Eric Joiner's Freightdawg.com - The Logistics and Supply Chain Blog!

Nice Retail Oriented Video

The US Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration produced the following video which does a great job of describing the complexities and opportunities in international transportation. 

This is why I have spent the last 25+ years of my life in this business and why I am committed to supporting supply chain education.  The business is highly complex, yet still based on both the elements and human relationships.  It is just a great business to be in, especially if you love large toys.  

What sold me was 1000 ft container ships, 75 ton locomotives and smoky old jet airplanes. I started in the business as an intern for Delta Airlines in the late 1970's.  I spent a lot of time around DC-8's, DC-9's, 707's and a lot of smoky breakbulk oriented jets. After college, I was a trainee at US Lines and learned to be a proper steamboater there.   Like American muscle cars, heavy iron is just testosterone laden. I loved it.

Every day is different and if you love some level of chaos in your life this is a great industry to be in.

Eric

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Cyber Monday...is Really December 10th

Recently there's been a lot of activity regarding "Cyber Monday".  This is supposed to be a major on-line ordering event that would occur on Monday, November 26th.

The theory is that consumers will shop all weekend after Thanksgiving, November 22nd,  then comparison shop and buy on-line.   That's not going to happen.   Shop.org coined the phrase "Cyber Monday" and happens to own the URL "cybermonday.com".  This whole thing was a marketing ploy to get consumers to think that they "had" to order products on-line next week.   I have to give the shop.org folks credit. This thing got some traction.

Here's the Real Deal

The true measure of what's real in the United States relative to online purchasing is with the parcel carriers and the US Postal Service.  USPS, FedEx, DHL and UPS predict that December 17th through the 19th will be the highest volume shipping days.  That means that the week prior is (probably) the real cyber week.   

UPS says December 19th will be its highest volume day of the year with 5.6 million air packages moving.   

FedEx claims it will move an estimated 11.3 million packages through its air and ground networks on December 17th. 5 million of those will move through the FedEx air express network.   

DHL is also predicting Monday, December 17th as their highest volume day with a 50% increase in volume. DHL will add 425 extra flights and an additional 440 truck routes during the peak holiday season. 

The Postal Service is expecting to deliver 20 million pounds of mail to military installations around the world this holiday season. The second week of December should be the busiest week for overseas delivery. Mail to Iraq alone during this period is expected to increase more than 400 percent over the average weekly volume

I want to wish everybody who reads this blog in the United States a happy Thanksgiving holiday this Thursday. Let us pray for peace.

Eric

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Tesco Direct Chooses Manhattan

Tesco is a major convenience retailer in the UK and more recently in Southern California.   Tescodirect.com is a website operated by Tesco that allows ordering of products for home delivery in the UK.    To enable the Tescodirect.com ordering capabilities,  Tesco chose Manhattan Associates warehouse management systems to facilitate the unique order picking requirements of direct purchasing, such as picking single items.   This is not something ordinarily done in a distribution center that supports retail stores.    The video below shows how Tesco are using Manhattans tools as a case study.

The video below is embedded from www.yourtechtv.com.  I recommend signing up for this site because they have a complete supply chain management category for video.  I'm a believer in online video as an interesting and instructive communication tool.  You'll see more of these vids on Freightdawg.com in due course.   

(Note: Some corporate proxy servers ban video from some sites such as youtube.com.  If you see white space below...you may be on such a network.  Please revisit from home or a connection that does not go through your company VPN.)

 

 

Eric

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RFID: Metro Expands "Tag It Easy" Program

Metro Group, one of Europe's largest retailers and a pioneer in the use of Radio Frequency Identification tags (RFID), has expanded its RFID program to enable 30 Chinese vendors to tag products bound for Metro stores in Germany.   US RFID tag manufacturer Checkpoint Systems is partnered with Metro in the expanded program.

