Helen Atkinson

In the "here today, obsolete tomorrow" world of electronics, no supply chain partner wants to get stuck with mountains of parts for yesterday's hot-selling cell phone or PC. But running a lean operation doesn't have to mean pushing your inventory problems onto someone else. Solectron found a better way.

Move over, RFID. A feisty Israeli company wants to make an information-rich little symbol called the Visidot America's identification technology of choice.

Large software vendors that once cared only about reeling in the big ones are discovering something the smaller WMS vendors have known all along: There's good fishing to be had among the small and medium-sized companies too.

And the pouches, tubes and parcels while you're at it. DHL Express wants your domestic small package business. And it's willing to spend big bucks to get it.

If you want to put satellite tracking technology to the ultimate test, what better way than to monitor four really big cannons moving more than 1,000 miles, by land, by rail and by sea?

Eerily quiet truck stops. Executives vying for the position of vice president in charge of tree planting. Retailers sharing proprietary information with third-party service providers. Cut-throat competitors shipping their products in the same truck. Welcome to the average workday of the not-so-distant future.

When half its members walked out five years ago, the Cargo 2000 initiative looked like a goner. But today it's hurtling down the runway once again.

Ready to upgrade your supply chain management software? ERP vendors are dying to sell you their new apps. But can they deliver?

If you're a manufacturer or importer, consider yourself warned. You may be at risk of being pulled over by the vendor compliance police.

For a while, FujiFilm Medical's problems finding a failsafe way to get critical X-ray equipment parts out to hospitals seemed incurable. Then it met an experienced 3PL.