Chain Links: What We're Reading This Week
Transportation Simulation from a TMS: Is Anyone Really Using This Capability?
We have a new generation of transportation management systems (TMS) based upon more powerful in-memory technologies. This has created more advanced transportation simulation capabilities. The way it works is that a user would have dual instances of the TMS. An operational TMS would continue to plan, manage, and execute transportation moves. A simulation/test environment could take months of actual historical shipment data (forecast data can also be used), load massive amounts of data into the tool (this is truly a Big Data application), and answers the question, “What would have happened if we had done this instead of what we actually did?”
An interesting theory. But is anyone actually using these types of capabilities?
Source: Forbes
General Mills pushes ambitious environmental plan
General Mills has outlined an ambitious plan to cut carbon emissions by 28 percent over the next 10 years. But to accomplish this, they are going to need significant help from their supply chain. The cereal company says that nearly two-thirds of General Mills’ total greenhouse gas emissions occur beyond its direct operations.
Source: Fortune
Lessons from the Tappan Zee Bridge
To address congestion, New York is constructing a $4 billion replacement for the 60-year-old bridge over the Hudson River. Decades of indecision, disagreement, and delayed maintenance and repair illustrate why this and other U.S. infrastructure projects are needlessly costly and behind schedule.
Source: The Atlantic online
A smart way to fund transport programs
As Congress returns from the recess to debate a long-term highway bill, Ken Orski, one of the more insightful observers of the transport funding scene, opines on a sensible and sustainable way to go about it.
Source: infrastructure USA
North American sales of machine vision systems and components grew 16 percent to $1.2 billion in the first half of 2015, the market’s highest first half total in history, according to new statistics issued by AIA, the industry’s trade group.
Source: AIA
Costco and other warehouse clubs have transformed retail more than Amazon
The rise of e-commerce has changed Americans’ shopping routines in profound ways, but a new study in the National Bureau of Economic Research shows that the retail industry has been transformed more in the last two decades by warehouse clubs than by online shopping.
Source: The Washington Post
Detroit as Midwest logistics hub?
With the Gordie Howe International Bridge opening a new supply route across the U.S-Canadian border, and expanses of mostly vacant land sitting idle, the state of Michigan is researching a $1.6-billion plan to transform Detroit into the logistics capital of the Midwest.
Source: Detroit Free Press
Winning the struggle to attract and keep your talent
An executive of High Jump Software discusses three ways to address and overcome a widespread problem.
Source: Logistics Viewpoints
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