The Latest News and Opinions on Supply Chain Horizontal Collaboration...

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Clearly collaboration within the supply chain is a greener approach, as well as more cost effective for all parties, and seems to be spreading rapidly. It generally involves a pooling of resources between manufacturers or retailers, including consolidation of goods flows, sharing of transport vehicles and network capacity, sharing warehouses, etc. as well as back office processes such as finance, administration and customer service.... read more

Top 10 Supply Chain Predictions for 2011

As we move into 2011, recovery seems to be moving along at an acceptable pace as good news slightly outweighs the bad. The U.S. manufacturing trend reflects a healthy rebound in automotive and stronger exports for larger firms. If the housing and commercial real estate markets return, even modestly, manufacturing could be the catalyst for stronger economic growth in mature economies. Customer sentiment is a bit fickle, lingering around the group psychology of “it’s not getting better, but it’s not getting worse,” but with employment numbers looking better at the end of the year and a relatively strong 2010 holiday season, renewed consumer confidence could push economic growth even higher... read more

Benefits of supply chain collaboration

The European chemical industry could achieve annualized cost savings of up to 15 billion[euro], or 2% of its sales, by implementing a range of initiatives to strengthen its supply chain, according to the findings of four high-level industry working groups. The initiatives require an unprecedented level of horizontal collaboration among logistics service providers (LSP) and among chemical companies, and vertical collaboration between LSPs and chemical firms. They also necessitate changes to how the industry is operated, serviced, and regulated....read more

Horizontal supply chain collaboration: experiences from Benelux case studies

Presentation from 2009 3PL Summit by Kees Verweij from TNO