Given the advent of the Internet of Things, personalization and an overall need to reduce distribution risk, procurement officers aren't necessarily crossing off reshoring as an option.

Movement across borders is as simple as getting in a car or on a plane. It's a seamless, simple experience to which most people devote little thought. For both merchants and consumers, however, the path to online and offline purchasing across borders is still a bumpy one.

Picking in a frozen environment with heavy gloves, paper and pencil impaired the productivity and accuracy of operations at Perry's Ice Cream in Akron, N.Y. A voice-picking system from Vocollect enabled Perry's to solve these problems and gain other benefits.

Replenish Bottling LLC has launched a sustainable product line that has the potential to change how many water-based consumer products are designed, manufactured and sold. The packaging technology can be found in a new line of concentrate household cleaning and personal care items sold under the CleanPath brand.

Shrink, comprised of shoplifting, employee or supplier fraud and administrative errors, cost the global retail industry more than $128bn last year, $42bn in the US alone, according to the latest Global Retail Theft Barometer. This represents 1.29 percent of retail sales, on average.

The European Commission has called for research projects that investigate re-use and remanufacturing, in a bid to develop the "factories of the future".