China’s Loss is Mexico’s Gain As more and more manufacturers consider moving or spreading out their supply chain risks from China to other locations, Mexico is one country who’s gaining from this exodus from Chinese manufacturing. Namely, Laredo, a city of 250,000 people is experiencing a boom in trade as manufacturers move some operations to…
Manufacturing Contracted End of 2022 Now that 2022 is in the rearview mirror, here’s another reason to be glad we’ve closed the door on 2022, December metrics say the manufacturing industry contracted rapidly due to weak demand from clients. Let’s hope 2023 gets a little rosier. Dell Moving Chip Production Outside of China In a…
Behind Amazon’s Optimized Packaging Strategy As the world’s biggest e-commerce retailer on the planet, whether you love them or hate them, there’s a lot you can learn from Amazon. With the vast amount of packages Amazon ships out, they also need to take into account the environmental impact of all that cardboard. How does Amazon…
Increasing Drug Manufacturing Operating Capacity If there’s one thing we learned from 2022, over-reliance on overseas suppliers or having all your eggs in one basket exposed how vulnerable many supply chains were. One industry set up to ramp up local operating capacity is drug manufacturing. As many American drug manufacturing facilities are only operating at…
How SME’s Can Help Build Supply Chain Resilience Small and midsize companies are important to supply chains, government and industry should help them upgrade their technology to make supply chains more efficient and resilient. Key takeaways: The obstacles that could make this difficult: Canada’s Ambition to Be a Part of EV Supply Chain
How to Minimize Price Increases Unless you’re Walmart, most businesses wouldn’t be able to tell their suppliers to “just don’t raise prices”. So, what can you do? Here’s a few tips for minimizing those sneaky and not-so sneaky price increases for your products. A Penny for Your Copper? Apparently copper was feeling left out of…
The UK: “Does Anyone Have Eggs? Asking for a Friend. “ Grocers in the UK are limiting egg sales per customer due to supply issues for eggs. Egg producers have been facing issues such as: How the Semiconductor Industry is Building Supply Chain Resilience The last few years have exposed a lot of vulnerabilities in…
A David & Goliath Shipping Story We’ve already seen how shipping companies have jacked up shipping rates to skyhigh rates. Here’s a story of a modest sized importer, OJ Commerce, going up against a shipping giant, Hamburg Süd, (a subsidiary of Maersk). Retailers Are Confident Xmas is a Go With the last few year’s supply…
Nike Feels Squeeze by Strong Dollar Companies that make sales internationally but have a base currency of USD usually don’t like to see too strong a US dollar. As the US dollar is currently so strong, it’s hitting the bottom line of companies such as Nike. Lumber Prices Come Back Down to Earth During the…
UPS and Fedex Raise Rates Despite evidence of slowing shipping demand, UPS and Fedex announced they will raise rates by about 6.9%. That doesn’t include other potential additional increases in shipping costs. Seems like another gut-punch to shippers. Saffron Made in Texas Iran is the world’s largest producer of Saffron, one of the world’s most…