Analyst Insight: Ever wonder why a majority of inventory optimization projects struggle to completely realize potential benefits? Most companies focus solely on inventory strategy, without taking a comprehensive, holistic approach. Taking the holistic approach introduces two additional levers to inventory optimization - business alignment and execution excellence - which, coupled with inventory strategy, enable supply chains to achieve strategic and targeted performance improvement goals. We call these the three rings of inventory optimization. - Rodrigo Cambiaghi, Principal; Claudio Menegusso, Senior Manager; Mark Johnson, Manager; and Saurabh Jha, Senior, all in the Advisory Services of Ernst & Young LLP

Long tails can get, well, rather long. Some see this as a mandate to hunt down and kill off the items furthest out on the tail.

For 130 years, Chicago and New York City have been locked in a battle of the skyscrapers. Nine of the tallest buildings in the U.S., as well as more than one-half of the nation's towers greater than 785 feet, were built in just those two cities.

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.

Inventory information sharing is time-consuming and often results in visibility levels between "average" and "none," according to a report from Gatepoint Research.

Redbox has an unusual supply chain, with 10 new product introductions a week and no replenishments. An algorithm effectively allocates new DVD's among 43,000 kiosks, but this allocation is quickly skewed when customers use different kiosks to rent and return. Matt James, vice president, explains how the company solves this problem.

Like C-3PO and R2-D2, some robot pairs are a match made in mechanized heaven. Now, a new team, Fetch and Freight, can eliminate much of the efficiency-botching human labor from warehouses, getting that Amazon shipment to your door faster than ever.

Unleashed Software, a developer of inventory-management applications delivered through a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model, has integrated with Intuit's QuickBooks Online business and financial-management software.