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KSU’s SCM research gets grant from National Science Foundation
Kansas State University is a comprehensive, research, land-grant institution serving students and the people of Kansas, the nation, and the world. Since its founding in 1863, the university has evolved into a modern institution of higher education, committed to quality programs, and responsive to a rapidly changing world and the aspirations of an increasingly diverse society.
At present, the university is conducting a research project involving supply chain management and the project has been awarded a $225,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. The project is entitled “Collaborative Research on Studies of Multichannel Opaque Service Enterprises.”
George Cai, assistant professor of management, has focused the research on the travel industry when using online retail outlets such as Priceline.com. This research focuses on building mathematical models to help suppliers and retailers determine pricing, channel distribution and revenue management.
A second part of the grant, totaling $225,000, has been given to Cai’s research partner, Xiuli Chao, professor of industrial and operations engineering at the University of Michigan.
The grant is unique and novel in the sense that rarely a college of business administration gets funded by the National Science Foundation.
Subscribe to the comments for this postSCOPE West elaborates on best supply chain practices
SCOPE West, a conference and exposition for senior logistics and supply chain executives focused on supply chain best practices during its two-day event. The event saw presenters from leading manufacturers, retailers, and distributors who spoke about supply chain challenges they had faced and how they overcame them.
Some of the main excerpts from the conference include:
H.J. Heinz Co. has developed a performance management program that links quality control practices like Lean and Six Sigma with best practices in manufacturing, supply chain management, and customer service. The worldwide initiative uses a formal communication methodology that’s customizable for different languages and cultures.
Lennox International, a manufacturer of heating and cooling systems, dealt with highly seasonal demand by using software to analyze the impact of inventory availability on customer service. The company achieved its goal of providing specified service levels at the lowest inventory cost, optimized by SKU for individual service locations.
To encourage continuous improvement, manufacturing conglomerate United Technologies has developed the “Achieving Competitive Excellence” (ACE) program, which certifies and rewards its own business units and its suppliers for excellence in service, supply chain management, and more. The company estimates that ACE adds more than $2 billion annually to its bottom line.
TMW Systems expands its fuel SCM applications
TMW Systems Inc., is one of the largest developer and integrator of customer-driven solutions that help companies in the transportation services while improving profitability and gaining a better return on information. TMW customers include 3PLs and shippers, private and for-hire trucking, brokerage, construction, ready-mix concrete, municipal fleet, heavy-duty repair and waste management operations.
Now, TMW Systems, has announced a growing portfolio of fuel supply chain management applications designed to meet the unique needs of fuel supply chain operations for convenience stores and other retail gasoline and diesel outlets. The fuel supply chain applications from TMW manage more than 11,000 tanker trucks delivering fuel across North America.
TMW Fuel Supply Chain Transport Management System now offers eight powerful modules that can be purchased separately or as an integrated system which will serve the needs of diversified petroleum marketers, convenience store chains, vertically integrated oil companies and fleets dedicated to fuel transport.
“We brought TMW’s enterprise-class asset utilization technologies and their proven efficiencies to this high-touch, high-value service industry with several new applications designed to streamline fuel order management, improve order and replenishment forecasting and optimize driver shift-based scheduling for added productivity,” David Mook, COO and CTO of TMW Systems, said. “We knew that petroleum marketers and jobbers as well as oil companies could really benefit from these smart, cost-effective applications to manage inventory at dozens or even thousands of locations and to efficiently manage company trucks or contracted carriers in fulfilling orders in the very dynamic world of retail fuel supply.”
ELSC offers two prestigious awards to Safexpress
The Express, Logistics and Supply Chain Conclave 2009, held on 17-18th September at Taj Lands End in Mumbai has honored Safexpress with two highly prestigious Awards for the ‘Best Supply Chain Company of the year’ and the ‘Best Logistics Provider of the year’.
These Awards were decided on the basis of a Research conducted by A.C. Nielsen and were put forth to the ELSC Advisory Council comprising luminaries from Top Supply Chain & Logistics companies across Asia, who eventually chose the winners from the nominated finalists on the basis of specific performance parameters.
This prestigious event of the Supply Chain & Logistics industry in India aims to bring together all the top Industry Leaders at a common meeting point so that they can share their knowledge about the emerging trends in the Asian Supply Chain, issues that are affecting the industry and understanding the Supply Chain opportunities and efficiencies at the time of Global Economic slowdown.
Speaking on this occasion, Mr. Vineet Kanaujia, GM – Marketing, Safexpress, who was also awarded with the ‘professional of the year award, said, “It’s a matter of immense pride and honor for us to have received these Awards. We are working very hard to provide the best Supply Chain practices to our esteemed customers who have shown their loyalty towards our services over the last decade. Our company has built and nurtured customers’ trust as well as loyalty through its customized solutions and dedicated services. The business model of the company and the way it operates is what distinguishes Safexpress from its competitors.”
