Supply chain needs pros

CONCERNED by the lack of supply chain management professionals in the country, 2GO of the Aboitiz Transport System Group encouraged youth leaders to embark on a “unique” career in the supply chain business.

Belle Pacetes, 2GO training manager, revealed during the Third Aboitiz-organized Future Leaders Business Summit last Friday that the company has observed a “wide gap” in the supply chain industry caused by the lack of professionals in the business.

“There is, currently, no formal training or education (to produce) professionals. Most practitioners in the supply chain industry (acquired) their expertise from experience, training, simply being on the job (and) learning the ropes,” she said.

2GO is the supply chain solutions provider under the Aboitiz Transport System (ATS), the transport and logistics company of Aboitiz and Co. (ACO) that is owned by publicly-listed Aboitiz Equity Ventures (AEV). From the release of the goods from the manufacturer to the delivery of the products to customers nationwide, 2GO’s supply chain services include warehousing, order entry and releasing, transport planning and routing, delivery to customers nationwide, and document management, among others.

To address the high demand and help the youth develop core competencies required for the job, 2GO launched a supply chain management course with the Jose Rizal University (JRU), De la Salle College of St. Benilde (DLSU-CSB), Technological Institute of the Philippines (TIP) and the Society of Fellows in Supply Management (SOFSM).

Scholarships

2GO recently granted 15 full four-year scholarships in JRU that now offers Bachelor of Commercial Science major in Supply Management, focusing on sourcing and procurement, manning and replenishment, logistics operations, and customer service.

DLSU-CSB and TIP will offer a similar course as post-graduate studies to be launched this year.

Pacetes explained that these courses can be taken as a certificate course to be completed in two years or a full degree completed in four years.

2GO is also planning to partner with local higher education institutions, such as the University of San Carlos in Cebu City.

“Our mission is to help our customers and our country gain competitive advantage through reduced overall cost by eliminating processes and layers or middlemen,” said Pacetes.

She said that by diversifying its product offerings and getting into the supply chain business, 2GO has been able to weather the negative effects of rising fuel prices. (NRC)
Source-sunstar.com.ph

PathGuide Technologies Recognized for Innovation by Supply & Demand Chain Executive

PathGuide Technologies, a leading provider of warehouse management systems (WMS) for wholesale and industrial distributors, today announced that the company has been included on the Supply & Demand Chain Executive annual '100' list of supply chain solution providers, consultants and other organizations that help lead the way in transforming companies' supply and demand chains.

The special focus of this year's '100' was supply chain innovation.

'We're delighted to receive this recognition from Supply & Demand Chain Executive,' said Eric Allais, president and CEO of PathGuide Technologies. 'Delivering warehouse management solutions that meet each customer's unique distribution requirements, and wrapping those solutions in the industry's best dedicated service and support is our core focus. It's a pleasure to be part of the annual ‘100' ranking.'

Supply & Demand Chain Executive has identified leading providers of supply chain services and technologies who are at the forefront of innovation. Based on submissions to the '100' from end users and solution providers, the judging committee for the '100,' including editorial staff of the magazine, in conjunction with the editorial advisory board, has compiled a list of leading supply and demand chain innovators.

'Our goal with this year's ‘100' is to highlight a broad range of solutions and services targeted at a variety of industries, addressing the needs of companies of varying sizes and assisting in the transformation of a diverse mix of the functions that make up the supply chain,' explained Andrew K. Reese, editor of Supply & Demand Chain Executive. 'Therefore, our judging committee looked for solutions across a variety of industries, addressing the needs of companies of varying sizes, and assisting in the transformation of a diverse mix of the functions that make up the supply chain.'

Final recipients are featured in the cover story of the June/July issue of Supply & Demand Chain Executive, and can be found online at www.SDCExec.com/SDCE100.

About Supply & Demand Chain Executive
Supply & Demand Chain Executive is the executive's user manual for successful supply and demand chain transformation, utilizing hard-hitting analysis, viewpoints and unbiased case studies to steer executives and supply management professionals through the complicated, yet critical, world of supply and demand chain enablement to gain competitive advantage.

