JDA Software Group Inc. has added functionality to JDA Order Promiser, software in support of retail supply chains.

Five public schools in Casamassima, a city in Italy's Apulia region, are using a radio frequency identification solution to identify children as they arrive, and to automate the ordering and payment of each child's lunch. Since the system was taken live in fall 2013, the technology has reduced the amount of labor for school personnel, ensured that food isn't wasted due to over-ordering and enabled parents to make lunch payments online.

In recent years there has been a slimming down, as it were, regarding freighters – a turning away from the jumbo 747s and 777s and toward the squat 737s and svelte 757s. The e-commerce revolution, especially in Asia, requires smaller freighters to make more frequent stops. But because there are no current programs to build narrowbody freighters from the factory, customers must rely on companies providing passenger-to-freighter conversions.

The past was a simpler time for distribution operations. Technology was relatively straightforward. The supply chain wasn't "always on." There was no such thing as omnichannel distribution. That's hardly the case now.

The CVS Health Corporation, the parent of the CVS drugstore chain, said on Tuesday that it would resign from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce after revelations that the chamber and its foreign affiliates were undertaking a global lobbying campaign against antismoking laws.

Eighty percent of CPG supply chain leaders say transportation is now their greatest worry, according to a report by The Boston Consulting Group and the Grocery Manufacturers Association, A Hard Road: Why CPG Companies Need a Strategic Approach to Transportation.

Working to make up for a sharp drop in the volume of First Class Mail, the U.S. Postal Service is ramping up its efforts to compete in the area of package deliveries. Dennis Nicoski, manager of field sales strategy and contracts, explains the agency's approach.

Move over, Black Friday. Here comes Prime Day. Amazon has created its own selling holiday.