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5 Hidden Costs in Your Supply Chain
Cost reduction is always a challenge in a supply chain. Every step in the supply chain—from sourcing and manufacturing, to warehousing, logistics, and transport—incurs additional costs that businesses try to limit. It is estimated that the supply chain and logistics account for more than 10% of a business’s overall costs. The efforts to lower costs…
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4 Ways to Improve Your Supply Chain Transportation Efficiency
In transportation logistics, every mile and every minute matters. Slowdowns and inefficiencies compound. While some supply chain operating costs cannot be significantly reduced, transportation logistics offers opportunities to trim unnecessary time, money, and fuel use. Increasing your supply chain transportation efficiency is simply one of the best ways to lower your total cost of business. …
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How to Build a Low Carbon Supply Chain
Estimates suggest that a business’s supply chain accounts for more than 75 percent of its total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The alarming rate of global warming, coupled with consumer awareness about environmental sustainability, has led companies to build green supply chains that reduce their carbon footprint. For businesses, a reduced carbon footprint can also result…
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Reducing Contamination in the Pharmaceutical Industry: How Simple Changes Can Help
In the pharmaceutical industry, there are two related kinds of damage that can happen to a company: reputational damage and damage to the bottom line. Few things impact both of those as much as contamination. Contamination in the pharmaceutical industry may lead to returned shipments, regulatory oversight, strained relationships with vendors, and increased costs, as…
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RFID Implementation in the Warehouse Increases Accuracy and Throughput
In a warehouse with tens of thousands of square feet of storage, it can be difficult to maintain an accurate picture of inventory and overall operations. Even pallet-level barcodes do not resolve this issue, as a barcode reader must have a direct line of sight to capture a barcode’s data. This means relying on warehouse…
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How to Improve Energy Efficiency in the Supply Chain
ARTICLE UPDATED ON JULY 27, 2023 During his remarkable conquests, Alexander the Great reportedly shared a remark regarding the individuals responsible for ensuring the smooth functioning of his supply chain. He stated, “My logisticians are a humorless lot. They know if my campaign fails, they are the first ones I will slay.” In the present…
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The Benefits of Pallet Racking: Why Your Warehouse Needs a Racking System
ARTICLE UPDATED ON NOVEMBER 28, 2022 The demand for home delivery and the rise of e-commerce operations has led to significant growth within the warehouse industry, with a 2021 study citing that demand for warehouse space in 2021 had grown by 22% year-over-year, greatly exceeding the need in 2019 and 2020. To compete with the…
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RFID in the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Offers Transparency in a Complex Industry
Though the commercial usage of Radio Frequency Identification or RFID technology was started in the 1990s, its implementation in the pharmaceutical supply chain has been relatively new. Several pharma companies still rely on barcoding as the more widely accepted form of electronic identification. A barcode on a pharmaceutical product package acts as a stock-keeping unit…
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How Contaminated Wood Pallets Are Making Companies Rethink Their Pallet Material
The beginning of the COVID pandemic saw businesses around the world reevaluate supply chains for safety and look at every surface with new scrutiny. But one piece of equipment had already been questioned years ago and found wanting: wood pallets. Though still common in food supply chains, wood pallets are known to be difficult to…
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Food Traceability Technology: The Tech Making It Easier to Track Food in the Supply Chain
In recent years, the issue of food traceability has received increasing attention from both producers and consumers. For manufacturers and producers, tracking food in the supply chain makes it easier to comply with FSMA food safety rules and prepare for potential emergencies such as foodborne illnesses. The recent example of Salmonella infections linked to onions…
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Reducing Instances of Human Error in the Warehouse
In most warehouses, a significant portion of operations depends on manual labor. Even a single human error in the warehouse can impact the profitability of a business and can lead to serious and even fatal injuries. A survey report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics ranks transportation and warehousing among the five private sectors…
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FDA Pharmaceutical Warehouse Requirements
ARTICLE UPDATED ON MARCH 15, 2024 In any warehouse or logistics facility, a primary concern is to guarantee the safe storage and intact delivery of products to end-users. Current Good Manufacturing Practice Standards (CGMPS) are an evolving set of standards aimed at ensuring the quality and integrity of products passing through such warehouses. In most…