Director’s Blog
Biobased Economy GROWS in 2018
I am proud to announce the release of a joint study completed by me and my colleagues Jay Golden, PhD of East Carolina University and Jesse Daystar, PhD of Duke University. The study was published by the USDA’s Biopreferred program, […]
Procurement’s Role in Managing the Tariff War
The news is in – in the form of more Tweets, of course. In a series of tweets on Thursday, Trump announced another round of tariffs on the roughly $300 billion of Chinese goods that had not already been targeted by American levies. The […]
Global Sourcing and Human Rights Go Hand in Hand
Low-cost country (LCC) sourcing is now a commonplace strategy for shrinking bottom line labor and material costs in most consumer products industries, including apparel, footwear, toys, and other manufactured products. Organizations continue to scour global markets for even lower labor […]
Closed Loop Recycling Systems are Key to Sustainable Concessions for the Portland Blazers
One of the big changes occurring in the food service packaging industry is the use of biobased food containers at sports events. Stadiums are “closed loop” systems, meaning that all of the waste materials can be collected and sent to […]
Lead Logistics Provider Capabilities Will Require Customized Innovation
With the onset of cloud computing, automation, and machine learning, organizations are integrating their global supply chains, and finding themselves with more transactional data than they could have ever imagined. The question of how to convert this data to strategic […]
The expanding scope of procurement analytics: Some initial thoughts
Procurement analytics, which supports decision making in procurement management, typically handles problems and decisions that are related to cost reduction, supplier management, cost modeling, procurement-led innovation, market strategies, supply chain risk, and stakeholder value improvement (Handfield, Jeong, and Choi 2019). […]
Improving Your Manufacturing Operations Using Warehouse Automation
Today’s guest blog is written by John Hinchey, VP of Sales for Westfalia Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of logistics solutions for plants, warehouses and distribution centers. John has more than 20 years of experience in manufacturing and warehouse automation, and shares his […]
A Brief History of the Founding of the Supply Chain Resource Cooperative (SCRC)
The following is a transcript of the speech I gave to individuals who attended our SCRC 20th Anniversary Event this past April 2019. It covers a bit about what motivates our team and how this organization evolved to what it […]
Warehouses are the next HOT investment triggered by the digital transformation of the supply chain
A recent article in Bloomberg suggests that warehouses are now becoming one of the hottest investments in the market, based on recent moves by the Blackstone Group LP, who are betting $18.7 billion on the shift towards e-commerce. This is a perfect […]
The Strange Relationship Between Oil Prices, Tariffs and Biobased Innovation
Oil prices have been rather volatile as of late, and are hovering around $58/bbl, down from an average of $65/bbl in 2018. Oil prices impact a lot of things, one of which is the drive to innovate new biobased products […]