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Green Supply Chain Management in the Food Industry
Food production is one of the most difficult environmental problems the world faces. Fertilizers that are sprayed onto fields wash into waterways where they can cause toxic algal blooms and fish kills. Pesticides used on crops have a detrimental effect on pollinating insects like bees and butterflies. Livestock have been found to be a significant…
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Rethinking Logistics for the Circular Economy
Many people stop by a coffee shop or a convenience store almost every day. They pull a styrofoam cup off a stack, pour a cup of coffee, pull a coffee stirrer from a container, and mix sugar and creamer in. Finally, they place a plastic lid on the cup and continue driving to work. When…
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Why Green Supply Chain Management Is Important
Making responsible environmental practices part of supply chain management isn’t just the moral thing to do, it’s also good business. A more sustainable supply chain is also a less wasteful supply chain, and reducing waste can lower a business’ total cost of business (TCOB) while also enhancing industry reputation. This is just one of many…
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Can Plastic Be Sustainable?
The use of plastic is controversial and growing more controversial every day for two reasons. The first is that plastics are polymers generated from petroleum and petroleum byproducts. The oil industry has a controversial record of environmental mismanagement, and for some environmentally concerned persons, plastic’s origins from oil irrevocably taint it and give it no…
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Cross Docking As a Supply Chain Strategy
ARTICLE UPDATED ON AUGUST 10, 2023 Cross docking is a supply chain tactic that eliminates the need for a warehouse, at least in theory. In this approach, incoming freight from trucks is directly transferred across the shipping dock and loaded onto outbound trucks without going through a separate facility. However, the reality of implementing cross…
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Sustainable Product Transportation and Why It Matters
The implementation of sustainable product transportation is one of the thorniest problems facing us today. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. logistics system moved more than 56 tons of freight per person in 2015. The numbers have only risen since this estimate was calculated, and the vast majority of this freight is…
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Improving Your Warehouse Space Management
Ecommerce has driven massive growth in the sizes of warehouses. In fact, the footprint of the average warehouse has doubled in size since 2002. Yet even as more products are shipped and the shipping process becomes more complicated, it’s not practical for warehouses to keep getting bigger. In many cases, warehouse operations need to be…
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What the Latest Pharma Supply Chain Trends Mean for You
The latest pharma supply chain trends center on the relatively new ability to track pharmaceuticals through every step of the supply chain–from manufacturing to the pharmacy–and to use the data collected via tracking to improve processes. Methods like just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing are made possible through tracking and data collection technology and allow manufacturers to scale…
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Why Forklift Safety in the Warehouse Matters to Your Bottom Line
Proper forklift safety in the warehouse isn’t just about preventing employee injuries, though that is its primary goal. It’s also about protecting a company’s bottom line, as improper forklift use can result in both direct and indirect costs. Damaged products, reduced employee productivity, fines, penalties, and increased insurance costs are all consequences of failing to…
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How to Calculate the Maximum Weight Per Pallet
UPDATED JUNE 9, 2023 The last thing warehouse workers want to do while loading pallets is pull another pallet off the stack. It requires that they stop what they’re doing and either pull a heavy pallet off the top of a tall column of empty pallets or wait for a forklift to come by and…
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Deep Lane Storage: When to Choose High-Density Automated Warehouse Storage
Key Takeaways: • The supply chain is very complex, with many moving parts.• Deep lane storage systems can help simplify inventory and cube utilization within a facility, but they have pros and cons.• Supply chain managers should consider whether this solution is right for them.• Warehouse aisles have been shrinking to accommodate more products, which…
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Three Distribution Center Technology Trends to Improve Throughput
Today’s distribution center technology trends center on using smarter equipment to speed up the path from the distribution center to the customer. Market expansion through online ordering and direct-to-consumer sales models have also increased the need for DCs to carry a more diverse selection of products. At the same time, distribution centers must keep throughput…