Every supply chain manager knows that moving freight globally is a high-risk business. In a world beset by severe weather events, worsening natural disasters and pervasive terrorist threats - on top of the usual traffic tie-ups, rail derailments and port slowdowns - disruptions are a fact of life.

The North American robotics market is off to its fastest start ever in 2015, according to statistics released from Robotic Industries Association (RIA), the industry's trade group.

Oh, sure, go on and do it by yourself. Just try to run the company without any help. Treat suppliers like you don't need them. Go on! If there's a recipe for disaster, that's probably it: acting like you don't need anybody else's cooperation, input or ideas. The reality is quite a bit different though, isn't it? No company, no supply chain, exists in a vacuum. We do rely on each other, because no one of us can do it all, successfully, by ourselves. We need partners. Ah, but which partners – which ones are right for you?

Retailers require a comprehensive mobile strategy if they are to effectively engage shoppers and enhance the customer experience, a survey of nearly 7,000 Synchrony Bank cardholders and shoppers in March and April reveals.

European aerospace service provider Spectech has been offering radio frequency identification functionality as part of its parts-management solution to European companies for the past nine years. This summer, the company is opening a new office in Seattle to better access new North American customers.

Although the day is young and the hype is heavy, American consumers are not very enthusiastic about using digital wallets. High-powered marketers like Apple, Samsung, PayPal and Google are offering their own versions - and with the support of many banks - but only 2 percent of Americans actually use digital wallets.

Trenton, New Jersey, isn't the industrial powerhouse it once was, even if the slogan "Trenton Makes, the World Takes," first installed in 1935, still stands in 10-foot-tall letters across a bridge that spans the Delaware River to Pennsylvania. But a few minutes east of town, inside a warehouse belonging to Amazon, there are signs of another industrial transformation.