Monthly Archives: June 2016

How will blockchains impact supply chains ?

An article in the Wall Street Journal titled “Toyota Unit Joins R3 Blockchain group” (June 23, 2016) describes Toyota’s plan for use of blockchain, an online distributed ledger technology, for non-monetary transactions. The article claims that blockchains can track auto … Continue reading

Posted in Collaboration, consumer, Cost, disruption, emb2021, Global Contexts, logistics, manufacturer, Supply Chain Issues, technology, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | 15 Comments

Alternate Future Scenarios for US trucking

An article in FleetOwner.com by Sean Kilcarr titled “Logistics outlook:last mile a major Choke Point” on June 22, 2016 describes four technology adoption scenarios outlined in the State of the Logistics report for 2016.  The technologies listed include the internet … Continue reading

Posted in Capacity, competitiveness, Cost, delivery, logistics, Prices, productivity, technology, truck, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 24 Comments

The rising role of Supply Chain Finance

An article in the Harvard Business Review by Rogers et al (“The Rise of FinTech in Supply Chains, June 22, 2016) describes the increased role of payments processing across a supply chain. They describe the flexibility for suppliers to access … Continue reading

Posted in competitiveness, Cost, delivery, ordering, Prices, Supply Chain Issues, technology, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

The productivity benefits from Amazon ‘s Kiva robots

An article in Quartz (http://qz.com/709541/amazon-is-just-beginning-to-use-robots-in-its-warehouses-and-theyre-already-making-a-huge-difference/) claims that the “click to ship” time at Amazon has decreased from 60-75 minutes with human operators to 15 minutes using Kiva robots. In addition, with robots, warehouse inventory can increase by 50%, thus decreasing … Continue reading

Posted in competitiveness, consumer, Cost, Ecommerce, logistics, Operations Management, productivity, Service Operations, technology, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | 161 Comments

Shopping cart robots at Walmart ?

An article in the website geek.com (http://www.geek.com/news/walmart-is-turning-its-shopping-carts-into-robots-that-follow-you-1658786/) describes a partnership between Walmart and Five element Robotics to assist Walmart shoppers using a personal robot. The goal is to have the robot gather things in the shopper’s shopping list and freeing … Continue reading

Posted in competitiveness, consumer, Cost, Ecommerce, logistics, Operations Management, productivity, Service Operations, technology, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment