Do You Outsource Your Mobile Solutions Needs, or Do You Build a System In-House?
So, you've decided to go wireless. After doing the research and looking at others' successes, you're confident that arming your field workers with the right mobile solutions beyond e-mail can increase their productivity and reduce your operational costs. With the compelling economics of such a move, you expect a measured improvement in your company's top and bottom line. But how do you make it happen? What is the best way to go mobile beyond e-mail? Both outsourcing this process and building a customized in-house solution offer advantages and disadvantages. It's important to consider a number of issues to help you make the right choice for your organization in the short and long term.
Source: CIO, http://www.cio.com/

Azerbaijan Wants to Reclaim Its Place as Important Cargo Hub Between East and West
As logistics interchanges go, the former Soviet state of Azerbaijan has some impressive credentials. A mere 2,000 years ago it sat at the crossroads of the Great Silk Road—not a single route, but myriad interconnecting trails that formed the main trading link between China and Europe.
Today, of Azerbaijan sits well outside the planning for global trading routes but the independent state is looking to reclaim some of its history. This time it wants to foster the role of a regional air cargo interchange, with Baku International Airport the focal point of its ambitions. On a path taking in the growing trade between Europe and Asia, the site also can provide vital access to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Source: Air Cargo World, http://www.aircargoworld.com/

Manufacturers Keep Market for Continuous Improvement Systems Growing
ARC has conducted surveys among manufacturers on their continuous improvement systems preferences and practices. The results show that 80 percent of manufacturers are applying one or more CI methodologies. The CI programs used most often by manufacturers are Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma, Total Quality Management, and Theory of Constraints. Manufacturers are looking to CI systems to improve operational performance in the areas of labor utilization, inventory levels, quality, asset utilization, and cost of goods sold.
The market for continuous improvement systems was $211.5m in 2005. It is forecasted to grow to $402.8m by the end of 2010 with a strong compounded annual growth rate of 12.7 percent.
Source: ARC Advisory Group, http://arcweb.com/

Say, This Is Really Strategic! Uh, Hello? Wake Up, Wake Up!
The word strategic is used so freely these days that it's at risk of losing all meaning. People attach the S-word to their pet project hoping it will help gain others' approval. With such overuse, the word has come to mean little more than “nice”—a bland superlative. He's a nice guy. This project is strategic. Yawn. This is a serious problem, because it's imperative that IT and business leaders know what truly is strategic in order to focus scarce resources on really important, high-payoff initiatives.
Source: CIO, http://www.cio.com/

What Are Companies Doing—Right Now—About Service-Oriented Architecture?
The service-oriented architecture (SOA) approach to software development will affect both buyers of technology and the producers of commercial business application software packages. While the entire IT industry seems to agree that SOA will mean greater agility and flexibility to business change, as well as a lower cost to deliver it, SOA will still fundamentally change the way companies need to develop, deploy, and manage that software. So what are companies doing now?
Source: AMR Research, http://amrresearch.com/

Apparel Maker Says Producing in Florida No More Costly than Overseas, and Control Is Greater
"The toughest part of embroidery and sewing is finding the work force. That's why so many companies turn to inexpensive labor overseas," says Tim Mossberg, who owns TLM Industries of Fort Walton Beach, Fla.
In Atlanta, Mossberg had trouble finding a skilled textile workforce and keeping good employees once he found them. In contrast, Fort Walton Beach had once been a base of operations for large clothing manufacturers. When these companies moved their manufacturing overseas, they left behind a trained, skilled and available employee base.
Mossberg transferred TLM's operations down to Fort Walton Beach, moved into a factory, and hired 20 or so workers at his factory and another couple dozen who work for a domestic contractor. Mossberg explains that manufacturing locally is simply the best way for him to do business.
Like many U.S. manufacturers, TLM has experimented with outsourcing. In the mid-1990s, TLM bought finished goods for its clients in factories from Japan to Guatemala, but problems soon arose. "We started having delivery issues," says Mossberg. "We had problems getting the sizing and the colors correct. As a result of these quality control issues, our prices started increasing rather than decreasing as it should for an imported product."
Making the garments locally gave Mossberg more flexibility and control over the end-product. And on average, the company introduces one new style per year.
With its own production facility and nearby contractors who can be called on when demand spikes, TLM can go from sold out to fully restocked in four weeks, though typical restocking times average two weeks since the company's running order of raw goods usually prevents product shortages. By eliminating the costs of transporting, storing, loading and unloading, Mossberg says TLM can offer its clients a uniform that costs the same price they would pay for a competitor's imported product.
Source: Industry Week, http://industryweek.com/

It's Beneficial to Know Just What Your Supplier Think of Your Supply Management Abilities
In supply management, we measure slightly different items: our teams' accomplishments, our suppliers' performance, our company's use of our services, the effectiveness of our technology and so on. While we are busy conducting measurements and evaluating results, we should be aware that we are also being measured—by our suppliers.
Proactive supply management teams realize they are also under the measurement microscope. As such, they want to know how they are faring according to their suppliers. In an ideal business world, your suppliers would initiate an assessment of your relationship. However, few companies report their suppliers initiating this endeavor. Therefore, it is incumbent upon supply management organizations to take matters into their own hands by conducting their own survey of their supply base.
Source: Inside Supply Management, http://www.ism.ws/

Lean Initiatives Paying Off, and Fairly Quickly, Study Finds
Manufacturers pursuing lean are already well on their way to achieving competitive differentiation by satisfying customers and driving operational improvements. AberdeenGroup's new "Roadmap to Lean Success: Measurement and Control" study characterizes some of the lean efforts already under way:
• 92 percent of best-in-class companies are pursuing lean for operational excellence
• 69 percent of best-in-class are looking to improve profitability
• 39 percent of companies have improved schedule attainment by over 40 percent
• 29 percent have boosted first-time quality results by 40 percent or more
• 14 percent enjoy at least a 6 percent uptick in bottom-line profitability
Given the successes achieved by companies overall, it's not surprising that best-in-class performers are gravitating to lean for operational performance improvements and bottom-line results, and have the highest expectations for their lean initiatives. Of those best-in-class companies that have started lean initiatives, 100 percent expect to recoup their investment within one year; 59 percent are even more ambitious, setting their sights on breaking even within six months.
Source: Managing Automation, http://www.managingautomation.com/

You Must Put Intelligence in 'Sense' and Fast Action in 'Response'
“In the supply chain, you need to sense and know what's going on inside the company as well as what's going on outside the company, downstream and upstream,” says Hau Lee, professor of operations, information and technology at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business. “You need to have much better information inside out. When you figure out what's going on, you will be able to create a plan of action and be able to execute it. The common mistakes company make is just gathering information and having overloaded information. They try to capture signals. But when you are overwhelmed with thousands of signals, what would you do with it? You have to have a way to understand what are the reasons that caused the signals, try to create intelligence out of information. When you respond, you have to respond fast. It doesn't do you any good if you could respond, but miss the time window. The selling season is short and competitors are doing something during the same time. If you are not able to respond fast, the opportunity is gone forever. So I think you have to put intelligence in the sense and put fast action in the response part.
Source: MoreRFID, http://www.morerfid.com/


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