Operations Rules News - Aggregated operations and supply chain news site

What if you could store and deliver goods as easily as data? Amazon, Walmart and others are using AI and robotics to transform everything from appliance shopping to grocery delivery. Welcome to the physical cloud.

Despite the bad publicity related to the Walmart mandate, RFID has been making inroads in the supply chain.

Campbell Soup Co. is struggling to keep things fresh. Campbell has been plagued by supply chain issues since buying Bolthouse Farms six years ago to boost its fresh foods unit and is now looking to sell off the entire fresh division. Fresh foods like carrots and refrigerated juices require supply chain capabilities that differ drastically from what Campbell built for its long-lasting canned soups and cookies businesses, and weak carrot harvests and juice recalls didn’t help Bolthouse’s sales and its relationships with retailers. Campbell’s experience highlights the critical differences in seemingly similar supply chains, where the discipline of managing processed foods doesn’t match the need for speed in fresh food.

The company is currently using analytics software to mitigate supply shortages, predict spikes in demand and bottlenecks with about 100 products related to fertility drugs. This has improved service to customer. It plans to expand the pilot program to its 5,000 products by the end of next year. Artificial intelligence is a way to augment the jobs of the company’s supply chain planners, and reduce often tedious and repetitive work.

Workshop 18 is designated by Chinese industry officials as a model demonstration facility for Beijing’s plan to upgrade its corporate champions so they can better compete in the world, a policy known as “Made in China 2025.” Engineers at the plant run by Sany Group Co. figure out how to make better products by analyzing information fed in real-time from machines operating around the world to a data center nearby. The company tracks 380,000 of its internet-connected concrete mixers, excavators and cranes, and it has collected more than 100 billion items of engineering data. Sany, one of China’s three big heavy machinery makers, said the integration of technology has increased capacity, shortened order-delivery times and slashed operational costs, all by at least 20%. The company is also betting that the technology will enable it to build a reputation for innovation and quality, rather than for lower prices for copycat products that made Sany a big player domestically.

Walmart has begun telling online shoppers that some products in its warehouses are “out of stock” after the retailer changed its e-commerce systems to avoid orders deemed too expensive to ship. The new system, introduced earlier this month, has led to a decline in sales at some companies that sell their products on walmart.com forcing suppliers to stock their products at more Walmart warehouses around the country to keep sales steady.

TradeLens is a neutral industry platform that uses blockchain technology to promote a more predictable and secure exchange of information between major industry players. That capability can break information silos, streamline business processes, and maximize asset utilization. Parties that stand to benefit from the approach include shippers, shipping lines, freight forwarders, port and terminal operators, and inland transportation and customs authorities. Those organizations can use the secure platform to exchange real-time information such as shipping data and shipping documents, including internet of things (IoT) and sensor data ranging from temperature control to container weight.

With 58% of shippers committed to their enterprise resource planning (ERP) vendors, the key players are casting an even bigger shadow on the supply chain management space.

Apple’s retail stores collect cash from customers quickly, it is ruthless on keeping inventory low, and it takes forever to pay suppliers. In the process, Apple’s operations are extremely effective cash generators. This is no coincidence. It is the result of the canny supply chain that Tim Cook built. In effect, Apple has largely been financed on the backs of its suppliers, who are willing to hold their inventory and wait more than 100 days to get paid, just for the pleasure of doing business with Apple.

Fast-fashion giant Zara is equipping its stores to also ship online purchases, betting that the move will boost sales of full-priced items that can be delivered to customers more quickly than from a warehouse. The rollout encompasses around 2,000 stores in 48 countries, including the U.S., making it one of the largest-scale attempts by an apparel company to repurpose downtown shops to help fulfill online orders.

Your suspicions are correct: The biggest companies in every field are pulling away from their peers faster than ever, sucking up the lion’s share of revenue, profits and productivity gains. New data suggests that the secret of the success of the Amazons, Googles and Facebook s of the world—not to mention the Walmart s, CVSes and UPSes before them—is how much they invest in their own technology.

A key part of a buyer’s job is to anticipate what customers will want using a well-honed sense of where fashion trends are headed. In the small but growing precincts of the industry where high-powered algorithms roam free, however, it is the machine — and not the buyer’s gut — that often anticipates what customers will want.

Scrambling to turn out its first mass-market electric car, the automaker set up multiple assembly lines and is changing production processes on the fly. Robots can do only so much: Tesla aims to hire about 400 employees a week to help accelerate Model 3 production.

Home Depot plans to add an incredible 170 distribution new facilities across the US, so that it can reach 90% of the population now in just one day or even less. The new sites will include dozens of direct fulfillment centers for next-day or same-day delivery of fast moving SKUs, as well as 100 local hubs where larger items like patio furniture and appliances will be consolidated for direct shipment to customers.

A circular supply chain, as IKEA describes it, is one where every product is designed and produced with its next-use in mind. With less than 30% of the retailer’s climate footprint stemming from Tier 1 and its own operations, the retailer looks at the way it sources and designs products.

When the supply chain goes awry, bottlenecks may develop that not only make a business operate less efficiently but can also wreak havoc on products that are particularly time-sensitive. That’s what happened at KFC, which pared back its logistics network to cut expenses and ended up leaving about two-thirds of its 900 outlets across the U.K. without chicken for several days.