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For Chiquita Brands, moving 60 million boxes of pineapples and bananas from Central America to U.S. grocers each year is the easy part. The challenge is making sure its refrigerated ships and containers don't return without a payload.
The lenses and camera bags it sells come from far-away lands, but Ritz Camera has a surprisingly detailed grasp of their whereabouts while in transit. Its secret? A really competent 3PL.
The value of supply chain visibility goes beyond customer satisfaction, as important as that may be. It also enables managers to shift their inventory and transportation modes if needed to respond to changing circumstances.
America's sclerotic transportation network is already creating delays and backups during peak shipping periods. So what will happen when the rising tide of low-cost Asian imports hits our shores?
Sure they're cheaper than you are, capable of working 24/7 and getting smarter all the time. But there's no need to dust off your resume. "Intelligent" software programs still have a long way to go.
Transportation management systems first hit the market in the early 1980s. Though the early versions may seem primitive today, they literally transformed many a logistics operation.
The first time someone mentioned the Traveling Salesman Problem to me, I figured it had something to do with those ribald jokes I used to hear when I was young.