According to the latest report ‘The automotive supply chain: Pursuing long-term resilience’ from the Capgemini Research Institute, automotive organisations now feel more confident to tackle future supply chain disruptions.

By Marijke Voet, Commercial Manager. TMX UK.

With supply volatility and geopolitical unrest circling, supply chain visibility has become a major priority for today’s business leaders. Control towers are enabling savvy businesses to not only solve immediate problems but identify future disruptions they wouldn’t have otherwise seen coming.

By Terry Onica, Director, Automotive, QAD.

The automotive industry is at a pivotal crossroads, driven by rapid advancements in vehicle technology and increasing regulatory pressure around sustainability.

Real-time data capture, printing, mobility and voice-directed solutions specialist Dakota, alongside partners Truckfile, the UK provider of web-based fleet and workshop management, drivers check and compliance systems, have been selected as finalists in the ‘Fleet Innovation of the Year’ Category at the Supply Chain Excellence Awards 2023.

SnapFulfil has secured another distinguished supply chain and logistics award. The Top Supply Chain Projects 2024 (formerly known as SDCE 100) profiles innovative application success projects designed to automate, optimize, streamline and improve the supply chain. 

By Laurence Scott, freelance writer.

When built upon a solid foundation, which is warehouse logistics. That includes all the steps it takes to store, manage and prepare goods for use within any warehouse or distribution center. The speed at which business now moves has meant that efficient warehouse logistics quite simply are make or break for the general ability of a company to keep up with demand, remain cost-effective and on top.

This research is a quantitative and qualitative assessment of the characteristics that explain a vendor's success in the supply chain demand planning space and helps assess its current and anticipated performance in the marketplace.

Tuesday 14th January 2020 - Birmingham,UK

This Supply Chain Event is a free educational morning dedicated to leading manufacturers who want to review best practices and lessons from the front line to implementing S&OP (Sales & Operations Planning) and IBP (Integrated Business Planning).

Blue Yonder has announced that capital goods company CNH Industrial has selected Luminate Control Tower, along with several supply chain planning solutions such as forecasting and replenishment, as the backbone of its customer-centric aftermarket supply chain for its parts business.

Kinaxis a leader in supply chain management software, has announced that Infineum has selected Kinaxis to drive increased efficiency and reduce waste across its supply chain with improved navigation of supply and demand in today’s increasingly volatile business environment.

Optimised supply chain management benefits extend well beyond the bottom line. More and more companies across various sectors are turning to Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems to keep up with market demands and maintain a competitive edge.

o9 Solutions, the enterprise AI software platform provider for transforming planning and decision-making, and analyst firm Supply Chain Insights, has announced that LKQ Europe captured significant supply chain planning insights as a result of the company’s participation in a pilot programme designed to test outside-in planning concepts through Project Zebra.

Supply chain planning has huge potential to reduce the environmental impact of production and transportation, and supply chain solutions play a pivotal role in making this happen. Carlijn Goedhart, Sustainability Lead at DELMIA take a closer look at the dynamics of sustainable supply chain planning and the impact it can have on the world.

Blue Yonder, the supply chain solutions provider, has released its largest product update in the history of the company, launching what it describes as the first set of interoperable solutions across the entire supply chain – from planning to warehouse, transportation, and commerce – delivered on the company’s Luminate Cognitive Platform.

Manhattan Associates has introduced Manhattan Active Supply Chain Planning (SCP), claimed to be the industry’s first unified business planning platform that enables bi-directional collaboration between supply chain planning and execution systems. 

John Galt Solutions has launched Galt Connect, a hub connecting Atlas Planning Platform customers with technology partners and solution extensions to enhance their supply chain planning strategies and elevate operations. 

Rituals, the wellbeing beauty brand, has selected RELEX Solutions, provider of unified supply chain and retail planning solutions to deliver comprehensive, end-to-end supply chain optimisation capabilities.

By Philipp Pfister, Chief Customer Experience Officer at Transporeon (a Trimble company)

There’s no denying that the transport sector is a prominent cog across most global industries. As the saying goes, “There is no production without procurement logistics, and no trade without delivery traffic.”

TraceLink Inc has entered into a strategic partnership with Tecsys, the supply chain management solutions provider.This partnership between TraceLink and Tecsys aims to combine market-leading capability for external supplier integration and information exchange with industry-acclaimed inventory and warehouse management functionality.

