Where would any of our industries be without the technology we have today? As technology use grows and develops, as do our industries, reaping the benefits of others' innovative ideas. As mobile phones took off, their use in the supply chain skyrocketed. Now, we have a second technological wave coming—the internet of things. While both technological waves enhance supply chain management, one is always a bit better than the other.    The Rise of Mobile Phones in Supply Chain Management  Mobile phones made a splash in supply chain management largely because of the apps they ..read more

Product Readiness for International Exports - Read on to find out more. Exporting product internationally can be highly rewarding and profitable.  However, entering new markets can also be challenging from a compliance and logistical perspective. Before we assess the challenges of getting your product ready for export, it is important to understand the opportunities and advantages of entering new markets: Improved financial performance: If you have product that sells in your domestic market, having a larger market base will allow you to increase sales volumes. As your sales grow, you c ..read more

Sustainability of an organization depends on three things: people, planet, and profit. Each factor needs to be regularly reviewed to determine if an organization is achieving sustainable actions. Focusing on the continuous improvement of sustainability's three factors will better position a business for long-term success. What Does a Sustainable Supply Chain Look Like? As mentioned above, people are a critical component of supply chain sustainability. Employees are the ones who promote change, seek it out, and practice it in everyday operations. Staff members are a huge asset to organization ..read more

A company's basic, high-level goal is to sell a product to consumers. In order to successfully sell that inventory, consumers need to find some kind of value in it. The more value an organization can create, the more profitable they can become. Therefore, it's critical to understand completely how your business creates value and where more value can be added to create a competitive strategy. A value chain is a set of processes and/or activities a business partakes in to create value for its consumers. How value chain activities are carried out determines cost and influences your profit level ..read more

How can you reduce your supply chain costs?  Read on to find out more. Supply Chain costs contribute significantly to your cost of goods sold. Whether you are managing them yourself, or have outsourced the management of your supply chain, it's a really good exercise to understand how it all works. Here's a roadmap you can follow to identify your supply chain and then reduce your costs. Step 1: Know Your Supply Chain Write down all of your inputs to creating your finished good. Ask your supplier where they get them from Physically draw a map on a whiteboard and identify the mode of tran ..read more

So what is a Shared Distribution Strategy, and how can it help my organization to overcome Supply Chain Challenges? “A Shared Distribution Strategy, and taking a collaborative approach to your Supply Chain, is an effective way to meet Supply Chain challenges head on.” Working as a small or medium sized enterprise can be very difficult when you have lower volume customers in sparsely populated areas. Your company needs to get orders to that customer but face challenges in ensuring the order is both timely and cost effective. These challenges are not easy to overcome and often companies must t ..read more

Increasing Trust with Your Customers – 8 Steps to a Reliable Consistent Operation Reliability is the quality of being trustworthy or of performing consistently well.  Shippers and Manufacturers demand and need consistent, reliable service from their service providers.  It’s a critical component of vendor hiring (and firing) as an unreliable service partner can cost their business partners thousands of dollars in fines, damages and losses.  Eventually, customers dealing with unreliable service partners will change – even if the other service partner has a higher rate but less d ..read more

In many supply chains, small costs can often go unnoticed either because the activity is perceived to have little impact or the impact is not tracked effectively. With supply chains being largely composed of many small repetitive tasks, steps that don’t add value can become very costly to an organization over time. With the vast array of variables involved in trucking distribution, precise planning can help avoid unexpected events which add increased costs to your organization. When planning routes, factors including traffic, delivery times and the sequence of stops must be considered to ful ..read more

Canada has two major west coast ports that are connected to the North American railway system.  The Port of Vancouver is one of the largest ports in North America with twenty-seven different terminals and move just about everything that can be imported and exported into and out of North America.  The Port of Prince Rupert has been around for a long time and is now emerging as a port that competes with the big ports including the Port of Vancouver and others on the US west coast. As Canada has traditionally been a large exporter of bulk products (grain, coal, fertilizer, potash, sulp ..read more

Improving your supply chain network and reducing your costs is a key target for every business and supply chain professional. But change is difficult and downright impossible when you are managing a dynamic, complex and ever changing world. From Acts of God, to weather, accidents, or other supply chain disruptions, managing your supply chain is as complicated as it gets. So how do you make cost reduction happen and manage core business activities at the same time? You use these 5 steps as part of your day to day management practice. Embedding a change system in your organization takes some t ..read more