The wholesale distribution (WSD) market is huge. At $4.8tr in annual revenues, WSD industry revenues are nearly 100 percent more than sales of consumer packaged goods, and slightly greater than U.S. retail sales revenues.

In just a few short years, the wholesale industry has witnessed the start of a shift from the classic, "siloed" ERP solutions of the past to modern, "integrated" ERP solutions.

No two companies are alike, and their ERP systems shouldn't be either. Manufacturing and distribution, in particular, have unique, and uniquely complex, processes and workflows that require functionality a vanilla ERP application can't provide.

While this past winter was fairly mild compared to the winter of 2015 - which began with New York officials shutting down a 132-mile stretch of the New York Thruway due to freezing and snow falling as fast as six inches an hour - supply chain managers still need to be prepared to handle extreme weather.

The transportation and warehousing industry suffered more than 95,000 industrial accidents and illnesses in 2014, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor. That works out to 225 per 10,000 workers - one of the highest rates of any industry. Most estimates put the annual cost of workplace injuries at more than $50bn, so it makes sense from a business as well as a moral point of view to make safety a priority. The following are some proven ways to increase safety.