APICS e-News

JD.com is partnering with Thai retailer Central Group to expand the Chinese e-commerce giant’s presence in Southeast Asia.......Read More

As part of a reinvigorated corporate social responsibility effort, Aldi is requiring its Australian suppliers to participate in ethical sourcing and auditing programs. These new requirements are part of a wider five-year plan that aims to elevate the image of Aldi beyond a discount retailer and also includes store updates, local sourcing and a new private label strategy, according to The Australian. ......Read More

A new study by Navigant has discovered that U.S. hospitals are each spending approximately $10 million more than they need to on their supply chains. Navigant’s study of 2,300 U.S. hospitals found that these providers could reduce their annual supply budgets by a total of $23 billion, which reflects a savings of 18 percent, Healthcare Finance reports. ......Read More

In the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma, communities in Texas and Florida are in need of goods, including bottled water, generators, wallboard and plywood. As a result, demands for trucking services to deliver these goods have increased, CBS reports.......Read More

Just days after the announcement of the iPhone X, analysts already are expecting Apple to have trouble meeting demand for the mobile device. Some predictions suggest that consumers may have to wait up to six months to receive their new phones, Fast Company reports. ......Read More

Flytrex has launched commercial operations in Reykjavik, Iceland, to offer on-demand drone delivery services. The Tel Aviv-based drone company will coordinate deliveries for online marketplace Aha, according to Bloomberg.......Read More

After a weeklong closure in response to Hurricane Harvey, the Port of Houston resumed operations on Friday. Officials there reported no evidence of flooding on terminals and no visible damage to equipment, according to The Wall Street Journal.......Read More

Several food manufacturers and retailers, including Walmart, are joining forces with IBM to set up blockchains to track their supply chains. The use of a digital ledger would help improve the traceability of ingredients and products, Fortune reports.......Read More

The Singapore government is setting up the Supply Chain & Logistics Innovation Playground (SCLIP) to encourage innovation. As part of this initiative, two government agencies, Spring Singapore and Workforce Singapore, are dedicating $2.8 million to help support startups and small and medium-sized enterprises in the supply chain and logistics field, according to the Straits Times.......Read More

Last Monday Amazon completed its acquisition of Whole Foods Market. Following the $13.7 billion deal, which was officially announced in June, the Seattle-based e-commerce giant rolled out plans to enhance the natural products retailer, Thrillist reports.......Read More

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba announced plans to open a car vending machine later this year in China in response to online car shopping trends. Yu Wei, general manager of the automotive division of Alibaba’s Tmall e-commerce site, told Alizila, Alibaba’s news service, that the new model will make car buying “as easy as buying a can of Coke.”......Read More

Turkey’s Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci announced plans for a new land-and-sea trade route from Turkey to Qatar through Iran that will significantly reduce the time and cost of trade in the region, The Peninsula reports.......Read More

The large waves of migrants moving to Europe throughout the past year have increased the continent’s risk of slavery and forced labor. In the first seven months of 2017 alone, 100,000 migrants entered Europe by sea, affecting the labor supply chains of three-quarters of European Union countries, according to The Guardian. ......Read More

In preparation for the upcoming solar eclipse in the U.S., several states are encouraging adjusted freight schedules to alleviate and avoid the expected additional highway traffic from astronomy aficionados, Transport Topics reports. ......Read More

Agriculture firm Yara International and high-tech systems company Kongsberg Gruppen are partnering to create the first autonomous ship. The electric vessel, named the Yara Birkeland, is expected to change the seaborne trade industry, according to The Wall Street Journal. ......Read More

The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association announced an initiative to digitally map the country’s entire garment industry in an effort to stop abuses and bring transparency to the supply chain. Upon completion, the publicly available online map will include “credible, comprehensive and accurate” data from factories across Bangladesh, Saudi Gazette reports.......Read More

A newer division of Samsung is entering the U.S. pharmaceutical space with the launch of its rheumatoid arthritis biologic drug Renflexis this week. Samsung Bioepis, the conglomerate’s five-year-old biotechnology company, focuses on creating biosimilars, or less costly near-replicas of brand-name biologic drugs, according to The Wall Street Journal.......Read More

Kenilworth, New Jersey-based Merck & Co. reported last week that it still is recovering from the effects of international computer network virus NotPetya, which originally was thought to be the Petya virus. NotPetya, which supposedly originated in Ukraine from a Russian cyberattack, caused a manufacturing shutdown at the company, Reuters reports. ......Read More

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, delivery firms added 4,200 new jobs in June, continuing a three-month growth streak. As a result, overall employment in the U.S. delivery sector has reached 666,500 jobs, the highest point since the December 2016 holiday season. Although e-commerce only accounted for 8.5 percent of U.S. retail sales during the first quarter of 2017, online sales are growing faster than overall consumer spending, The Wall Street Journal reports.......Read More

Walmart is cracking down on supply chain inefficiencies in an effort to cut costs and better compete with Amazon. The low-price retail giant is rolling out an “On-Time, In-Full” program that aims to add $1 billion in revenue by improving in-store product availability, Bloomberg reports. ......Read More