When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, many healthcare organizations, despite an urgency to adapt quickly, began running out of essential items like masks, gloves, gowns, and even medications. These shortages, combined with rising patient volumes and other economic factors, have revealed the importance of having a well-performing healthcare supply chain. Here are some of the most pervasive healthcare supply chain challenges and strategies businesses are using to solve them.

Inventory remains one of the most tangible and significant investments of any retail, eCommerce, or manufacturing business. Many business owners fail to realize that inventory can account for up to 30% of the total budget. So, for every $100,000 in products you store, you could be paying up to $30,000 to hold and move them around your warehouse.

Barcodes have been a standard in most industries for decades. But other technologies have challenged the efficiency and usefulness of barcodes. Radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology is the main challenger. While both solutions are well suited for certain applications, there are many advantages of RFID over barcodes that are worth considering.

More consumers are thinking about how the delicious food they consume arrives on their dinner plates. There are a lot of steps involved, and some of them can be unappetizing or even unsafe. 

And the businesses that bring food to consumers have a lot to consider as well. Every farmer, processor, and seller is responsible for some form of food management. Organizing delivery, arranging suppliers, and figuring out food costs are all part of the supply chain process.

Having safe food on grocery shelves and readily available in restaurants is a luxury taken for granted in most parts of the world. But this is only possible thanks to complex food supply chains that are capable of safely and quickly growing, processing, storing, and transporting food products.

The beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic exposed weaknesses in the global food supply chain as retailers and food manufacturers worked tirelessly to keep up with consumer demand. But, even earlier than that, traceability and transparency were becoming hot-button issues for companies that wanted to cater to consumer desires to know more about their food as well as a need to prevent product recalls. 

But, before you can make transparency a goal, you have to understand it. Here is what transparency in the food supply chain means, why it’s important, and how some businesses are beginning to address the issue.

There is probably a higher level of public awareness about how the logistics industry works and its technology than ever before. Who hasn’t had at least a passing interest in how a nation plans to get over 300 million doses of a vaccine distributed in a manner of a few months?

One side-effect of 2020’s COVID-19 pandemic has been a heightened awareness of “safety” in the realm of hygiene, especially food and groceries. Early last year we were treated to videos of how to handle your groceries after you bring them home and generated such a high volume of prepared food delivery that we developed “contactless” delivery where someone in a mask rushes up to your door and leaves a non-descript package in front of it before texting you to get you to open the door (yes, how things have changed!).

This week we’d like to dive into some industry data from the annual “Industry Outlook Report” that is published every year by Logistics Management and Modern Materials Handling. It’s a comprehensive survey of decision makers with purchasing authority for materiel handling solutions, and it’s often a useful way to validate some of the trends and challenges we see in our own client base as well as learn about others that may have been out of our purview.

Last week we continued our drill-down into the common challenges facing manufacturers and distribution businesses by focusing on Inventory (See “Four Inventory Management Challenges for 2020”). This week we’re going to dig down another level within the Inventory space by looking at it through the lens of the Six Sigma’s “Eight Forms of Waste”. Since we like to keep things to a short read of 5-7 minutes, we’ll focus on three of them today specifically in how they relate to the challenges of Inventory management.