According to Andreas Hermann, head of freighters for the aircraft manufacturer Airbus, the economic recovery is spurring additional need for more passenger and cargo aircraft, which he expects to drive a need for the aircraft manufacturing industry over the next two decades. Though the recovery and growth is slow, it is there. Airbus is a…
Profit margins are shrinking, and companies are running out of ways to cut costs to make up the difference. There’s little to be done about the costs of raw materials and goods, and production costs have been slashed as much as possible through automation systems. Inventories can’t be cut much more, as most companies are…
Is the retail giant losing customer sales? Or maybe they’re just cutting back on general merchandise orders to make room for holiday items? Perhaps they simply lack the staff to get all the inventory out of the back storage room and onto the floors and shelves? Whatever the reason, the fact is Wal-Mart has sent…
When the Rust Belt in Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, and other northern, heavily unionized states began to decline and lose jobs to non-unionized right to work states in the south, such as Tennessee, Texas, Mississippi, and Alabama, many blamed the unions. Even as automakers struggled financially, unions hurt their chances of survival…
The chief executive officer of luxury automotive manufacturer Bentley Motors, Dr. Wolfgang Schreiber, has spoken publically about the country’s lack of basic supplier infrastructure when it comes to supplying needed parts for automakers. According to Schreiber, the country’s government is doing a good thing by providing £1 for the into low-carbon engines for their automotive makers, but…
The government shutdown, combined with new acts of terrorism along the Suez canal, and the normal incidents of piracy combine to complicate shipping endeavors worldwide. According to sources at the Port of Savannah, where all eleven Suez shipping services call upon for shipments to the eastern coast of the United States, 6,000 of the approximate…
According to Joachim Grieg & Co., just as the widened Panama Canal increases vessel capacity and reduces the number of vessels needed to transport liquid petroleum gasses from the United States to Asia, ship builders are flooding the market with new ships. Together, the situations could lead to the eventual collapse of the shipping industry’s…
Package engineering has long been the least glamorous element of manufacturing. It isn’t as snazzy as marketing, is less glorious than production, and not seemingly as challenging as transportation. But package engineering is emerging as a sought after degree in business schools, and the impacts of smart package design go beyond purely functional, playing into…
According to the American Trucking Association, truck freight rose slightly (1.4 percent) during the month of August. This comes on the heels of a slight downturn in July (0.6 percent), but is the third month within the past four months that freight rose, which is a positive indicator.
The global package delivery giant UPS has concluded a survey of European online shoppers, and the results may be interesting to online retailers all over the world. As more consumers are willing to shop online, and fewer depend solely on brick and mortar stores for their businesses, it is important to know what online shoppers…