Maine Pointe In The News

Originally posted in Supply Chain Dive

Everyone’s heard the sad tale of someone who left their car unlocked with the key in the ignition just to run into the store "for a minute." When he or she comes out, either the car or its contents —or both — were gone.

The same thing happens in cargo trucks, even when the vehicle is locked.

Originally posted in Chief Executive

Hundreds of challenges face American CEOs every day, but the most pressing challenge is the one that is least talked about and most misunderstood. This crisis is in a chronic shortage of long-haul truck and rail transportation which is already pushing up costs, and resulting in uncertain delivery times, shrinking margins, and profit warnings.

Originally posted in Supply Chain Management Review

Supply chains, like the products that pass through them, are subject to stress. Those internal stress points can be identified, re-evaluated and repaired.

A standard practice in engineering and product design is stress-testing. Commonly thought of as an engineering process for determining whether a particular product will hold up under extreme usage, it seeks to answer the question, “How harshly can consumers treat this product before it breaks?” But stress testing isn’t just for hard goods, the practice is also used to test the limits of processes and procedures and is especially useful in procurement, logistics and operations. Operational processes can break just as easily as a plastic toy on Christmas morning.

Originally posted in Supply Chain World

Know where you are today. Know where you need to be.

A recent research paper from the Global Supply Chain Institute (GSCI) found that increasing complexity across the supply chain and cost-savings fatigue is driving the need for a new approach to achieving competitive advantage. Supply chains that are not adopting this new approach risk being left by the wayside as new technologies and more collaborative ways of working come to the forefront. The question for supply chain leaders is this: How well is your end-to-end supply chain truly positioned to adapt to new technologies and capitalize on growth opportunities?