Relationship marketing is a team effort

from washington.bizjournals.com

Steve Epner is a business consultant in St. Louis who shared with me the idea that goes beyond the “supply chain.” When you think of a chain, we all know that it is only as strong as its weakest link. In a supply chain, if one component breaks down, the rest of the chain suffers. If a manufacturer can’t deliver quality products by a given date, the wholesaler suffers, the distributor suffers, the retailer suffers and the end user suffers. All parts of that supply chain break down when one element runs into problems.

Mid-West’s Top Sourcing and Supply Chain Executives to Convene

from prweb.com

The Best Practices Xchange (www.BestPracticesXchange.com) is scheduled to meet on Friday, August 24, 2007 for a one day summit in Chicago which will be attended by a “Who’s Who” of the Midwest’s top Strategic Sourcing, Procurement, and Supply Chain Executives. The upcoming meeting will focus on the challenges posed by Low-Cost Country Sourcing (LCCS).

Acting on growing competitive pressures, many companies have developed supplier relationships and relocated manufacturing operations or services to Low-Cost Countries, lured primarily by the low labor costs and revenue potential. While increasing procurement expenditures in those markets have yielded significant savings, many companies are finding that they face unexpected risks and major supply chain challenges which may offset the benefits.

Supply Chain Mgmt critical for success of biz:Chakravarty

from moneycontrol.com

Supply Chain Management is critical for the success of any modern business, stated Prof. Amiya K Chakravarty, Philip McDonald Chair and Professor Operations & Supply Chain Management, College of Business Administration, Northeastern University MA at a Session on Supply Chain Business Models and Collaboration, organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Delhi State Council on Friday.

How to clean up your supply chain form source to shelf

from telegraph.co.uk

By Andrew Cave

Many businesses have taken action to reduce energy use, improve efficiency and cut direct carbon emissions.
They have devised and implemented energy and carbon management strategies, reaping benefits through cost savings and more engaged workforces.

Businesses can reach the next stage by focusing on the indirect carbon emissions from their supply chains and meeting consumers’ increased demands for low-carbon products and services.

Business Excellence Profiles Demand Driven Supply Chain

from theopenpress.com

According to leading manufacturing journalist, Thomas R. Cutler, in the July issue of Business Excellence in a feature article titled, Demand Driven Supply Chain, Datacraft Solutions is the leading digital kanban technology firm based in Durham, North Carolina. A Datacraft Solutions’ customer, Luvata, a brass and copper sheet mill operation, quickly decided that based upon the initial success of the digital kanban system at their Franklin location, the Buffalo facility should take advantage of Franklin’s experience with digital kanban. In addition, both plants would now have a common supply chain management software that could be implemented easily, quickly, and affordably.

Distributors take on Digital Kanban

from tmcnet.com

Manufacturing journalist, Thomas R. Cutler, authored a featured article titled, Distributors should look to digital Kanban in the July issue of Industrial Distribution. According to Cutler, Distributors must continually innovate to maximize productivity and reduce total costs. Initiatives of process improvement and waste reduction can result in cost-saving efficiency. Productivity is output, efficiency and production. Waste is identified in many ways, yet ultimately it is any activity that requires allocated resources but adds no value from the customers perspective. Some activities, while not directly adding value to a product or process (such as time spent on equipment maintenance or an accounting function) are necessary and must be perpetuated. But non-value-added activities must be constantly reevaluated and, if necessary, identified as waste and eliminated.

Suppliers under the hammer?

from talkingretail.com

The value and savings of eAuctions for retailers and suppliers

In the old days, it was easy. Suppliers told retailers what they could sell and retailers told customers what they could buy. There was no ‘range proliferation’, ‘choice’ or ‘Far-East sourcing’; it was a world where retail buyers bought – not ‘procured’ – and suppliers ‘sold’ – not ‘account managed’. Where the brands went, everybody else followed. Easy.

SEEBURGER Releases ‘BIS:Insight’

from prnewswire.com

SEEBURGER Inc. today announced the availability of BIS:Insight, a Web-based supply chain event
management suite that provides complete visibility into B2B and EDI transactions, events and exceptions for manufacturers and other organizations that electronically enable communications with trading partners. The application is an add-on for the company’s flagship B2B Gateway and a core component of SEEBURGER’s new B2B Portal, a browser-based set of utilities designed to reduce B2B/EDI-related paperwork and equip
administrators with new tools for keeping goods and payments flowing smoothly.

Do Survey Results Really Indicate a Disconnect Between Supply Chain and the Business?

from scdigest.com

The News: A new survey from analyst firm IDC’s Manufacturing Insights is said to show a “disconnect” between corporate supply chain strategies most often driven by a focus on cost reduction, and a different set of overall business objectives of the company.

ProfitLine Launches Sourcing Leverage Meter™

from businesswire.com

ProfitLine, the leading provider of outsourced telecom expense management (TEM) solutions, today announced the launch of their Sourcing Leverage Meter^™ as part of their Contract Administration offering. The new solution offers an unprecedented view into telecom contract performance, including continually updated dashboards showing status of major milestones and commitment levels, position of pricing against current market rates, tracking of negotiation leverage on an ongoing basis and more.