Last month the world briefly experienced a unique drama that involved no natural disasters, lost lives or homes or pile-ups of cars on the freeways. What got the world's attention like it never did before was a giant container ship stuck in a canal! 

While the sight of a large, fully-loaded ship sitting stationary in a canal for week did not have the "drama" of other disasters, it was a disaster in its own way - just a very slow-building one. While no property was destroyed nor lives lost, there was a significant cost to what was really a "Supply Chain Chokepoint" on a global scale.

How much did it cost? Numbers are still being crunched, but some early data points illustrate the monumental impact it had on global trade.

Where are the chokepoints in YOUR supply chain? 

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!).

Our last regular article of 2019 was about the major challenges we see coming in Manufacturing and Distribution, particularly in the food industry. This year we wanted to start with something that drills down a bit deeper into one of those challenges – Inventory Management. The good news on this topic is that most of the challenges you will have in 2020 are the same as the ones you were having in 2019. The bad news is that they are just getting harder is the speed and complexity of transportation and logistics continues to evolve, and there is one important new one.

Today we’ll cover FOUR challenges you need to be monitoring and solving for if you are not already doing so:

1. Knowing Your Inventory
2. Inefficient Processes
3. Customer Demand
4. The Coming Packaging Revolution

It’s that time of year when we are all revving up the household fib generator to ensure we preserve the mythical story of Santa for our children, as we hide presents, bake cookies, decorate, wrap presents and hide them again, customize playlists to avoid too many versions of “The Little Drummer Boy” per hour, and for some of us, start packing for the holiday visit or prepare the spare rooms when we become the destination.

RFID has found its way into nearly every industry and every part of the supply chain. But common misperceptions about its extensibility continue to persist, as imaginations for its use have not kept pace with some of the capabilities and it's steadily decreasing the cost to implement. But as the cost and variety of tags get more diverse every day, so do the potential applications.

Buried near the bottom of this year’s “The Future of Fulfillment Vision Study” from Zebra is an interesting section on the future of supply chain technologies. This week we’re going to share some of the high-level insights they shared and go a bit more in-depth on a few of them.

When it comes to the Internet of Things (IoT), it’s no secret that it has the ability to change the way we operate a lot of different things we do in this country. For example, you’ve already seen a massive change when it comes to connected homes and connected cars where both of these products are now constantly connected to the internet thus changing our experience and how we use them forever.

While those types of technologies are fun and can help the average consumer, there is a much bigger trend when it comes to IoT and the comes in the form of the supply chain. As it stands now, the IoT is setting up to completely change the supply chain forever and the results that are going to happen are quite drastic.