with a video for the debut single Fortnight set to drop tonight. I’ve listened ..read more

Over the past decade, the main battleground for China’s WMS market has been in the consumption industry; but more recently the battleground has returned to the manufacturing industry. Overseas suppliers have always ruled the top end of the market in this segment. However, local Chinese vendors have been growing rapidly over the past few years and have the potential to compete with overseas suppliers. In terms of the competitive landscape, China’s WMS market has many competitors but very little concentration. In other words, there are opportunities for every company. According to the character ..read more

CF Industries’ Donaldsonville Ammonia Production Facility Has Invested in Carbon Capture Myron Ebell, who headed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) transition team for Trump’s first term, says that should Donald Trump and the Republicans defeat President Biden in November’s election, they will seek to dismantle climate legislation. A core target will be the Inflation Reduction Act, the legislation filled with support for clean energy projects and electric vehicles. If you read news coverage and the statements of both prominent Republicans and Democrats, this is a common point of view. A ..read more

The Masters: a tradition unlike any other. And a golfer unlike any other is looking to make history this weekend at the annual golf tournament played at Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia: Tiger Woods. Actually, Woods is looking at 2 records this weekend, one of which is more attainable than the other. Woods has made 23 consecutive cuts at the Masters, tied with Fred Couples and Gary Player for the longest streak of all-time. The Masters has a notoriously unforgiving cut, allowing only the top-50 players from the first two days to advance into the weekend, where most PGA events ma ..read more