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Plastic vs. Wood Pallets: Choosing a Shipping Pallet Material
Executives paid more attention to the supply chain in 2018 than they have in decades. One big reason was increasing transportation costs, which will continue to threaten profit margins into 2019 as contributing factors, like the truck driver shortage, persist. There is a silver lining to all this, though. Logistics operations have been conducted for…
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Optimizing the Grocery Supply Chain
Most of the attention-grabbing headlines around the grocery supply chain have to do with Amazon, Whole Foods, and the future of grocery delivery to the home. It’s a tricky model to get right, and even Amazon hasn’t quite managed to make home grocery delivery safe, profitable, and attractive for the general public. Yet, in spite…
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Pharmaceutical Warehouse Requirements: How to Design Pharma Storage and Retrieval
In the intricate world of pharmaceuticals, logistics hums in the background as a silent hero. Yet, this behind-the-scenes player deserves center stage for countless medications to reach patients safely and on time. As industry practices evolve to include increased automation, logistics becomes the orchestrator of efficiency, ensuring a seamless and timely delivery of critical medications…
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Building a Safe, Efficient Egg Supply Chain
Growing up, my grandfather was famous for his sneer of disdain whenever he was presented with a chicken dinner. It resembled Elvis’ own sneer and to this day is the purest expression of distaste I’ve ever seen. The reason for it was that as the youngest son of the family, my grandfather was tasked with…
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How to Increase Warehouse Efficiency
The order is due out by 5 pm. Two of your forklift drivers are out with the flu and the rest are coming down with it. Your warehouse has slowed to a crawl, your employees have just started their lunch break, and the future of the company depends on shipping out this order on time.…
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Warehouse Pest Control: Preventing and Managing Common Pests
ARTICLE UPDATED ON NOVEMBER 06, 2023 In the intricate web of global supply chains and logistics, warehouses and fulfillment centers serve as crucial hubs for storing and distributing goods. These vast spaces, packed with valuable inventory, are susceptible to a range of challenges, one of the most persistent being pest infestations. Warehouse pest control is…
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Automated Case Picking: Using Automation to Create Mixed-Case Pallets
When the financial crisis hit in 2008, I took advantage of my G.I. Bill and student aid to go back to school. But I still had to make payments and was often forced to do day labor in order to make ends meet. One of the most commonly available jobs was in the warehouse of…
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Will There Be a Truck Driver Shortage in 2019?
Transportation costs are rising–and have been for some time–across all industries. The economy is growing, and as business picks up, more freight has to be carried on the same number of trailers and trains. It’s a cycle that the country has seen many times before. In recent years, however, other factors have also come into…
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Deadhead Trucking: Avoiding Empty Miles
Key Takeaways: Deadhead Trucking: Avoiding Empty Miles In the world of logistics, empty miles are a constant headache. We’re talking about deadhead trucking, those big rigs cruising down the highway with no cargo. This translates to lost revenue – the truck isn’t generating income while it burns fuel. Deadhead trucking is the epitome of supply…
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How to Use Warehouse Picking Best Practices
Warehouse picking is the simple act of pulling product loads out of inventory. However, picking the right loads and doing so speedily without wasting time double-checking manifests can be complicated. The difficulty of the task scales up with the size of the warehouse, the density of the product it contains, and the number of different…
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Finding Cost-Effective Pallet Management Strategies
If you’ve spent any amount of time around a grocery store or other packaged goods retailer, you know that abandoned pallets are a common sight. Orphaned pallets can often be found propped against the back walls of retail stores where drivers abandoned them after delivery. To dispose of the pallets, the retailer will generally end…
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How to Sanitize Plastic Pallets: Keeping Your Supply Chain Hygienic
Across this great land, piled behind millions of grocery and department stores, are millions of reusable wood block pallets. At many of those stores, teenagers working their first jobs have been ordered to add another pallet to the stack out back, and are thinking, “Ew, I have to touch that?” Wood pallets easily collect grime…