About PathGuide Technologies
PathGuide Technologies, Inc., a privately held company founded in 1989, is a leading provider of WMS solutions for wholesale and industrial distributors across North America. PathGuide's software and services help suppliers increase productivity and order accuracy, improve customer service and lower labor costs, ultimately driving greater profitability. To learn how distributors of all sizes can benefit from improved warehouse management, visit www.pathguide.com.
Source-pr-inside.com

Manufacturing Executives Eye Supply Chain to Drive Growth and Control Costs

Manufacturing executives plan to use supply chain as a key mechanism to improve both top- and bottom-line performance, despite challenges of the current economic environment, according to results of a recent survey prepared by management consulting firm Archstone Consulting.

Nearly three-quarters of the 265 manufacturing executives surveyed in Archstone's Manufacturing Executive Agenda for 2008 felt that the current market pressures, including sharply rising commodity prices, a sluggish economy and foreign competition, may be triggering significant transformational changes within manufacturing organizations.

"Over 80 percent of manufacturers have responded to the current economic climate by devising aggressive agendas to boost sales and cut costs," said Todd Lavieri, president and CEO of Archstone Consulting.

Two of the four most common ways that executives plan to bolster performance in 2008 depended upon the capabilities of supply chain.

"An interesting pattern emerged, in that manufacturers across the board have high expectations for their supply chains to both boost revenues and reduce costs," said John Ferreira, industrial manufacturing practice leader at Archstone Consulting.

"In the past manufacturers simply used their supply chains as a means to control costs by improving efficiencies," Ferreira continued. "Now they are using their supply chains as a mechanism to boost revenue and improve customer satisfaction through capabilities like better management of highly customized products, quicker delivery times and more integrated services."

The four executive agenda items shared by manufacturers in all industries include:

• Increasing revenue growth by leveraging supply chain capabilities to add value to products and services.
• Reducing costs with supply chain efficiency improvements.
• Improving product innovation.
• Controlling direct material costs.

Industry Trends
Archstone also identified several major industry trends in its Manufacturing Executives Agenda for 2008 surveys, including:

• Aerospace & Defense: Nearly 70 percent plan to simultaneously increase revenues and reduce costs by 3 percent or more.
• Consumer Packaged Goods: Nearly 90 percent anticipate cost reductions of 3 percent or greater. CPG executives cited managing direct material and commodity costs as the most important to achieving cost targets.
• Electrical & Electronic Equipment: Over 90 percent consider the sluggish economy to be a major constraint, and less than half expect revenue growth of 3 percent or more.
• Pharmaceuticals: Nearly 70 percent expect to reduce costs by 3 percent or higher, and 72 percent anticipate revenue growth of 3 percent or more.

Archstone Consulting launched the Manufacturing Executive Agenda for 2008 survey in April to examine which macroeconomic constraints are having the most significant impact on manufacturing executives, what cost and revenue targets have been established, and what strategies or areas of focus executives are evaluating to achieve those targets. Over 265 respondents participated in this survey.
Source-sdcexec.com

Cardinal Health steps in as Prime Therapeutics’ primary supplier

Cardinal Health Inc. has taken over as the primary pharmaceutical supplier for a Minnesota company that serves nearly 15 million people nationwide.

Dublin-based Cardinal said it struck a three-year deal with Prime Therapeutics, a St. Paul-based pharmacy benefits manager. Through the deal, terms for which the companies didn’t disclose, Cardinal will be primarily supplying two Prime facilities in Irving, Texas, and Albuquerque, N.M., that serve the company’s mail-order consumers.

Sheila Thelemann, a Prime spokeswoman, declined to dislose the name of the distributor it cut ties with, but said it made the switch to gain access to a wider range of generic pharmaceuticals and receive quicker delivery.

Prime provides pharmaceutical benefits for about 14.6 million people through Blue Cross and Blue Shield, employer, union and third-party plans. Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Ohio isn’t among Prime’s clients, Thelemann said.

Tara Schumacher, a Cardinal spokeswoman, said Prime is in line for additional supply-chain services as well. Details are still being finalized, but Schumacher said Cardinal often works with facilities such as Prime’s mail-order centers to streamline ordering and receiving processes.

