Manufacturing & Logistics IT news magazine for manufacturing supply chain, warehousing, transportation and distribution

By Johan Hellman, VP Product and Carrier, nShift.

Building brand loyalty in retail and ecommerce is getting harder. Despite spending increasing sums on discounts and promotions to entice new customers, retailers struggle with one-time purchasers and serial purchase-and-return consumers. What’s more, they must contend with rising marketing and logistics costs.

Warehouse technology provider, Synergy Logistics, has promoted Brian Kirst to Chief Commercial Officer as business continues to ramp up.

The GEP Global Supply Chain Volatility Index — the indicator tracking demand conditions, shortages, transportation costs, inventories and backlogs based on a monthly survey of 27,000 businesses — rose in April to -0.18, from -0.32 in March, which signals that global supply chains are operating at close to full capacity.

Blue Yonder has released the results of its 2024 Supply Chain Executive survey, which polled global supply chain executives on their businesses’ experiences with supply chain and logistics strategy and operations over the past year.

By Dr Jack Howley, Technology Analyst at IDTechEx.

Electrification, autonomy and vehicle ownership saturation are causing a technological revolution in the automotive sector.

By Chris Thompson, Operations Director at Electrix International.

The automotive industry's reliance on its supply chain running smoothly is important to ensure the consistent production of vehicles for consumer and corporate demand, especially considering that most vehicles can contain between 15,000 and 25,000 component parts.

By Dr Tom Mason, CEO of Bramble Energy, 

Those in the energy systems business are all too aware of the huge potential held by hydrogen fuel cells. 

Outside of fantasy novels, nobody has a crystal ball to see into the future. However, postal services and logistics companies are building digital twins to achieve just that. Powered by data-driven virtual models that can simulate real-world operations, digital twins are allowing the sector to predict the future and plan for it.

By Adam Clarke, freelance writer.

As eyewear serves multiple purposes, ranging from fashion to functionality, its global industry continues to expand rapidly. Research from Spherical Insights reveals that the global eyewear market size was valued at $146.1 billion (approximately £117 billion) in 2023 and is poised to reach $215 billion (~£172 billion) by 2033.

Manhattan Associates Inc. has announced that global energy management and industrial automation organisation, Schneider Electric has chosen Manhattan Active Warehouse Management and Manhattan Active Transportation Management to supercharge its global distribution and transportation network as part of an ongoing business-wide transformation strategy.

Businesses are independently measured on both vision and ability to execute, with Synergy’s award-winning cloud-based WMS, SnapFulfil, again placed in the 'niche' quadrant focused on solutions producing tangible feature improvements.