The past year was a good one for the third-party logistics industry, according to the14th annual 3PL Study. Shanton Wilcox, principal at Capgemini Consulting, a co-sponsor of the study, highlights year-over-year changes and responses to "deep dive" questions.
As businesses increasingly become more mobile, integrating different devices, applications and data into a single, seamless network is a significant challenge. In this Power Lunch roundtable, conducted at the annual user conference sponsored by Barcoding Inc., three experts discuss the keys to a successful integration project and identify common mistakes to avoid. They are: Martin Jack, chief technology officer at Barcoding Inc.; Kerry Kulp, network systems consultant at Cumulus Consulting Group; and Kelly Harris, director of program management at Barcoding Inc.
The conversation is facilitated by SupplyChainBrain Editor Emeritus Jean Murphy.
Andrew Roszko, senior vice president of sales at Descartes, explains how three interrelated trends - big data, direct-to-store shipping and omnichannels - are transforming retail.
With RFID, return on investment derives from automated, accurate, real-time inventory tracking, says McLeod Williamson, RFID business development manager at Zebra Technologies. He provides an update on RFID applications in retail supply chains and describes how other industries are starting to leverage the technology.
In a survey of supply chain executives across industries, Motorola Solutions found that more than a third are planning to either expand existing warehouses or add new warehouses to their networks. Mark Wheeler, director of industry solutions, discusses technological and consumer issues driving this and other trends.
Use of RFID tags at the item level is upstaging case and pallet tagging among many retailers, says Tom O'Boyle, director of RFID at Barcoding Inc. O'Boyle explains the benefits derived from item-level tagging and looks at other innovative applications for RFID, including hybrid systems that mix active and passive tags.
Having completed 16 acquisitions of small logistics companies in the past seven years, Echo Global Logistics knows something about successful takeover strategies. CEO Doug Waggoner talks about the company's growth-through-acquisition initiatives.
Third-party logistics will not become a commoditized service as long as providers continue to add value and differentiate their product offerings, says Greg Spudic, vice president of marketing and sales at Dimerco Express.
Small to medium-sized shippers have a low adoption rate for transportation management systems because traditional systems cost too much and are not geared to the specific needs of smaller businesses, says J.P. Wiggins, vice president of logistics at 3Gtms.
A host of marketplace trends are driving logistics companies to offer more value-added services and to physically locate closer to customers in order to support continued growth, says John Ferguson, CEO of SCI Logistics, a major logistics provider in Canada.