Maine Pointe In The News

Originally posted in Supply Chain World

Steven Bowen has been involved in consulting for most of his career. Fifteen years ago, while serving as president and CEO of Alaris Consulting, an Illinois-based firm that specializes in strategic sourcing and logistics, Bowen began to formulate the idea that would lead him to start his own consulting business. He realized that no one had properly addressed the end-to-end supply chain from an implementation perspective in a way that also valued doing the right thing, even when no one was looking.

In founding Maine Pointe, Bowen had an opportunity to build a firm based on his own operational values. The Boston-based company focuses on helping clients solve end-to-end supply chain challenges for procurement, logistics and operations using data analytics and supporting technologies. “I see that as one of the biggest bottlenecks every company faces,” says Bowen, Maine Pointe’s chairman.

Originally posted in Supply Chain Dive

Dive Brief:

• CarrierLists just updated its ongoing electronic logging device (ELD) compliance rate survey, finding compliance rates rose 10 percentage points to 92% this week, as the April 1 enforcement deadline looms.
• Long haul vans, reefers and flatbeds are currently in the high 90s, while short haul and small fleets are in the mid 80s.
• The reason for tracking compliance, according to CarrierLists, is because drivers who have not implemented the ELD by April 1 will experience a 10-hour service outage penalty and could face further penalties if they still refuse to comply.

Consumers shun auto dealers, gas stations, department stores

Retail sales dipped 1% in February according to the latest Census Bureau data, due to a lack of consumer spending particularly at auto dealers, gas stations and department stores.

While the numbers aren't necessarily a cause for doomsday predictions for retail, we do know that department stores have been lagging and failing for some time now, so a dip in department store spending is not unexpected.

Originally posted in EBN

CEOs know they need to respond to disruptive technologies to remain competitive. What’s necessary is a pragmatic step-by-step way forward.

What’s all the fuss about?

Warren Buffett promoted the term “economic moat.” This relates to a company’s ability to maintain an advantage over its competitors (through process, technology innovation, and intellectual property) in order to protect its long-term profits and market share. With data analytics, big data, the Internet of Things (IoT), the smart factory, machine learning, predictive maintenance, and blockchain all turning from vision to reality, your competitors are building their ‘moats’ now.