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Omnichannel Supply Chain Solutions: Optimizing for Omnichannel Fulfillment
Omnichannel fulfillment–fulfillment of an order through multiple possible channels–is no longer just a trend in retail, it’s a necessity. Customers expect to be able to order items from anywhere and they want delivery locations to be just as flexible. This presents challenges for companies who want to deliver items quickly but may not have the…
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Wood Pallet Alternatives: Why Wood Isn’t the Best Pallet Material
Wood shipping pallets have long been the standard in most supply chains purely because there was no viable alternative. While other options are now available, wood pallets are still in wide use simply because many companies aren’t familiar with the alternatives and continuing to use wood is the path of least resistance. However, there are…
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Tips on Logistics Management: Keeping Your Supply Chain Running Smoothly
The world dangles in a web of very long threads–these are the various supply chains that keep food in our refrigerators, deliver the refrigerators to the stores in the first place, and keep the power plants that allow the refrigerators to run stocked with fuel. If any thread in this interconnected web comes loose, the…
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3 Warehouse Cost Reduction Ideas That Will Trim Expenses
You’ve probably noticed that supply chains everywhere are undergoing significant changes. Technology is widely available that allows us to automate tasks, coordinate shipments, and reduce labor costs, and many warehouse managers have chosen to implement these technologies in order to streamline their processes. But automation isn’t the only option for reducing costs in the warehouse.…
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Reverse Logistics in the Food Industry: How to Make Reuse Easy
Discussions of logistics in the food industry are overwhelmingly concerned with the forward supply chain, that is, getting products from farms or factories to retailers where they can be sold. But these supply chain operations are only half of the logistics system. Once food products arrive at markets, something has to happen to the shipping…
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Why You Need a Pallet Management Company
Logistics professionals of all types have a lot on their minds. Deadlines for shipping products out, delays in the arrival of components, and the complex logistics of product storage all compete for attention. It’s no wonder that pallets aren’t given much thought, even though they are the basic load unit around which all things in…
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How Much Does a Plastic Pallet Cost?
It’s not just your eyes playing tricks on you or your imagination running wild: you really seeing more plastic pallets stacked on the floors of shopping warehouses like Costco, a shift that seems to have happened overnight as the cost of and competition for lumber has never been fiercer. In fact, in an email to…
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Kaizen Ideas for the Warehouse That Will Improve Productivity
ARTICLE UPDATED ON JANUARY 31, 2024 The journey of Kaizen business strategies has been remarkable since Toyota pioneered them in Japan’s post-war reconstruction in the late 1940s. It was Toyota’s integration of Kaizen into its foundational “Toyota Way” principles that many believe set the gold standard for lean manufacturing. Kaizen approaches not only center on waste reduction…
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Pallet Industry Trends and What They Mean for Your Supply Chain
There is little doubt that our world is changing. Technology has made a lifestyle that would have been unimaginable a decade ago an everyday reality. Films and communications are available wherever we happen to find ourselves, and the furnishings, food, and devices that we fill our homes with are ordered online and delivered with just…
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5 Supply Chain Improvement Opportunities That Can Lower Costs
Logistics is often the most expensive part of running a business. That broad term covers the processing, storage, and transportation of not only your products but also the components or ingredients used to make them. If any one of those elements isn’t perfectly coordinated with the others, your Total Cost of Business (TCOB) can needlessly…
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Pallet Requirements for Export: What to Know
ARTICLE UPDATED ON AUGUST 11, 2023 Discovering a new overseas market for your product can be truly exhilarating. While establishing a niche market domestically contributes to a successful business, venturing into foreign markets elevates your brand to a global scale, even if that market happens to be just across the border in Canada or Mexico.…
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How to Improve Food Traceability with the Right Shipping Pallet
On the 13th of March in 2018, the first illness in what would become a national outbreak of E. coli linked to romaine lettuce was reported. The outbreak went on for four months before ending in June and 210 people in 36 states were affected. Even though the outbreak was traced back to farms in…