“Once the medication gets through the door, we’re trying to remove as many steps as possible,” Schumacher said. “If they can be more efficient, they drive costs out.”

Cardinal Health (NYSE:CAH), the largest publicly traded corporation in the state, recorded a $1.9 billion profit on $86.9 billion in revenue in fiscal 2007 ended June 30. The company employs about 43,000 worldwide.

Prime employs about 1,600 and managed more than $8.2 billion in prescription drug spending last year. The company declined to disclose annual revenue.

Source-bizjournals.com

CDC Software's Respond Product Line Delivers First Half 2008 License Sales that Exceed all of 2007

CDC Software, a wholly-owned subsidiary of CDC Corporation and a provider of industry-specific enterprise software and services, today announced its CDC Respond product line, a suite of enterprise complaint and feedback management solutions, has demonstrated an approximate 62 percent increase in license revenue growth for the first half of 2008 compared to the same period a year earlier and a 133 percent increase in license sales for the second quarter of 2008 compared to the same quarter last year.

For the first half of 2008, 54 percent of the license revenue for CDC Respond was generated from new customers and 46 percent from existing customers. Of that license revenue, 44 percent of customers were from the financial services sector, 25 percent from the government sector with the remainder coming from the utilities and general business sectors. Over the last several quarters, CDC Respond has generated new business with both new and existing customers including: Telford & Wrekin Council and Essex County Council, both of whom are United Kingdom government organizations, United Utilities, a U.K. utility, and a leading United States-based bank, which represents a seven figure transaction and the largest CDC Respond sales deal to-date.

Since CDC Software acquired Respond Group in February 2007, several new CDC Respond products have been launched and CDC Respond has seen a rapid growth in sales. "We believe that this growth trend is primarily a result of market conditions forcing organizations to use customer retention and customer service as competitive differentiators," said James Heavey, president, CDC Respond product line, CDC Software.

"The success of CDC Respond shows there is robust opportunities in the enterprise complaints management market," according to Andy Hayler, Bloor Research. "The new products demonstrate ongoing innovation and the impressive customer case studies, including a major U.K. retail bank deployment of 32,000 licenses worldwide, suggest CDC Respond is headed for continued success."

"We are very pleased to see such strong organic growth for CDC Respond with the first half license sales for 2008 exceeding the whole year of 2007," said Bruce Cameron, executive vice president, Worldwide Sales and Marketing, CDC Software. "In a slower economy, companies are looking at innovative technology solutions such as CDC Respond to help them increase customer satisfaction and retention. We believe that CDC Respond is strategically well positioned as a leading solution provider in this space. We have and are continuing to see strong traction and our second half pipeline reflects this. We want to build on the strong momentum we generated over the last few quarters, including record license sales in the United States and United Kingdom, including a multi-million dollar transaction with a leading commercial bank in the United States."
Source-marketwatch.com

RedPrairie launches unified supply chain solution

RedPrarie has announced the release of its E2e Supply Chain Execution suite, which incorporates both RFID and automatic identification and data capture (AIDC) technologies in hopes of simplifying and unifying the supply chain process.

For the new release, RedPrairie has integrated the asset management capabilities of its stand-alone mobile resource management application into its E2e warehouse management module. The system can now support the use of RFID, two-dimensional bar codes and other AIDC technologies to track inventory and assets from distribution centers, throughout the transit process, at customer sites and within a retailer's store network.

Both serialized and non-serialized assets can be tracked at each location, and the system enables customers to track the condition and status of each asset, as well as its movement throughout the supply chain. This enables reusable assets such as freight containers to be tracked at the same time as their cargo, with the hopes of decreasing inefficiencies in the supply chain.

Other elements of the E2e Supply Chain Execution suite include transportation management and work force management. The platform is built on a service-oriented architecture framework enabling it to be operated remotely as well as run on a user's own network.
Source-rfidnews.org

Supply chain management software set to top the sales charts

Software industry experts are predicting that supply chain management software will generate a staggering £4 billion of sales by 2010, which would make it one of the world’s most widely bought global business specialist applications.

