reduced our shipping [costs] to customer sites by two-thirds,”
reports Leonard Fabian, Promega’s supply chain manager.
Not all RFID users have had positive experiences with the technology. Nearly half of all RFID users in our survey— 47 percent—
said they had run into problems with the tags. When asked about
the reasons for their difficulty, 36 percent cited signal disruptions
due to interference. Another 26 percent reported having “
integration issues,” and 19 percent said they had experienced a “high unit
failure rate.”
Others complained about the technology’s expense. “There’s a
short lifespan before an upgrade,” said one respondent, “and then
there’s the high cost of deployment.”
In fact, cost appeared to be a sore point with many respondents.
When asked whether they considered RFID to be a justifiable
expense for logistics and distribution operations at this time, 68
percent of all survey respondents said no. Though tag costs have
dropped in recent years, it’s clear that RFID has a ways to go before
respondents see it as affordable. As one reader wrote, the technology right now is still “cost prohibitive.”
—James Cooke
accolades
Crowning achievement. The Chicago
Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and
Design has presented Crown Equipment
Corp. with a Good Design Award for one of its
forklift trucks. The Crown GPC 3000 Series
order picker was recognized for its superior
operator comfort and visibility, as well as its
contribution to warehouse efficiency.
LA woman. Geraldine Knatz, the first female executive director
of the Port of Los Angeles, has been honored as one of the city’s
most influential female business leaders by the National
Association of Women Business Owners – LA. Knatz, who facilitated the first joint meeting of the leaders of the ports of Los Angeles
and Long Beach to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, received the
organization’s Leadership Award.
Wham, bam, thank you, Sam. Sam’s Club has presented
Distribution Technology with a Third-Party Distribution Center of
the Year award. Distribution Technology is a regional full-service
logistics and management company based in Charlotte, N.C. This
is the fifth award the company has received from Sam’s Club.
Lowe’s knows. Home improvement retailer Lowe’s has named
Southeastern Freight Lines its Platinum Carrier of the Year.
Southeastern, a regional less-than-truckload carrier, has received
this award two years in a row.
supply chain proficiency seen
as key to long-term survival
It’s long been acknowledged that logistics and supply chain competency has an impact on profitability. According to the results of the latest market
study conducted by stock research firm wRatings
Corp., it may also help to determine whether a
company survives in tumultuous economic times.
The survey was sponsored by Fortna Inc., a supply
chain consulting and systems integration company.
To conduct the annual study, wRatings
researchers identify the best-performing companies
by blending financial data from more than 1,000
consumer goods companies and retailers with
information gleaned by polling consumers about
how well vendors meet their expectations. The
analysis categorizes the consumer data by nine tactics—which include supply chain, product, and mar-keting/delivery elements—that companies use to
prevent competitors from stealing their customers
(and by extension, their profits). Then wRatings
ranks companies by combining those competitive
scores with the companies’ profit histories. The
winners are deemed not only most competitive but
also most durable—those that are likely to be here
in the long run.
The Quarter 1, 2009 list looks very different from
the list compiled just a year ago. Turnover in the top
20 rankings is 75 percent for retailers and 55 percent for consumer goods companies. Top competitors in the first quarter, say researchers, are likely to
come out of the recession stronger and with their
customer bases largely intact, thanks in part to real-time access to supply chain data that allows them
to respond swiftly to changes in consumer
demand. Among the companies wRatings cites as
using supply chain management strategies to help
them thrive and survive in a tough economy are
Kimberly-Clark, Timberland, and PepsiCo.
A summary of the results, including lists of the top
20 retailers and consumer goods companies, is available at www.fortna.com or www.wRatings.com.
—Toby Gooley
oversight
The article “Mexico ... for a change” (March 2009)
incorrectly stated the nationality of Gene Sevilla-Sacasa, vice president and managing director of
Ryder Latin America. He is a native of Nicaragua.
