Mike Jones, president of St. Onge Co., explains the value of total landed cost modeling, and how it's affecting decisions to offshore manufacturing activities.

Jeeves Information Systems AB, a developer of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems for small and medium-sized businesses, has established a new headquarters for its North American operations in Chicago.

Inchcape Shipping Services (ISS), a global provider of maritime services, has opened a new office in Dutch Harbor, AK.

When industrial or construction companies employ radio frequency identification on assets and equipment to manage safety or inventory, tag placement can be a challenging task. For example, tags must be welded, wired or screwed onto such items as lift equipment, storage tanks and steel baskets, in the hope that they will not be broken or removed in the rugged environment they inhabit. And although tags can be built into an asset, thereby protecting them from the outside environment, that increases manufacturing time and cost.

Challenge: This customer had decentralized its transportation sourcing, with each facility operating independently. Three of its largest business units relied on the highly fragmented flatbed marketplace to service customers. It was extremely difficult to maintain reliable capacity and predictable transportation costs, let alone identify logistics efficiencies and implement best practices.

In spite of several laws passed in the last decade, we have not begun to scratch the surface of addressing the cost of healthcare.

Challenge: An industry-leading provider of physical infrastructure solutions expanded operations to Canada. Integral to the company's success, is its developed network of "partners," that work together to align critical systems - power, communication, computing, security, and control - within a unified solution. The challenge was to replicate infrastructure for Canadian customers by ensuring a high fill rate efficiency and distribution capacity throughout Canada.

Challenge: A client was facing increasing labor costs, inventory inaccuracies, shipping errors and increased leads times. The client turned to Systems Logic to implement our warehouse management software to enhance and improve their existing business processes and assist them in meeting their challenging company goals.

Challenge: The strategy for a leading manufacturer of diesel and specialized trucks was to grow truck assembly operations in Mexico. To do so, it needed to integrate an already existing U.S. cross-dock network with cross-border activities and optimize shipments between the countries, while ensuring reliability and visibility throughout the supply chain.

Challenge: Our client made a bold promise to its customers. Order any of its 600,000 products from its vast super store of industrial supplies by 8:00 pm EST, and get next day delivery. But with more than 2 million square feet of warehouse space and the highest SKU count in the industry, keeping that promise was a challenge.