Another best practice that you can implement in your distributions center is something called appointment scheduling. So basically what this means is when the truck drivers are arriving to your DC or when when they’re about to come to your DC they call ahead through their transportation companies and say “hey please give me an appointment, and I’m going to be there at this time, this date”. Booking the appointment makes it easy to make…

This post is about the best practices to track the velocity of your SKUs which is important to know as a DC manager and as a director of DC. As a supply chain inventory manager of your supply chain you got to know what are your A SKU’s, what are your B SKU’s, what are your C SKU’s. A SKUs are the fastest moving SKUs and the B SKUs are the moderately moving SKUs and…

The third-party logistics (3PL) business is tough, because it covers a wide gamut of service offerings, that include some combination of: Just move my boxes and/or pallets. Move my boxes and/or pallets and store them in your warehouse. Move my boxes and/or pallets and operate my facility. Own all the labor and activities in my facility. Offer all distribution services for my product (All I will do is download my orders into your system/supply chain)….

I would think that electronics OEMs or distributors would be leading the charge toward quality, and I’m sure many of them are. However, the first time I encountered a quality department that did extensive quality control it was in a New Hampshire distribution center (DC) that served the apparel industry. For this manufacturer, the goal was to make fairly priced clothing that delivered good quality to middle-aged women. The Director of Quality at the warehouse,…

The smart phone market has historically been a huge battlefield and nothing about that is changing. In fact, if anything, it’s getting more competitive. It would be fair to say that this may be the year that the Chinese officially lead the smart phone market pack. The market leaders have evolved rapidly. It can be argued that U.S. innovators conceived of the smart phone, while the Koreans (specifically Samsung) came up with leading Android-based devices….

That’s the fear, isn’t it? I think that this prediction is half right. The robots are coming, so brace yourself. Whether we like it or not, the robots are coming. However, I don’t think those robots are going to be taking over our jobs any time soon. We’re not looking at artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) that have reached sophistication where robots can take over our world. I just don’t see that happening….

Canada has declared Cannabis or Marijuana a legal medicine. United States is following suit, however here in the US, it is being done state by state, Colorado has done that for quite some time, many states are following, for the latest states please google as it is changing every time you read this article. So naturally there are a lot of Cannabis vendors that are going to set up shop and start selling them. One…

Technology changes quickly. Other fields, such as legal and finance, are comparatively slow to evolve. (A friend’s daughter recently told me she chose the finance discipline for that reason: to avoid having to constantly learn new technologies.) Changes do come though, especially as organizations move to keep up with financial reporting requirements. At the same time, technologist know that if you miss one technology way, it’s possible to catch the next one successfully.  In 1999,…

This past summer was fabulous. My brother-in-law got married and so my family got to go to India and participate in a typical South Indian wedding ceremony end to end, including all the pre- and post-wedding rituals, pre- and post-wedding parties, gift giving and receiving, the astrology and horoscope-based ceremonies, the auspicious poojas, and other traditions that the elders insist must be done.  My daughter was very excited. A lot of these traditions stem from…