All Inventory management articles – Page 19
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Q&A: Srini Muthusrinivasan
What is meant by this term ‘the autonomous supply chain’?The word autonomous has got very prevalent today in the industry. [To understand] the idea of the autonomous supply chain, you’ve got to go back to the history of how we went all the way from the industrial revolution to the ...
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Taking the ‘E’ out of ETA
Traditionally, OEMs and vehicle-carriers have never been able to be 100% accurate about vehicle delivery times in the information they provide to dealerships, and dealers have often disregarded the information as a result. As one of the participants in a Q&A session at a recent Finished Vehicle Logistics conference observed: ...
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The future of logistics?
A manufacturing plant in Pittsburgh with an urgent requirement to send a pallet of freight to Chicago has few attractive options, as there is currently no direct highway route between the two. But if the visionaries at Virgin Hyperloop One have their way, that will soon change. By loading the ...
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A crisis in human capital
As the automotive logistics sector continues to automate and let technology take the lead, there are some important human factors to resolve if such plans are to succeed – as delegates at this year’s Automotive Logistics Global conference in Detroit found out While the US car market may be ...
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Michael Druml takes on purchasing role at Magna
Michael Druml (pictured) has taken over as vice-president of purchasing for Magna International Europe replacing Klaus Iffland, who has retired from the company.Druml will continue to work as director of purchasing and logistics at Magna Steyr, the company division which provides contract manufacturing and engineering services. Here he oversees purchasing, ...
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From the industry
Driving predictive maintenance
Gefco’s SYNCHRO hub is using connected technology and AI to optimise service parts inventory and distribution, writes Karen McCandless
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Article
Dana McBrien takes lead role at AutoSphere
Dana McBrien (pictured) has moved from his role as associate chief advisor at Honda North America to become ‘guiding architect’ for AutoSphere, a digital supply chain system (previously referred to as the Automotive Supply Chain Data Ecosystem) developed by US information technology and packaging specialist, Surgere.McBrien worked for Honda for ...
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Article
Honda’s Celaya plant out of action until mid-November
Damage caused by the flooding of Honda’s car assembly and engine plant in Celaya, Mexico, which happened at the end of June this year, has forced the carmaker to suspend production there until November. The company said that expert teams had completed an investigation of the damage to the tooling ...
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Article
BLG expands US services for Mercedes-Benz
BLG Logistics is expanding its core operations in the US, where it acts as a supplier for Mercedes-Benz.The company is making its largest investment ever outside Germany at its US base in Vance, Alabama, where a total of $7.1m is being spent on setting up an automated small-parts warehouse for ...
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Article
A rising tide – with political undercurrents
Mexican production and exports continued to grow through 2017, both to the US and globally. At the same time, US sales remained strong and were fed by an increase in imports from established and emerging markets. It is only in Canada that both sales and assembly are showing a decline. ...
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Seeking to harmonise supply and demand
In May, supply chain specialist Kinaxis announced that Volvo Cars had chosen its software for work on volume forecasting and production planning. According to Kinaxis, the Swedish carmaker will use its RapidResponse software to model the impact of rising production volumes, as well as other ‘what-if?’ scenarios. Accurate forecasting will ...
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Article
When will services be back on track?
The state of the rail freight service in the US has been a leading topic of conversation for several months within vehicle supply chains, with discussions still ongoing between OEMs and rail providers. Questions around the availability of capacity and transit delays that have disrupted the timing of finished vehicle ...
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BCA signs record five-year deal with BMW
BCA Marketplace has agreed a five-year contract with BMW UK to provide a range of remarketing services.The agreement will see the used vehicle group de-fleet, refurbish, inspect and collect, inventory manage and remarket on behalf of the carmaker and its leasing business, Alphabet. The value of the deal has not ...
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Brexit’s unaccustomed burdens
Nine months before the UK’s planned departure from the European Union, uncertainty over customs arrangements is emerging as one of the major concerns of manufacturers – perhaps just as much, if not more so, than the prospect of tariffs and taxes. The risks and impacts from delays in logistics flows ...
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Digitalising the automotive supply chain
Digitalisation of the automotive industry is a topic that has been high up on most OEM and tier one supplier agendas for some time. However, the digital age is transforming at such breakneck speed that there is the continual fear of being left behind, or even worse, of deciding on ...
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Keeping up with the pace of change
The automotive industry used to be thought of as slow moving. Until fairly recently, it was not much of a stretch to say that the motor car, for all its improvements in safety and technology, had not fundamentally changed in a century. Vintage car owners could easily point to hundreds ...
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Driving value into the supply chain
Better communication is needed in the automotive supply chain, including between OEMs, suppliers, logistics providers and IT experts providing digital supply chain services. Digital technology has a lot of answers for an industry that is making strides in addressing the needs of modern manufacturing and the changing face of mobility, ...
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Daimler Trucks opens ninth parts centre in North America
Daimler Trucks North America (DTNA) has inaugurated its ninth parts distribution centre (PDC) in Grimes, Iowa, with the aim of providing a faster next-day delivery service for the aftermarket and a stronger focus on the customer.“With the opening of the PDC in Iowa, 80% of dealer order volume in the ...
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Sweet home Alabama
One of the most popular songs about the US state of Alabama, ‘Sweet Home Alabama’, opens with the line “Big wheels keep on turning” – and indeed the number doing so is set to grow after the January announcement that a $1.6 billion Toyota-Mazda joint-venture manufacturing plant is scheduled to ...
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MBUSI: In a state of contentment
Why has Alabama become such a mecca for automotive manufacturing?I think there are a number of reasons. You have seen the automotive industry continue to push further south into areas where there is a good workforce available. You have infrastructure that is available. The supplier network has continued to migrate ...