IBM faced greater risk of supply disruption as sourcing activities stretched further and became more complex. No single tool gave the company the comprehensive analysis and protection it wanted, so it developed its own.

The company's ERP system wasn't able to support a mobile operation that could lead to greater picking accuracy in the warehouse. Here's how it solved the problem, without busting the bank on a full-blown WMS application.

For this year's Supply Chain Innovation Award, first place goes to Ahold USA and its partners - ES3 and Del Monte Foods - for a distribution system that streamlines order-to-store deliveries from days to hours.

After voice-directed picking replaced its paper-based system, a retailer in western Canada found that it was no longer shorting deliveries to its stores.