CHECKINGIN
Vol. 45, No. 1 January 2025 THE MAGAZINE FOR DEMAND-DRIVEN ENTERPRISES www.inboundlogistics.com
Supply Chain Trump Cards?
STAFF
Keith G. Biondo publisher@inboundlogistics.com Felecia J. Stratton editor@inboundlogistics.com Katrina C. Arabe karabe@inboundlogistics.com
PUBLISHER
O ver the summer, I wrote that 2025 would be a growth year. Those of you who read those same tea leaves and prepared to maximize growth got a head start over those who leaned into the gloom. But we have more work to do. Enterprise planning recently has been wrapped around supply chain disruption, with good reason, and many are well along the mitigation continuum. But a strong growth curve in your business portends a different,
EDITOR
SENIOR EDITOR
DIRECTOR OF STRATEGIC CONTENT
Amy Roach amy.roach@thomasnet.com
June Allan Corrigan Merrill Douglas • Tom Gresham Karen M. Kroll • David Levine
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Keith Biondo, Publisher
slower form of disruption—access to the workers you need to better match demand to supply and avail your enterprise of all that growth potential. Father Time is not your friend here. Many skilled operational and strategy co-workers are aging out. Competition for replacements needed to keep operations owing and to leverage growth—sans disruption—is erce. Some readers are using a few supply chain trump cards to jiu-jitsu that challenge into opportunity: Don’t tread water. Dive all the way into the labor pool with apprenticeships, align with two-year schools, give business brie ngs in local high schools and make your case in the media your target consumes. Use AI. Become AI-literate to optimize your labor pool, from front-line team members to top management. Why? Top management needs to understand what AI may or may not be able to accomplish from a strategic perspective. Operational team members need to be conversant in basic AI awareness. An AI-literate workforce is a competitive advantage. Use drones. Your customers want speed, accuracy, and lower costs. Automation—robotics, whether stationery, mobile, or humanoid—will help you manage the workforce skills and growth you need to deliver. But unless you have the deep pockets of Amazon or Walmart, prohibitive automation costs put that option out of reach for many. Warehouse/DC drones are a cheaper choice and can be implemented more quickly. Here’s data from one implementation: • Labor optimized as automated inventory scanning and bin checks free workers for other tasks. • Increased SKU visibility for better inventory control and strategic planning. • On-time, in-full deliveries performance increased, consistently hitting 95%. • Inventory accuracy moved to 99.8%, minimizing stock-outs and write-offs. Whatever 2025 brings, these actions better match demand to supply and will get you the mojo to leverage every growth opportunity.
Jeof Vita jvita@inboundlogistics.com
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Arlene So Piper Lyman
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Carolyn Smolin
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Inbound Logistics supports sustainable best practices. Our mission is rooted in helping companies match demand to supply, eliminating waste from the supply chain. This magazine is printed on paper sourced from fast growth renewable timber.
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10 Inbound Logistics • January 2025
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