Supply chain management software has proved extremely popular over the last 30 years with businesses that operate in time and cost conscious production and distribution environments. As with most cutting-edge technologies, supply chain management software functionality has undergone exponential advances, especially in the last five years which have allowed it to keep pace with an ever-changing business world.

It is the adaptive nature of the software and its ability to drive successful businesses that will propel supply chain management software to the top of the software sales charts. At the outset, early systems focused purely on transactions, but it wasn’t until the recent advent of client server technology that supply chain management systems could be more easily understood and accepted by users.

Organisations are increasingly operating across a number of time zones on different continents, and as well as the geographical and cultural challenges faced, there is the added problem of multiple distribution channels. With greater emphasis placed on empowerment of users through access to information, supply chain executives have added pressure piled on them to ensure that they embrace globalisation, battle obsolescence and also to contain costs, in addition to their day job!

The trials and tribulations of supply chain executives make them aggressive when demanding improvements to software. They want something that can do all the above and make sure they can control inventory and suppliers, and supply chain management software companies are more than happy to oblige. They are quick to adopt new technologies in their quest for the perfect supply chain management software and have naturally embraced the web in their designs.

Indeed, the internet acts as a superb connectivity tool for supply chain management software. A whole suite of collaborative programs for the entire supply chain can be operated over the web, which impacts positively on forecasting and planning while providing a transparent view of the performance measures.

Today’s advanced systems can bring together a huge number of suppliers at the click of a mouse, using XML web services and trading portals, and have certainly come a long way from the primitive EDI systems of the 1970s. But, possibly the biggest difference between today’s successful supply chain management systems and their forerunners is the impact they have in helping workers make decisions.

That is the true value of any successful system, allowing the business to keep the supply chain in perfectly efficient working order while providing many opportunities to control increasingly diverse supplier relationships and inventory portfolios. For as long as there are companies operating in aggressively competitive markets, the future looks bright for sales of supply chain management software.

Disclaimer: Matthew Pressman writes for a wide variety of commercial clients. This article is intended for information purposes only and readers should seek additional information before taking any actions based on its content.

Source-bestsyndication.com

Where Does the U.S. Stand in the Global Market?

Customers and competitors alike used to be just a short drive away. All business was local. But the entire world has changed over the last twenty years thanks to globalization. The forest products industry is no stranger to this trend. What has taken place abroad, especially in Asia, has forever impacted the business landscape in North America. Although the furniture industry and some other large wood users have primarily moved offshore, there remain some bright spots for the future of America’s forest products industry.

Hakan Ekstrom, president of Wood Resources International LLC (WRI), agreed to discuss with the TimberLine recent developments in the global wood market. As a leading consultant and publisher of market reports, Ekstrom keeps tabs on international markets. His expertise includes on-site evaluations of forest resources, raw material flows (logs and wood chips), forest products trade, wood cost outlook (pulpwood prices and sawlog prices) and forest industry developments worldwide.

WRI has successfully completed more than 200 consulting assignments in over 35 countries. WRI publishes two quarterly timber price reports The North American Wood Fiber Review and the Wood Resource Quarterly.

Ekstrom talked about some of the most pressing issues facing the global forest products industry and shared a surprisingly optimistic view of America’s position in the market.

TimberLine: Russia has announced that it will impose stiff tariffs next year on exported logs in an effort to encourage more domestic production of finished wood products. How will this impact the global market given the vast forest reserves that Russia holds?

Ekstrom: If we assume that there won’t be any changes in the new tariffs, then there will be a lot less logs coming out of Russia. Small hardwood logs are exempt from the higher tariffs, but large Birch logs mainly going for plywood in Finland and all softwood logs will stay in Russia after January 2009.

Countries that are currently importing these logs (mainly Finland, China and Japan), have to look elsewhere for softwood logs if they want to continue to supply their industry. Indirectly this may increase competition for logs coming from other parts of the world. This will lead to higher log costs in some markets. Some businesses and even countries will have to evaluate whether or not they want to scale back production or keep current levels in place.