By Dan Abramson, Senior Vice President and Head of Sales at FourKites.

In terms of high-value goods, it doesn’t get much more precious than the drugs and devices that support human health.

Digital Catapult, has announced that leading technology businesses will join the Made Smarter Innovation Digital Supply Chain Hub programme to apply deep tech solutions to bolster the resilience of national supply chains.

ACI Group has shone a spotlight on the importance of supply chain digitalisation in response to a Business Continuity Institute (BCI) report which found that almost 80% of organisations have experienced supply chain disruptions over the past year.

Murata ID Solutions reports that it has helped life science giant Bayer’s Italian division, Bayer S.p.A., leverage radio frequency identification (RFID) tracking in the first large-scale application of the technology in the pharmaceutical supply chain.

Covid-19 is straining supply chains around the world, most notably those of pharmaceutical companies. Scarcity of raw materials upstream and overheated demand downstream cause disruptions. Control over their supply chain is a major challenge for all pharma companies today.

With Covid-19 vaccine delivery highlighting the need for resilience in pharma and biotech supply chains, Karl H. Lauri, managing team member at MRPeasy.com, explains that ERP/MRP gives smaller suppliers the backbone required to take part.

The current crisis in Europe has led to increasing energy insecurity and shortages of raw materials, which are creating severe pharmaceutical manufacturing supply line disruptions. In some cases, supplier lead times have doubled, prices are no longer certain, and orders are subject to cancellations or delays.  

Cost reduction is a focus for many at the moment and understandably so. Multinational pharmaceutical company, Glenmark, is just one of those businesses looking at how it can optimise its costs globally.

By Rudrendu Kumar Paul and Bidyut Sarkar

Embracing the Future of Supply Chain Management: An Exploration of AI's Transformative Impact on Demand Forecasting and its Potential to Navigate Global Uncertainties.

The Threat Intelligence and Incident Response Team at Context Information Security has identified a new threat group behind a series of incidents targeted at the aerospace and defence industries in the UK and Europe.

ON-DEMAND WEBINAR: Responding to aerospace OEM demands with flexible product development.

A variety of pressures are driving change in aerospace and defense supply chains, including less funding and increasing complexity. Aerospace suppliers globally are dealing with product development challenges unlike anything they have seen before, including increasing cost pressures from OEMs, decreasing project timelines, and demanding industry regulations.

Manufacturers now expect logistics suppliers to further integrate with their operating systems DANX Carousel Chief Information Officer, Mohan Palaniandy, has told delegates at a recent supply chain transparency conference.

DHS's new Supply Chain Resilience Center will aim to marshal stakeholders to help avoid the type of shortages and bottlenecks that roiled the country during COVID-19.

The post New DHS supply chain center aims to head off future crises first appeared on Federal News Network.

LGCF, the French wine exporting company, relies on Körber’s Warehouse Management System, Warehouse Control System, voice and gamification solutions to accelerate the performance at 14 logistics sites.

During this exclusive webinar, moderator Jason Miller and agency leaders will explore how organizations are approaching supply chain risk management and the data strategy behind this management.

The post How to develop actionable information to protect federal supply chains first appeared on Federal News Network.

Location: Electronic Resource- 

Sm Supplier Management Job At Boeing Director Planning & Supply Chain

 As part of its ongoing partnership with DHL Supply Chain, Tesco Ireland has taken delivery of 50 state-of-the-art biomethane fuelled trucks which will operate across its country-wide distribution network.  

 New research from Wincanton reveals that two thirds (66%) of UK organisations say they are under pressure to hit their net-zero targets, with logistics seen as key to achieving their goals in this area, according to 83%.  

72% of FTSE 100 companies list threats to their supply chains amongst their principal risks, shows new research by supply chain management consultancy INVERTO, part of Boston Consulting Group.

Years ago we were doing some work in the roofing business. In one study, we were working on the asphalt shingle roofing manufacturing business. At the time, this was a terrible business. Returns were low, growth rates were modest, at best, and there was a good deal of overcapacity in the industry. Then the industry caught a break. A shortage in asphalt developed. This shortage of asphalt rolled through the asphalt shingle plants and restricted their output. Immediately, prices jumped, returns became attractive and industry participants breathed a sigh of relief. Unfortunately, this asphalt shortage did not last very long. The industry shortly returned to its previous hostile condition. (See the Perspective, “What Ends Hostility?” on StrategyStreet.com.)

