Supply chain news

It’s that time of year, again.  Those of us working in supply chain have gone through the holiday season planning process many, many times, but it never hurts to stop and think about how we prepare for what is often the biggest seasonal impact to our business’ bottom line.  The big question for the whole […]

Warehouses are of enormous importance to supply chains, providing service and economic benefits to businesses and customers. In Part 1 of this series, we discussed how the drive towards higher supply chain efficiency has motivated companies to adopt robotic technologies to perform fulfilment tasks in their warehouses. We have also seen how the emergence of […]

For many companies, particularly at early stages of growth, deciding how to manage ecommerce fulfilment can be a major strategic decision. Is it better to maintain in house – keeping control over that vital customer experience – or to outsource to a provider with established infrastructure and expertise, that can manage ecommerce fulfilment professionally and […]

The UK published a draft of its future Border Target Operating Model (BTOM) in April and since then has engaged in a series of consultations with industry.   The final document is expected in the coming weeks, but importers into the UK, particularly of products of animal or plant origin, need to start preparations for these […]

Businesses today are challenged to maintain pace with economic and market conditions and ever-changing customer behaviour. In response, warehouse technologies have become more complex, while warehouse managers continue to promote robotic adoption and innovation to improve labour productivity, delivery times, employee safety, and supply chain resiliency. Fundamentally, the purpose of warehouse robots is to automate […]

On 28th June, Lorcan Sheehan and Jamie Kowalski hosted call with health systems supply chain leaders to review and discuss the findings of the latest Health Systems Supply Chain Insights report.  It is always great to get live input on the information that we share and look at ways to make the data actionable for […]

Supply chains can be simple – source raw materials; manufacture excellent products; ship the products to customers; and service those products and customers over the lifetime of the product. That is, of course, until they are not. Many producers breathed a collective sigh of relief when they managed to navigate the initial choppy waters of […]

Our supply chains operate in a constrained world.  We face constraints in materials, in capacity, in the supply of labour, and in key transportation routes. This is not new news for our supply chains. Such challenges have been recognised for decades, with Goldratt first publishing his Theory of Constraints in 1984. Over the turbulent years of […]

Warehouse improvement and efficiency are very important as they can help reduce costs, improve operational efficiency, improve the utilisation of space, increase inventory accuracy, reduce the need for manual labour, improve customer service, and so on. The topic will focus on warehouse objectives, challenges, and opportunities. The main objective of the warehouse is “to manage […]

Stock management and control is complicated by the presence of uncertainties in demand and the lead time, and most of the time, in the execution of replenishment tasks itself. The most pervasive factor influencing uncertainty in the supply chain is variability (complexity, and constraints also play a role) and its effects can propagate and magnify […]