Logistics

The world's biggest container line, A.P. Moller-Maersk, this morning booked a sharp decline in profit, indicating the recent spike in transport prices caused by the collapse of rival Hanjin shipping was more a blip than a boom.

Based on recent OSHA data, severe workplace injuries happen every day, but a new OSHA study projects that more than 50% of severe work-related injuries in 2015 went unreported. In an effort to increase reporting and thereby reduce accidents, OSHA has issued new guidelines and a 400% increase in the maximum fine for failing to report work-related severe injuries.

For over 40 years, ICC Logistics in Hicksville, NY has been helping shippers lower their freight bills and more. “Transportation and logistics costs are not fixed costs, they are variable,” observes Tony Nuzio, CEO and company founder. To help you vary your costs downward, Nuzio shares 7 tactics that have worked consistently for his clients.

In their 2016 Logistics Trend Radar, gGlobal logistics company DHL has identified 3 megatrends that are shaping the future of the transportation industry.

The technology that manages our supply chains, delivers our packages and powers logistics analytics is changing at a stunning rate. From drones to wearables, transportation management systems (TMS) to dashboards, it can be challenging for companies to stay on top of what is available and find meaningful ways to incorporate it into their shipping process.

Minimizing the costs of doing business can be tricky and time-consuming, so an increasing number of companies are looking to group purchasing organizations (GPOs) to help them save money.

The transportation and logistics vendor landscape is highly fragmented, due largely to the numerous moving parts it takes to get a manufacturer’s product from concept design through production and all the way to the end-user’s hands.

Today, nearly every company has a chief procurement officer (CPO) leading a sourcing team in search of annual cost reductions. Over time, however, this laser focus on prices and costs has driven a commoditization of offerings that has limited competition among suppliers merely to the best price for a given specification.

There’s quite a political donnybrook going on in Michigan right now, as business leaders froth at the crumbling condition of the state’s roads, while politicians scramble to finger new funding sources after voters in early May solidly rejected the idea of boosting sales taxes to pay for the repairs. But some experts—in particular Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter, who wrote the book, Move: Putting America’s Infrastructure Back in the Lead—believe other states and cities easily could find themselves in the same place.

CEOs need to merge their disparate IT systems to keep growing—but must do so carefully. The cloud can help.