A shortage in any component, or labor, will restrict industry capacity and tend to raise prices. A labor shortage is, in part, responsible for some of the high prices in mining today. Miners work in areas that are often hard to reach. They also are skilled employees. The run-up in commodity prices, especially those related to ores such as silver, gold and copper, has increased the demand for these skilled miners. In addition, the mining industry faces competition for skilled workers from the oil and natural gas industries, which are also growing.

Mining companies are now going to great lengths to attract and retain these skilled workers. Some of these miners are now earning 25% more in compensation than they were a year ago. Some companies are flying workers to and from remote mines. For example, BHP Billiton plans to fly 500 workers from Brisbane, about 500 miles away, to a coal mine site that they are opening and then fly them back home after a couple of weeks.

If this commodity boom continues, the industry’s total capacity will be determined more by labor availability than by its more traditional measures of capacity. (See “Audio Tip #117: Capacity Constraints and Pricing” on StrategyStreet.com.)

1. iPhone SE 4 expected to launch in March 2025, supply chain data suggests  Business Standard
2. iPhone SE4 is likely to launch soon and here are 5 big upgrades we are expecting  India Today
3. Apple iPhone SE 4 to launch next year, likely to become the cheapest iPhone to support Apple Intelligence...  Moneycontrol
4. iPhone SE 4 may spell trouble for iPhone 16 and premium Android phones, here’s why  Hindustan Times
5. iPhone SE 4 Camera Production to Begin Soon Ahead of Anticipated Debut in March 2025: Report  Gadgets 360

Many fans of Huawei on Friday were disappointed that its much-anticipated phone, Mate XT - more than twice the price of the iPhone 16 Pro Max - was not available for walk-in customers.

Chinese supply chains could tip the balance in Ukraine Expert comment NCapeling 29 March 2023

Disrupting supply chains of critical minerals to those supporting Ukraine could give China a key advantage in its wider international trade competition.

Direct military intervention from China into the war on Ukraine, with Chinese troops and airmen appearing at the front line, would be highly escalatory and highly unlikely.

Equipping Russia with weapons and equipment is much more likely – if indeed it hasn’t already happened – and considering the West is supplying armaments to Ukraine, a joust with western technologies would be an interesting development to follow.

But if Chinese weapons underperform in the heat of battle, this may have implications for the current situation with Taiwan and the US, as a poor outcome on the Ukraine front could give the West more confidence over the tensions in the South China Sea. And the use of Chinese weapons in Ukraine would also be a feast for Western technical intelligence to capture.

Creating economic disruption

A much more likely development for China is to put in place export controls on critical minerals for Western powers supplying arms to Ukraine. This is a significant lever which China has used before during its fishing dispute with Japan in 2010 when hi-tech industrial production in Japan was affected by shortages of China-sourced critical minerals. Once normal supplies were resumed, Japan started to stockpile critical mineral reserves.

In October 2020, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) passed a new statute enabling – when necessary – restriction of critical mineral supplies to third party nations intending to use them for defence and security applications, adding a ‘versatile weapon to Beijing’s arsenal’ in its trade competition with the US.

That legal control has been applied to Lockheed Martin production of Taiwan-bound F-35s and it applies not only to critical minerals mined on the Chinese mainland, but also to Chinese-controlled enterprises within international supply chains, of which there are many.

Responding to any such restrictions by opening up new mines and setting up new supply chains can take more than a decade, so the countries involved may need to start stockpiling critical materials as Japan has been doing since 2010.

Commodity markets also need to be ready for some interesting price wobbles – a persistent problem in critical minerals extractives investment as is overcoming environmental, social, and governance (ESG) challenges in this new game of global supplies.

In addition, those markets include the London Metal Exchange, now owned by Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing whose biggest shareholder is the Hong Kong government which is struggling to operate with complete independence from Beijing.

Splitting the West’s consensus

By extending the thinking on China’s potential to throttle global critical mineral supply chains and the ensuing latency of extraction from new mining resources, progress to the Paris Agreement 2050 goals on climate change will inevitably be affected.

