Transportation TIP List: Week of October 2nd, 2016

As we flip the calendar from September to October, Major League Baseball transitions to its postseason with the first pitch of the wild card games this week. And like the pressures and challenges of playoff baseball, there is certainly pressure when it comes to guiding shippers through an ever-evolving transportation industry. This week’s TIP List takes a closer look at a number of key aspects in the future of the supply chain.

• Omni-Channel’s Ripple Effect on Transportation: For retailers, direct-to-consumer fulfillment is causing purpose-built store replenishment DCs some frustration. These “omni-channel” behaviors have changed demand patterns and affected transportation.

• The Future of Trucking: Digital Transformation or All Hype: While the trucking industry outlook remains bright, it (like many other logistics modes) seems to be at the beginning of a period of digital disruption.

• Logistics Hotspots: Nine That Shine: As U.S. manufacturers continue to expand their operations, they often look for cities that have either recently emerged as logistics and distribution center hubs, or are about to, such as Columbus, Eastern Pennsylvania and Greenville-Spartanburg.

• A Smart Supply Chain Starts With Smart People: The supply chain industry is currently lacking key talent, and with a growing interest in implementing IoT and big data initiatives, a certain skill set must be cultivated within an organization’s workforce.

• Logistics Providers Challenged to Guide Shippers Through Rapid Change: Logistics has changed drastically, and so too has the relationship between shippers and 3PLs. Shippers are increasingly turning to 3PLs to help manage massive amounts of supply chain data.

• Number of Female Truckers Slides as Woman Face Industry Hurdles: As industries go, oil and gas extraction, ship and boat building and crop production are pretty macho. But not as much as trucking, which has a lower percentage of women in the workforce.

• Forecasters: Trucking’s Autonomous Revolution is Nigh, and it May be Prickly: ransportation forecasters and top brass at truck OEs sent a message to the trucking industry in recent weeks: Autonomous trucking is coming, and its revolution will likely have a greater impact on the industry than deregulation of the early 1980s.

What is the “wild card” of industry trends that you’re keeping an eye on this week?