There are currently over 100,600 SAP installations at over 41,200 companies in the world. SAP announced at the 2013 Logistics & SCM, PLM, Manufacturing, and Procurement conference in Las Vegas in March that there are currently only around 400 installations of SAP EWM. EWM was release in 2007, and it’s obvious that the majority of […]
SAP Logistics & SCM Conference Agenda
Next Monday afternoon, Josh and I will be heading out to Las Vegas to attend the SAP Logistics & SCM 2013 on behalf of Blue Harbors. I plan on taking notes on the sessions I attend throughout the conference, and sharing my thoughts on the highlights here on Blue Harbors’ blog. I’ve started to build […]
Consumer Feedback on E-Tail Order Fulfillment Processes
Consumers’ growing preference for online shopping resulted in unprecedented increases in order fulfillment and returns shipments in 2012. The numbers will increase in 2013 as the e-commerce & m-commerce (mobile commerce) movement is only revving up. With this rise in online orders, fulfillment and reverse logistics processes have never been as important for retail companies than they are as we enter the new year.
Massive Inevitable Changes For E-Tailer Shipping
Thanks to Gray Thursday, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, online retail (“E-tail”) sales have hit record highs in the US this holiday season. FedEx is expecting to ship a record 19 Million packages today alone (12/10/12). UPS has predicted that they will ship over 527 million packages in the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas, as compared to 480 million packages total in 2011. The increase in shipping volume is shocking, and it’s only going up.
So what’s the impact? Both carriers and E-tailers are beginning to realize that, if they intend on maintaining the same levels of customer satisfaction and quality control as shipping volumes increase, the current partnership dynamic will be changing in a big way.
Three Supply Chain Evolution Predictions From IBM
During their Smarter Commerce Conference, IBM predicted the following 3 supply chain trends would have a big impact on the growth of “Smarter Commerce”:
Reengineering Your Logistics Processes: Packing, Loading, Transportation and Shipping
When the Blue Harbors team is asked to connect a customer’s SAP system to carriers such as FedEx and UPS, the project often kicks off without much drama. We start working with the carriers to get the accounts established; we customize SAP and load the necessary mapping rules to support web services; and so on. […]
Time-Phased Planning in CBP and MRP
If a vendor always delivers a material on a particular day of the week, it makes sense to plan this material according to the same cycle in which it is delivered. Time-Phased Planning is an ideal solution for this scenario. Materials that are planned using the time-phased planning technique are provided with an MRP date in […]
Warehouses Are Sexy
According to CNN Money – “U.S. factories are creating many new jobs. But owners are hard pressed to find skilled American workers to fill them.” The keyword here is “skilled”. These manufacturing companies are looking for motivated and tech-saavy employees, but there appears to be a shortage of qualified applicants, which in turn forces the […]