Additive manufacturing is, of course, one of the major areas that will usher the industry into its next chapter of production, efficiency and, yes, public perception.
Full supply chain visibility has risen from companies' sixth most important strategic priority in 2015 to third in 2017, according to a recent GEODIS global supply chain survey. Still, just 6 percent of firms said they had achieved this aim.
Both General Motors and Nissan have made cost-cutting a priority - but with very different results, according to this year's Supplier Working Relations Index study.
Companies like Ikea and Apple have been investing in their supply chains in order to avoid unknown and potentially environmentally damaging activities from their suppliers by purchasing forest, building wind farms, and taking over plastics recycling plants. Ikea has purchased forest in Romania and the Baltics, while Apple has invested in forest in the US, writes The Guardian.
The recently released Geodis 2017 Supply Chain Worldwide Survey (SCWS) underscored the evolution of supply chains - from the simple delivery of products to "a crucial lever for business performance." Trends such as e-commerce require more specialization than ever, which, in turn, drives complexity, Geodis says.
"Without big data analytics, companies are blind and deaf, wandering out onto the web like deer on a freeway," wrote Geoffrey Moore, author of Crossing the Chasm. Certainly, many CFOs, and not just those with web-based businesses, would wholeheartedly agree: Data are the sensory information produced by a business that has its eyes and ears on operations and customers.
Do companies recognize the importance of supply chain more today than they did 10 years ago? Have they become more sophisticated in their supply chain thinking over that period? The Supply Chain Management Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Lubar School of Business set out to answer those questions.