Mr. Kanaujia explained the journey of the success of Safexpress saying, “Our strategy for growth revolves around adding maximum value to its customers at every level, right from providing world-class Warehousing support to managing Time-definite Express Deliveries. Over the years, Safexpress has been relentlessly working towards carving its own niche in the Supply Chain & Logistic space, which has made the company stand out in a league of its own”.
The 2009 Annual Scientific Meeting will be held in Toronto
The U.S. Pharmacopeial (USP) is holding its 2009 Annual Scientific Meeting (ASM) in Toronto, Canada, from September 22 to 25. The meeting will deal in important issues relating to the quality of food and drugs, global supply chain management, the challenges of creating follow-on biologics and nanotechnology for drug delivery. With an involvement of more than 200 experts from all over the world, this scientific involvement will focus on such topics as the special challenges posed by biologic products, bioterrorism and advanced techniques for detecting protein, among many others.
“We have a strong international roster of top scientific and regulatory experts in pharmaceuticals, food, biotechnology and measurement,” said Roger L. Williams, M.D., chief executive officer of USP. “Navigating the complexities of global supply chain management, quality of food ingredients and understanding how measurement science can be utilized are key to ensuring the quality and safety of the world’s medicines and food ingredients. I’m looking forward to a rigorous and forward-moving discussion.”
Current economic times are facing a lot of challenges in quality of drugs and foods which need to be addressed urgently, viz. melamine in food products, adulterated heparin, and diethylene glycol in cough syrups and toothpaste –and so on. As such this year’s ASM is especially timely and critical.
A special pre-ASM session will be held on Tuesday on Adulteration and Contamination: Technologies of the Future. This will emphasize on the importance of emerging technologies in protecting the global supply of food and drugs. Speakers include Steve Choquette from the National Institute of Standards and Technology on spectral identification, which allow more precise identification of substandard materials; David Hale from the National Institutes of Health/National Library of Medicine on advanced imaging/high resolution photography; and Anthony Zook from Merck & Company on advanced detection of suspected counterfeit drugs.
SAP AG honored with the 2009 F&S Global SCM Product Quality Leadership of the Year Award
SAP AG, the market leader in the SCM market, has been honored with the 2009 Frost & Sullivan Global Supply Chain Management (SCM) Product Quality Leadership of the Year Award for zeal in superior product quality and meeting the supply chain requirements of all types of businesses. Due to its commitment to customer satisfaction, its SCM customer base has increased by 8 percent from 2007 to 2008.
Be it the field of automotive, or aerospace and defense, chemicals, consumer products, hi-tech, telecommunications, logistics, or oil and gas, SAP(R) Supply Chain Management (SAP SCM) application, provides the organizations with the unique ability to perform essential business processes with modular software that is designed to work with other SAP and non-SAP software.
Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Archana Rajagopalan.says, “With companies increasingly focusing on making their supply chain lean, SAP AG is found to reduce the inventory levels effectively by 10.0 to 70.0 percent. With a 30 percent increase in the forecasting accuracy observed by customers, SAP SCM is found to offer return on investment (ROI) within six months of its implementation even as SAP SCM implementation has been observed to enable 99 percent inventory accuracy.”
“SAP enables improved cash flow for its clients since lower inventory levels directly translate to reduced overall logistics cost,” adds Rajagopalan. “Its solutions also support higher margins for clients.”
Other outstanding services from SAP include SAP(R) Enterprise Support services, SAP(R) MaxAttention(TM) support, SAP(R) Safeguarding services, the SAP(R) Solution Manager application management solution and SAP(R) Test Data Migration Server software.
“SAP is honored to receive this award, and believes that it is a testament to our long history in the supply chain space and our continued effort to deliver innovation to our customers ever evolving supply networks,” says Lori Mitchell-Keller, Senior Vice President, Suite Solution Management at SAP. “As a core application solution of SAP Business Suite, we believe that SAP SCM enables companies with fluctuating demand or high product complexity to sense and respond faster and smarter to demand and supply dynamics across a diverse global network”.
Frost & Sullivan Best Practices Awards are awarded to companies in a variety of regional and global markets for their performance and achievement in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and strategic product development. Performance are measured and compared through in-depth interviews, analysis, and extensive secondary research in order to identify best practices in the industry.
A study on Success and Sustainability in the Supply Chain
According a report from BPM Forum and E2open released on July 20, nearly two-thirds of the supply chain and operations professionals have marginal or no visibility across all tiers and levels of their supply chain. In addition 78% of companies feel that the synergy and accountability in their global trading network is suboptimal.
The report which was titled as “Acceleration of ECO-Operation: Achieving Success & Sustainability in the Supply Chain,” surveyed more than 125 supply chain, operations, finance and executive professionals around the world to measure and quantify just how companies are managing the complexities of supply chain demands, distribution costs and environmental concerns.
