In January 2015, Forbes magazine had an article about Zappo using a Uber-like software to schedule their customer service reps. Like Uber, which changes a premium for peak ride periods, Zappo will pay its customer service reps higher wages in … Read More
The business social media world is much abuzz about the failure of Target Canada. Without any actual data, it is hard to get a handle on the cause of the failure, though empty shelves as a supply chain is often … Read More
In the 4th Quarter issue of Supply Chain Quarterly is an article entitled “Off Hours Delivery Project in the Big Apple” by Jose Holguin-Veras, Jeffery Wojtowicz and Stacey Hodges. It tells of the success of the evening and night delivery … Read More
2014, My Predictions and How They turned out, 2015 to follow this section Before I attempt to look ahead, let’s see how cloudy my crystal ball was back in December 2013. Here is what I predicted and what I missed. … Read More
In a Supply Chain Digest video conference, MIT’s Chris Caplice, Executive Director for the Center of Transportation and Logistics at MIT, said something that was surprising. Studies show he noted that over a third of the time the winning bidder … Read More
For many years, I worked in the salt industry. A significant part of the business was selling salt for the purpose of deicing winter streets and sidewalks. Every year about this (September or October), people would say in my presence … Read More
What is the ultimate supply chain risk? Imagine a natural disaster destroying your business facilities and/ or the community around it, preventing your employers for working. Obviously this risk involves more just the organization’s supply chain. But should it occur, … Read More
On Monday evening, I heard Scott Case of Position:Global speak to the Chicago area Logistics, Operations and Supply Chain Group (LOSC) about how social media can used to promote and market 3PL firms. It causes me to think about communicating … Read More
For mid-size and large organizations the supply chain and logistics process is engaged on two levels, the high level, international space station level, where grand strategies and processes are designed for the organization. Then there is the lower level over … Read More
There are going to be some significant domestic US ground parcel rate increases coming around the first of the year 2015, when UPS and FedEx go to dimensional pricing. Lets take an example. Suppose today you ship 5 pounds from … Read More