@Risk

Results of the 17th Annual Survey of Third-Party Logistics Providers have been released, and they show that most of the 3PL CEOs polled are considerably more bullish than they were last year. In total, 31 CEOs –representing the North American 3PL marketplace, the European 3PL market, and the Asia-Pacific 3PL market –participated in the survey, and  CEOs from all three regions indicated that  they were optimistic about future revenue growth prospects of not only their companies, but also the regional 3PL industry.

The report, conducted by Robert Lieb, professor of supply chain management at Northeastern University, and sponsored by Penske Logistics, also found that: (more…)

Today’s supply chains are global, elongated and enormously complex.

Of course, that also means they’re riskier and more unpredictable than ever before.

How can supply chain managers maintain integrity, stability and clarity in what can easily become a nasty hornet’s nest? And now that many suppliers feel far-removed from their customers, how can you mitigate the risk of irresponsible suppliers –you know, the ones that put their own interests above yours?

Answers to questions like those are almost as complex as supply chains themselves, but Mark Vandenbosch and Stephen Sapp do a nice job breaking down the key issues in their article, Keep Your Suppliers Honest, published last week in The Wall Street Journal. According to the authors, mitigating risks from irresponsible suppliers boils down to four fundamental tasks.

In short, you need to: (more…)

Mexico continues to be a positive business proposition for many companies. However there’s no doubt that it is becoming increasingly more challenging –and more costly –to mitigate risks to operations, supply chains and personnel there.

Consider this: Since 2006, more than 24,000 people have been killed in drug violence in Mexico, and as an article in The Dallas Morning News puts it: (more…)

Already reeling because India’s garment manufacturing industry was included on the US Department of Labor’s updated EO 13126 list, the country’s apparel exporters suffered another blow last week when The Observer revealed details of an investigation that uncovered significant worker abuses at Indian “sweatshops.”

According to the article, some of Britain’s biggest retailers, including Marks & Spencer, Gap and Next, are using suppliers who pay workers pennies an hour and force them to work up to 16 hours a day in factories.

From the article: (more…)

Nearly half the retail and manufacturing companies surveyed in a recent Tompkins Supply Chain Consortium study now have a supply chain leader at or above the executive vice president level, reflecting a positive trend in supply chain leadership over the past five years.

Specifically, here’s a breakdown of the survey results by industry:

The study also found that: (more…)