The study which was conducted in Q2 2009 scrutinized the various tiers of supply and demand chain networks to find out their progress in achieving ECO-Operation, or optimal visibility, collaboration, and sustainability.
He study revealed that the major reason of companies not achieving their bottom line benefits was lack of leadership, visibility and standardized sustainability metrics. 42% of companies do not consider their carbon and energy footprint as including their entire extended supply chain, and only 55% say their customers would agree. More than half of respondents say that their competitors use green or ECO-Operation practices for competitive advantage. An overwhelming 85% of respondents say they are actively involved in new programs that drive operational efficiency, CSR and cost-savings across supply and demand chains.
“Unifying and controlling complex, globally-distributed value networks in turbulent, unpredictable times requires real-time operational insights down to the product level, accurate sourcing and sell-through intelligence, and relentless dedication to eliminating waste in all areas of the go-to-market process,” said Donovan Neale-May, executive director of the BPM Forum.
A new clinical supply solution launched by MHS
A new solution that ensures better control over clinical supply process, thus reducing clinical supply costs has been launched by Management Health Solutions, Inc. (MHS), the leading provider of clinical supply chain solutions. The solution named as Optimal Inventory Control™ (OptIC™) Solution is a flexible, three-step solution that identifies areas of weakness and utilizes best inventory management practices to improve clinical supply chain.
MHS manages inventory by counting clinical supplies and analyzing clinical supply data, thus eliminating excess and obsolete inventory positions. Inventory data is cleansed and maintained by ISO-certified content management experts to ensure clinical inventory data is reliable and drives smart decisions.
OptIC™ is especially helpful in hospitals’ inventory management as it reduces hospitals’ inventory investments, costs and supply spending, apart from better utilization of existing IT investments and ensuring safety by elimination of expired products.
Bill Zierolf, President and CEO of MHS said, “OptIC is the only existing service that meets the demands of strained health systems that are trying to succeed in a constantly changing environment. Other services rely on expensive materials management software which is dependent on proper data entry or standard inventory management strategies which don’t take into account the problems specific to stocking clinical items. OptIC is driven by the clinical inventory that is on your hospital’s shelves so Materials Management and Finance can be sure that they are working with the best strategies and most accurate figures.”
Management Health Solutions, Inc. (MHS) is one of the leading providers of clinical inventory valuation, inventory management, data cleansing and data maintenance solutions to many of the largest health systems in North America.
AIAG introduces new standard for automotive Supply Chain
A new ISO technical specification for the automotive supply chain has been announced by the AIAG (Automotive Industry Action Group) which has been developed by the IATF (International Automotive Task Force). The IATF targets at providing quality products to automotive customers across the world and is an ad hoc group of automotive manufacturers, including BMW Group, Chrysler, Daimler AG, Fiat Group Automobiles, Ford Motor Company, General Motors (including Opel Vauxhall), PSA Peugeot-Citroen, Renault, Volkswagen AG, and their respective trade associations.
This ISO/TS 16949:2009 standard, in conjunction with ISO 9001:2008, defines the quality-management–system requirements for the design and development, production, and, when relevant, installation and service of automotive-related products. This is useful in the places which manufacture customer-specified parts for production and/or service. This new technical standard can be accessed in electronic formats from the AIAG website and is also available in hard copy.
However, nothing new and no changes have been made in the revised ISO/TS 16949:2009 from ISO/TS 16949:2002. This is just an update made to the ISO 9001:2008 standard and changes which have been made to ISO 9001 were in order to provide better clarity, greater consistency, resolution of perceived ambiguities, and improved compatibility with ISO 14001, which relates to environmental management systems.
2009 Logistics Best Practices Gold Award to Kimberly-Clark Corp.
Kimberly-Clark Corporation, the customer of PINC Solutions, the leading innovator in real-time visibility enabled supply chain management solutions, has been awarded the 2009 Logistics Best Practices Gold Award for the company’s yard management project using a system provided by PINC.
“K-C transformed managing semi-trailers and yard jockey services at a 1,200-acre site with manual processes from a labor intensive, inefficient and costly process using paper logs, old data, unknown asset locations and lack of actionable information into a modern, Web-based management process to achieve real-time asset visibility and significant cost savings,” the judges of the award commented.
Michelle Kiang, Vice President of Marketing of PINC Solutions, said, “We are very excited to see Kimberly-Clark being honored for its achievement in using technology to improve operational efficiencies,” “By working in partnership with our customers, we have developed a unique technology platform that has proven to help the users improve their supply chain visibility and optimize their yard and transportation operations. Our customers see immediate returns on their investment by reducing costs and improving productivity.”
PINC is headquartered in Berkeley, California, and was named among the 2009 top 100 technology solution and service providers by both Inbound Logistics and Supply and Demand Chain Executive Magazines.