The Russian situation will lead to increased opportunities for raw logs coming from the United States and Canada. This trend has already started as more Hemlock on the West Coast is being sent to Korea. I believe that some companies are not waiting until January to start looking for alternative sources of material. Companies in Finland are looking at Sweden and the Baltic states for additional logs. The global flow of logs has already started to change, and we will see more of that in the near future. In the long term, we may see more countries decide to import more finished products and process fewer logs.

TimberLine: Newspapers are filled with reports about illegal logging taking place around the globe. Will efforts to encourage certification and cut down on illegal logging really make much of a difference?

Ekstrom: If we talk about Russia, which is the country that exports the most illegal logs, obviously the export tax won’t have an impact since those logs are illegal. A lot of those volumes are going to China for material that doesn’t have to be certified anyway. It will take a long time before certification will have a big impact on illegal logs from Russia.

The impact of certification on tropical wood will move a little bit faster. Most of that material or finished goods are going to Europe, and they are starting to be tougher on making sure that wood is not illegally cut and has some kind of certification stamp on it. If you are talking about tropical wood going into Japan or China, they care less about certification. Those cutting forests in Brazil or Africa may just decide to ship the material to Asia instead of Europe if they are concerned about certification. As long as you have a market for those products, it will be hard to eliminate much of the illegal logging taking place in some countries.

Then there are some countries like Malaysia that stand out as a producer of certified tropical wood. They are major exporters of tropical wood products. And they are really trying to do a good job and develop an image that they only export products that come from legal sources and have certification stamps.

TimberLine: American hardwoods have a strong reputation around the world. How will U.S. producers fare in the future? What will be the key drivers that will enable or limit success?

Ekstrom: Smaller hardwood logs in the southern U.S. are going primarily into the pulp market. That industry is pretty competitive. If you look at the cost of the raw material going into pulp mills in the South compared to the rest of the world, it looks pretty good. I believe the pulp industry in the South will remain fairly competitive, which should fuel strong demand for small hardwood logs.

Larger hardwood logs and the demand for American hardwood products will do fairly well in the future for a couple of reasons. The raw material is fairly steady. You have a good market working with lots of buyers and sellers. Right now and probably over the next 3-5 years, maybe longer, the weak U.S. dollar makes it easier for exports to compete. Over time demand for tropical wood products will decline as consumers begin to look for a stamp that indicates the wood came from a legal source and was managed in a sustainable way. Certification is something that U.S. companies can deliver on in the future.

The key thing is that the industry needs to invest and be more efficient. Companies should not try to cut back even if times are hard but rather increase investments in scanners, optimizers and other equipment to be competitive now and in the future.

TimberLine: What are major competitors around the globe to the U.S. hardwood industry when it comes to log and lumber exports? How do you think this will change in the future?

Ekstrom: On the tropical side, major competitors are Latin America, Asia and Africa. But we will assume that the supply coming from regions will decline. When you talk about temperate hardwoods, there are not that many places out there – primarily Germany and France. If you look at Russia, it has Birch, Oak and Ash that could be competitive in the future. They are not competitive now because they don’t have a working industry.

More Eucalyptus will come on the market as more sawmills figure out how to use it to produce lumber, furniture and components. Eucalyptus is fast growing and cheap. You are starting to see Eucalyptus for cabinet doors and flooring. You can stain it to make the material look like Cherry or other hardwoods. There will definitely be applications for Eucalyptus. IKEA, the furniture company, is looking into using more Eucalyptus in the future.

TimberLine: What do you see taking place right now in the low grade markets in this country? What impact will these trends have on prices?

Ekstrom: It all depends if you are a buyer or a seller. It looks pretty good if you are in the South and are a buyer of logs and lumber. Competition is not as strong for material as it was a couple of years ago. If you go back two years, you may have had competition for the same log from a sawmill, an OSB plant and pulp mill. Right now, it is mostly the pulp mills competing for the low grade material because the OSB plants and sawmills have curved production. It is always difficult to generalize for the Southern U.S. because it is such a big market. There are some places where landowners are less eager to harvest timber because they are starting to use more land for recreation and other purposes. Generally, in the South you see less pressure on the resource in 2008. Therefore, prices for logs have started to come down. However, this downward trend will change when lumber markets improve in 2009 or 2010.

