President Obama and his Republican challengers are ramping up their rhetoric about creating more manufacturing jobs in the United States. The question is, will employees be ready for manufacturing?
Diversity is one of the hottest buzz words in the supply chain world today. But, are supplier diversity programs a fad or a truly integral part of companies' supplier management strategies?
Two years ago, the director of sustainability at a $1bn consumer-products company suggested the corporate budget committee add a new criterion in deciding which capital projects to approve: the project's environmental impact. The director devised a metric for measuring the impact in categories such as water usage, waste reduction, packaging and carbon emissions. The idea saved $20m the first year.
One night last January, Mark Shields was home in his kitchen making hummus, listening to This American Life, WBEZ's popular syndicated radio show. He was streaming the podcast on his Mac laptop via Apple's AirPort technology, which turned out to be an appropriate platform for listening to the episode, given that the subject was Apple itself.
Improved U.S. competitiveness and rising costs in China will put the United States in a strong position by around 2015 to eventually add 2 million to 3 million jobs and an estimated $100bn in annual output in a range of industries, according to a new report by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
Analyst Insight: The Warehousing Education and Research Council's latest benchmarking study shows that the performance gap between best-in-class and "Major Opportunity" warehouses remains large. In order to close the performance gap, Major Opportunity warehouses need to understand how to find their process weeds and pull them up by the roots. By aligning shop floor metrics to corporate strategy, companies link accountability to where the work gets done and will begin to close the gap. - Joe Tillman, senior researcher, Supply Chain Visions
Analyst's Insight: Every day in the trade press and across our laptops, we read about infrastructure weaknesses, transportation shortages, closing businesses, unemployment rates and all the other ills associated with the dreaded "R" word - recession. We know from our members how challenging these past few years have been, and we support and admire the collaboration and focus on best practices that are clearly evident and becoming more and more important in logistics. - Michael Mikitka, CEO, Warehousing Education and Research Council