Jan 1, 2009 12:00 PM

In today's marketplace, “those involved in logistics face a variety of challenges because business operating environments are in a constant state of flux,” said Greg Aimi director of supply chain research for AMR research, a company that provides research and advisory services for supply chain and IT executives.

During a recent Transplace sponsored event, Aimi, along with representatives from Transplace, Del Monte, and RockTenn, focused on achieving supply chain excellence by delivering lower costs, better service, greater inventory velocity, and higher capital utilization.

Aimi said chief among the factors impacting the supply chain are:

• Demand-driven orientation transforms value chain performance.

• Customer preference proliferates product options.

• Leaning out the supply chain pushes change from the enterprise to the network.

• Ubiquitous communication enables globalization.

• Globalization introduces extreme variability in the total cost to serve.

• Economic and geo-political factors cause more variability.

• Sustainability pressures introduce new variables.

Transplace is a non-asset based third-party logistics (3PL) provider offering a blend of logistics technology and transportation management services.