The article below is from RFID Journal.  You may also be interested in this earlier freightdawg article that contains an excellent video on Metros RFID program.   Metro is one of the few retailers who are making RFID a reality in their supply chain program.   

clipped from www.rfidjournal.com Metro Group Expands RFID Pilot in Asia The retailer's new "Tag It Easy" program with Checkpoint Systems will enable 30 Chinese suppliers to tag goods bound for Metro stores in Germany. By Mark Roberti May 23, 2007—Metro Group, one of world's largest retailers, is expanding its Advanced Logistics Asia RFID pilot to include several Chinese suppliers. The company has teamed with Checkpoint Systems, a Thorofare, N.J.-based provider of radio frequency identification systems, to provide RFID labels for the participating suppliers. "We have been testing RFID in our supply chain from Asia to Germany since 2006," says Gerd Wolfram, managing director of MGI Metro Group Information Technology. "We've been achieving good read rates, and everything has been working fine. So we decided to have a supplier event here in Asia and do a bigger test with more participants." Until now, Metro's Advanced Logistics Asia initiative has involved a third-party logistics provider, Fat Kee Stevedores, and a small Chinese supplier. The two companies have been applying UHF Electronic Product Code (EPC) tags to containers loaded with cartons of various goods to be exported, including pens and kitchen gadgets. At the Fat Kee facilities in China, the packages are pushed through an RFID portal. After the system reads the tags, software creates an electronic packing list, which is sent electronically to MGB Metro Group Buying HK to be checked for accuracy. The list is then used to generate an advance shipping notice (ASN), which is sent to Metro headquarters. When the goods arrive at a Metro Group distribution center in Unna, Germany, the system reads the tags and checks them automatically against the ASN. The pilot was deemed a success, so Metro Group decided to expand the system to additional suppliers in Asia. Today, Metro is holding a meeting with its Hong Kong suppliers to explain how the pilot, known as "Tag It Easy," will be run. Suppliers will be able to access a secure Metro extranet called Metro Link, which will let them view their purchase orders. Each order will have an EPC and Serial Shipping Container Code (SSCC) associated with it. Checkpoint, as the nominated third-party label supplier, will supply and give technical training to the suppliers.

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Wal*Mart Allows On-line Purchase...Store Pick Up.

How totally cool.   I can now order my gross of toilet paper on-line and go to the mega mart to pick it up.

While there are lots of places to poke holes in this new service from the Bentonville boys, It does have one major benefit. If it works, I won't have to CHECK OUT!

If I order on-line,  I am assuming I will pay on-line.  If that is the case, then I avoid Wal*Mart's major disaster area, and that is check out.  Anybody who has been to a Wal*Mart store lately will note that having enough staff at the register area is always a problem. (caveat: At least this is true in the US southeast.  I have not been to any Wal*Marts elsewhere recently.)

Wal*Marts self check out stands, which were introduced to many stores in the last 18 months, remain problematic.  I have yet to get one to work well with a multi-sack order.   Inevitably, I wind up with whomever the area supervisor is, helping me do what a Wally World associate should have been doing in the first place.  I won't put up with that.  I virtually always seek a register with a live person working the till.  Self check-outs irritate me.  I won't do it.   I tend to call Wal*Mart by a different name.

"Welcome to the Hotel California: You can check out any time you like...but you can never leave"

This concept of buying on-line without being subjected to the 1 million square foot maze that is a Wal*Mart super center...is a GOOD thing.  Wal*Mart can have my money. I'm happy to have their product. Humbly, I just want to leave.  I hate shopping...99.95 percent of men do.  We are mostly point and click folks.  Give me a way to buy my stuff on-line and then leave me with my mouse and my remote.   I can ask my bride to do the pick up. She loves Wal*Mart. 

What I don't like is being subjected to shopping there. Get me IN...get me OUT.  And heck yeah...I'd spend an additional few bucks if I knew it didn't add an additional 20 minutes to my wait in line to leave! 

I consider that money well spent ransom.

Eric

clipped from news.yahoo.com

Wal-Mart shipping Web orders to stores for free

By Nicole Maestri
Tue Mar  6,  3:42 PM ET

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said on Tuesday that it is offering free shipping on thousands of items purchased on its Web site for pick-up in more than 750 of its U.S. stores.

The program, which Wal-Mart has been testing since 2004, will be rolled out nationwide to more than 3,300 stores by late summer, and it could help bring additional sales to the retailer's stores.

Mike Smith, Walmart.com's director of store integration, said the retailer found that nearly half of the customers from the trial spent an additional $60 in its stores when they went to pick up their orders.

While some of that additional spending was on planned purchases, like groceries, Smith said, about half of it was spent on unplanned items....

Article continued on the link above.