Given there are no supply chain assurance mechanisms, such as distributed ledger technologies, in place within global mining supply chains, a key issue to overcome would be how the West assures China that critical mineral supplies are not destined for military applications.

But if China’s default position becomes a total refusal to supply client nations unless end-to-end assurances can be achieved to prove non-military use, the West’s aspirations regarding the Paris 2050 goals will certainly be put in jeopardy, or even made unachievable.

Implications of post-COVID-19 Restructuring of Supply Chains for Global Investment Governance 14 July 2020 — 9:00AM TO 10:30AM Anonymous (not verified) 9 February 2021 Online

As companies rethink and diversify their supply chains in order to enhance resilience, what will this mean for current and future global investment governance?

What are the risks of negative effects on inclusivity and transparency? Does this shift create an opportunity to advance good governance of cross-border investment practices?

This event is part of the Inclusive Governance Initiative, which is examining how to build more inclusive models and mechanisms of global governance fit for purpose in today’s world.

Africa Aware: Supply chains, land contestation, conflict Audio NCapeling 30 March 2023

This episode examines relations between Ethiopia and Sudan as part of an XCEPT project mini-series.

The war in northern Ethiopia since November 2020, and subsequent conquest of disputed farmlands in Al-Fashaga by the Sudanese army on the Ethiopia-Sudan border, has brought into focus the importance of agricultural commodities such as sesame as a potential driver of land contestation and conflict. 

The panel discusses the interrelation of commodity and conflict supply chains, land contestation, and boundary disputes in the Horn of Africa, with a particular focus on the regions of Wolkait/Western Tigray in northwest Ethiopia and Al Fashaga in eastern Sudan.

This podcast was produced with support from the Cross-Border Conflict Evidence, Policy and Trends (XCEPT) project, funded by UK Aid from the UK government.

Cooking in Displacement Settings: Engaging the Private Sector in Non-wood-based Fuel Supply Research paper sysadmin 22 January 2019

In displacement settings, providing cooking solutions that reduce negative impacts on the environment and health remains a challenge for local governments, humanitarian agencies, businesses and refugees.

Summary

• Providing adequate cooking fuel and clean-burning, fuel-efficient stoves in displacement settings has long been a major challenge for local authorities, humanitarian agencies, non-governmental organizations, local communities and refugees themselves. Refugees generally have limited access to modern cooking solutions. Most either depend on insufficient humanitarian agency handouts of ‘in-kind’ firewood or have to travel long distances to collect firewood.
• There is significant potential for private-sector engagement in this context – which, though largely overlooked to date, could result in win-win scenarios for all stakeholders. Refugee camps and other displacement settings present opportunities for private-sector cooking fuel companies to expand their customer bases, with the added advantage for vendors of offering concentrated demand and scope for economies of scale.
• For the Kakuma refugee camp complex in Kenya, the Moving Energy Initiative (MEI) decided to engage with the private sector directly. The MEI requested expressions of interest from local private-sector companies for expanding sales and distribution of fuels in the complex through the concession. The winning company – National Oil Corporation of Kenya – is to receive a prize of $50,000 for its proposed concession to supply liquefied petroleum gas both to refugees in the Kakuma complex and to the surrounding host community.
• The MEI also conducted interviews with various stakeholders in other contexts and countries who are engaged in efforts to develop market-based approaches to providing clean, fuel-efficient cooking solutions to refugees.
• Based on the interviews and the concession process, the MEI recommends greater donor investment and longer-term guaranteed funding for cooking interventions. This is needed to allow sufficient time to build sustainable markets and secure the requisite engagement and investments from the private sector.
• Larger, longer-term investments by the private sector – supported through partnerships with donors and humanitarian agencies – in infrastructure and demand creation (both in and outside the refugee community) can reduce the price of alternative solutions and support a gradual transition away from subsidies.

McKesson Medical-Surgical Inc. entered into an agreement with the Labor Department on Monday resolving employment discrimination issues involving nearly 900 Black, Hispanic, and White applicants at a distribution center

NASA is inviting pubic participation in some virtual activities to watch the SpaceX space station resupply mission scheduled for a Monday night liftoff from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

SpaceX launched a rocket loaded with 6,000 pounds of supplies to the International Space Station on Monday night from the Florida coast.