When Esquire Express got into the same-day delivery market 25 years ago, it primarily moved documents for law firms, says President Steve Howard. The internet killed that business, but it also created a new market in same-day delivery of tangible goods. Esquire has thrived by partnering with 3PLs and their retail clients to deliver the same day.
Consumers' demand for ever faster service and the overall rapid pace of change in today’s markets will force companies to completely rethink their supply chains over the next few years, says Thomas Craig, president of LTD Management.
With today's fast-paced supply chain and rising consumer demand, it has become a best practice for warehouses to prepare and stage orders prior to the truck's arrival, typically up to 24 hours in advance. While this practice may seem like an effective method of fulfilling orders in a timely and accurate manner, it doesn't take into consideration the possibility that the truck is late, or worse, doesn’t show up at all.
Warehouse personnel are adopting order fulfillment technologies, re-organization techniques, and picking optimization methods to create efficient operations to answer the growing demands of customers.
As warehouse workers get older and heavier it becomes harder for them to meet the physical demands of their job. Dr. Volker Schmitz, president of Schmalz Inc., a material-handling equipment manufacturer, explains how low-cost lift-assist equipment can alleviate this problem, while improving productivity.
Steve Geary, president of Supply Chain Visions, shares stories of "extreme" supply chains in Afghanistan – and tells how those strategies and lessons can be applied in the U.S.
Evan Danner, president of TZA, explains why it's essential for companies today to employ sophisticated labor-planning and optimization systems on the plant floor and in the warehouse.
Presidents Tommy Barnes and Joel Clum of Con-way Multimodal and Carrier Direct, corporate partners with the University of Tennessee and Georgia Southern in this year's Study of Trends and Issues in Transportation and Logistics, discuss new transportation tenets distilled from survey responses.
