Transportation TIP List: Week of January 10th, 2016

Transportation TIP List: Week of January 10th, 2016

Happy New Year! We’re picking up our weekly TIP List by ringing in 2016 with a number of promising industry trends, including an uptick in the economy and surges in demand. But no matter what happens this New Year, our resolution is to keep bringing you all of the latest and greatest supply chain and transportation stories. Read on to find out what the first few weeks of 2016 have brought the transportation industry!

• Demand Surges in Final Week of 2015: Load-to-truck ratios surged last week, as year-end demand and ongoing bad weather faced off against a relative shortage of trucks between two holidays. The calendar was a big factor, as shippers tried to push freight out the door before the end of the fiscal year or quarter.

• Blockchain Technology Will Make Its Debut in Supply Chain Management: Blockchain technology, what makes the digital currency bitcoin work, will make its debut in supply chain management next year. A new collaborative effort organized by The Linux Foundation is currently advancing the popular technology.

• Let’s Define Eco-design Before it Defines Us: Eco-design has become a buzzword du jour among many of the groups looking to ensure a sustainable packaging value chain. But there’s another, much different role of eco-design – to ensure that packaging delivers maximum product value with minimum economic, environmental and social waste.

• Five Supply Chain Resolutions for an Agile 2016: 2015 saw countless hurricanes, disasters and delays. 2016 is set to be just as, if not more, hectic. Take some time now to think about where your supply chain could have improved over 2015. If you could go back and change a few things, what would they be?

• Using Modeling and Analytics to Design a Resilient Supply Chain: Supply chain optimization is a widespread term, but did you know that an optimized supply chain is not necessarily a resilient one? Supply chain resiliency focuses on designing your business to quickly bounce back from disruptions.

• Online Surge Leads to Many Not-So-Happy Returns for Retailers: A surge in online sales this holiday season is boosting expenses for some retailers as more shoppers return merchandise purchased with the click of a mouse. Consumers are expected to return $62 billion in goods bought between November and December, up 8 percent from the same period last year.

• Consumer Comfort Rises as Americans Turn More Upbeat on Economy: Consumer confidence in the U.S. climbed to a 12-week high, boosted by improving household attitudes about the state of the economy. The Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index rose to 44.2 in the week ended January 3, up from 43.6 in the prior period.

What do you think will be some transportation industry highs in 2016?