Welcome back to another edition of Whitepaper Wednesday here on the Purchasing Certification Blog. Today, I\u2019ll be reviewing a whitepaper entitled \u201cInventory in Motion \u2014 A Direct Alternative to Global Fulfillment\u201d from UPS Supply Chain Solutions.<\/p>\n
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While the whitepaper serves somewhat as a marketing piece for UPS \u2013 and I typically do not review marketing-style whitepapers \u2013 I thought that this whitepaper had a few good nuggets of advice and UPS\u2019 value proposition actually sounds quite good (at least on paper or pixels).<\/p>\n
The entire focus of this whitepaper is on eliminating the points at which inventory is stopped to be stored or redirected. While UPS uses the terminology \u201cdirect-to-store\u201d to describe the perfect path for goods, it could have easily been described as \u201cdirect-to-final-destination\u201d as the methods do not have to be restricted to just the retail supply chain. I see many supply chain leaders struggling with initiatives to reduce the number of distribution centers and simplify their distribution networks, so any advice on this topic is welcome.<\/p>\n
As is commonly noted in the field and is noted in this whitepaper, leveraging supply chain technology to identify and react to demand patterns in real-time is critical. Visibility into what-is-needed-where is a prerequisite to moving towards a direct-to-final-destination goods movement model \u2013 a model that is being driven by an increase in global sourcing (at least in total over the past decade and not so much in the past year) and the fact that \u201cpowerful retailers and other end customers with clout are starting to push value-added supply chain responsibilities further up the supply chain. More customers are asking manufacturers or third-party logistics providers to label and prepare individual items so the products are ready to go straight to store shelves.\u201d<\/p>\n
One thing in particular that I really liked about this whitepaper was that it gave criteria for identifying the most appropriate goods to move to a direct-to-final-destination model. These criteria included:<\/p>\n
The whitepaper goes on to cover the risks and rewards of implementing a direct-to-final-destination approach before ending with UPS\u2019 sales pitch. However, these excerpts from the sales pitch make me feel that UPS\u2019 services are worth considering alongside your other alternatives, such as doing everything in-house:<\/p>\n
Of course, nothing in a whitepaper can ever replace solid due diligence on your part. So whether or not you\u2019re looking to outsource part of the logistics, you should be thinking about ways to simplify the path of goods through your supply chain. This whitepaper can help you get in this mindset. And there is no registration required, so I recommend that you download it from UPS Supply Chain Solutions\u2019 Web site.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Welcome back to another edition of Whitepaper Wednesday here on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":3992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-procurement"],"yoast_head":"\n