On the West Coast, the market is shifting a little bit the other way. There is more pressure on the round wood resources. Sawmills have been cutting back production so there are fewer residual wood chips. Pulp mills are forced to go out and look for round wood instead of chips, which results in more competition and higher costs. This is a good thing if you are a landowner, but a bad thing if you are buying logs for pallets or other uses.

Looking ahead as long as the housing starts stay where they are and lumber production is down, I don’t see any major changes that will impact prices of logs in the U.S. market.

TimberLine: Asia is a huge consumer of the world’s wood supply. Do you believe there will be huge opportunities for American exports to continue to grow in this region?

Ekstrom: Japan is the big consumer of lumber. They are the big importers of softwood logs. There are opportunities for the U.S. to export more logs to Japan and long term to China as well. It’s just that in China they don’t build houses the same way that the Japanese do. They don’t need as much lumber. They are two very different markets.

When it comes to hardwood, there will be import opportunities of both logs and lumber because domestic consumption is rising and the manufacturing of wood products for export continues to go up because it is cheaper to do a lot of things in China than North America or Europe. Neither China nor Japan have large forest reserves so much of their raw material has to be shipped in from other parts of the world.

TimberLine: How is the rise in energy costs impacting finished good producers in Asia that have to buy raw material from other countries? Could high fuel prices cause some of those jobs to come back to North America?

Ekstrom: Even though energy costs have gone up significantly, it is still a fairly small share of the total cost of producing items, such as furniture. Their labor costs are so much lower than our costs. Higher energy costs are affecting their margins. But it will not have any major impact on the trade of logs or lumber.

A little more logs are shifting into Vietnam than China just because it is slightly cheaper to produce in Vietnam than China. But you won’t see a shift back to the U.S. again. We have to accept that Asian countries will continue to do the more labor intensive things while American companies will have to do more sophisticated things requiring automation.

TimberLine: Timber production from Latin America has boomed over the past decade. Do you believe this trend will continue? Why?

Ekstrom: Yes, they will continue to expand plantations in Brazil. They will continue to grow more on every acre five years from now than they do today. You see the same in Uruguay. This could also happen in Venezuela, Colombia, or Nicaragua. It all depends on what happens with the politics in those countries. As a continent, Latin America can certainly boost its production capacity. Trees grow faster down there than in more temperate climates, and they have a lot of land that is not used for anything.

When it comes to plantations and developing the right tree clones, Latin America countries are probably ahead of the rest of the world. If we want to learn something about fast growing Eucalyptus, we have to go down to Brazil.

Brazil has become a large producer of hardwood pulp to the world. Brazil and Uruguay have invested the most money in this technology over the past five years and have the most modern pulp mills in the world.

TimberLine: Is Latin America a major competitor for U.S. raw wood exports? Please explain the competitive tension between these two regions.

Ekstrom: No, the U.S. doesn’t really export lots of logs outside of North America. Its exports are limited to Canada, Japan, Korea and China. And in terms of lumber, a lot of that material is unique species, Doug Fir, Cedar, Oak, Beach, Red Alder, and you don’t have those species down in Brazil. What they produce down there on plantations is fast growing pine. Some markets that the South sells into with SYP may experience competition from Brazil. That is probably the only area where Brazil would compete in an export market against the U.S. sawmills.

Russia, not Latin America, is the largest exporter of raw logs around the globe.

TimberLine: Since Russia is such a big player in the export market, won’t its recent tariff decisions increase opportunities for U.S. exports?

Ekstrom: It is definitely going to change how things are done in some areas, especially Japan and China. There are not a lot of places they can go for softwood material. They can source from New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the U.S. They have to decide if they want to buy logs or lumber.

Some exporters in North America are looking into the prospects of putting lumber, logs and even wood chips into cargo containers for return trips back to Asian countries.

With favorable exchange rates, there could definitely be good opportunities for U.S. companies to export both logs and lumber to Asia. The U.S. has the resources and now a pretty competitive cost structure. Asia is where the demand is increasing for all different kind of forest products. The next step is to see if American companies can find the right distribution channels and understand the markets in Asia.

Source-timberlinemag.com