The processes and tools that help us achieve our goals in supply chain management are ever changing. As processes and technologies evolve, the roles and responsibilities for you, the practitioner, evolve as well.

Long lead times frustrate buyers, jeopardize service levels, and in the end, steal profits. For inventory professionals in hardgoods industries, the lead-time component can be known as the sleeper component, the missing component, and often the killer component.

David Berman is a hedge-fund manager who CNN says is like a “patient predator.” He watches retail inventories with the focus of a hungry jaguar. Specifically, he watches for retailers whose inventories are growing faster than sales. Inventory, Mr. Berman says, is a little-known leading indicator of the rising or falling value of retail stocks. [...]

*Gartner, Inc. recently released the 2014 Magic Quadrant Report for Supply Chain Planning System of Record (SCP SOR). You can access a copy of the research here. In addition to Gartner’s view of the competing players in the supply chain planning software market, the recently released Supply Chain Planning Magic Quadrant report includes interesting observations [...]

By: Elit Rowland, Editor of Better Wholesaling (with contributions from Blue Ridge CEO Greg White)

By: Dan Raftery, Frozen and Refrigerated Buyer Magazine (with contributions from Blue Ridge CEO Greg White)

Written by: Greg White, CEO of Blue Ridge. Published by: Inbound Logistics Magazine

By: Abbigail Kriebs, Associate Editor of Industrial Distribution

As shoppers prepare for the holidays, demand forecasters, inventory planners and replenishment buyers are hard at work anticipating what the rest of us will buy and when. Some items are obvious and easy to predict. Others take even the pros by surprise. It’s a safe bet that grocers will sell more turkeys in the weeks [...]

Do you want to improve the accuracy of your demand forecasts for inventory planning? If so, you’re likely to achieve solid results with one or both of these approaches: Explore better forecasting methods. Make your forecast errors easier to manage. This article focuses on ways to make forecast errors easier to manage. We’ll share important [...]