The U.S. Surface Transportation Board has proposed a rule allowing shippers to switch cargo among large railroads if there's reasonable access to competing tracks.
Big data has the potential to be both friend and foe. The Boston Consulting Group conservatively estimates that trusted uses of big data and advanced analytics could unlock more than $1tr in value annually. However, recent BCG consumer research has uncovered a previously hidden obstacle to successfully unleashing this enormous opportunity: data misuse.
Manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers alike are being challenged with diverse, continually changing channel fulfillment demands. Across industries, success (and even survival) depends on the ability to serve customers profitably in the way they expect to be served.
It has often been said that China will grow old before it becomes rich. But could it have too many offices, restaurants, and hotels before it becomes wealthy?
There isn't a single person in the plastics industry who hasn't been regularly bombarded with concerns from all sides about the environmental costs of plastic production and use. But a new study takes some of the sting out, finding the environmental cost of using plastics in consumer goods and packaging is nearly four times less than replacing plastics with alternative materials.
Chemicals contribute to a significant portion of all American exports. According to the American Chemistry Council, the chemicals industry accounts for 12 percent of exports at a value of about $189 billion.
Pirate attacks on shipping in the first half of 2016 are at the lowest level since 1995, even taking the recent spate of kidnappings in the Gulf of Guinea and the Sulu Sea into account, says the IMB Piracy Reporting Centre.