Alexandra Blake

Velva Residents React to Dot's Pretzels Plant Closure

Hold a town hall within 14 days to map the impact and set priorities for families, workers, and small businesses. Velva saw the plant shutter this month, affecting roughly 180 workers and more than a dozen suppliers, and the closure puts pressure on retail, food service, and transit vendors that rely on regular orders. The goal is to capture needs clearly, then translate them into concrete steps for the months ahead. Through listening sessions, residents describe what comes next for the modern building that housed Dot's Pretzels. Some want a community bakery or snack-focused facility, others prefer a small-scale makerspace to reuse equipment already acquired by the company. images from the

Don't Miss Tomorrow's Supply Chain Industry News — Your Essential Daily Brief

Start your day with this briefing to catch tomorrow's updates before markets open. The consequences of delays show up in the amount of backlogged orders across manufacturing, and thats why a concise read matters. López notes that government policies and railroad operations shape timelines for aerospace and supply chains. Look for concrete figures on inventory levels, lead times, and costs. The report estimates a 4–6 day variation in cross-border shipments and a 2–3% uptick in freight rates for sensitive components. Across railroad corridors, congestion adds days to delivery windows, and key countries will shift to multi-sourcing strategies to reduce risk. In aerospace and manufacturing, a

How the Pandemic Drove Retailers to On-Demand Warehousing

Start by partnering with on-demand warehousing providers to secure flexible fulfilment capacity in the west, and expand into other areas as demand is growing. This lets you maintain service during lockdowns and scale short-term without a contract. Align this setup with fast pick workflows to improve the customer experience. Map your product demand across regions to identify the areas with the strongest growth and the most needed stock coverage. On-demand spaces allow you to add capacity where you need it most, without tying up capital and staff time. Use marketing messaging that communicates fast delivery and inventory visibility to customers, building trust even when stores are disrupted.

Don't Miss Tomorrow's Supply Chain News - Key Trends, Updates & Insights

Subscribe today to receive tomorrow's supply chain updates directly in your inbox and stay ahead of current claims, as our daily media signals show what matters for ambitious brands. In tomorrow's issue, the following trends drive decisions: a 17% rise in nearshoring among ambitious brands, a 9-day shortening of average supplier lead times, and a 22% jump in on-time delivery rating across top channels. digital platforms enable real-time tracking and faster exception handling, so you can adjust routes and inventory in minutes. What this means for your organizational resilience and margin follows, explains jennifer from our analytics team. She notes that updating supplier risk registers,

Jonathan Johnson's Publication - Latest News, Articles, and Contributions

Subscribe now to Jonathan Johnson's publication to implement three concrete steps this week. This resource tracks technology and beauty trends in retail, which helps you plan your strategy and apply insights to your business today. jonathan, as chief editor, has created a framework that keeps his team focused and the content actionable, so you keep momentum with real-world tasks. This approach has been tested in multiple markets and built for teams that want results. Over the years, the publication has built a library of data-driven stories, with each piece backed by practical examples. An accompanying infographic breaks complex market shifts into clear actions for a retailer's product

Don't Miss Tomorrow's Supply Chain News - Essential Updates for Industry Leaders

Audit your supplier network today and implement a 30-day risk review for all distributors and vendors. Map every touchpoint, including raw-material suppliers and logistics partners, and assign a risk score to each node. This concrete action creates an optimal , tailored resilience plan that reduces delays and stockouts. Establish some standardized metrics and alert rules: on-time delivery rate, order cycle times, and storing efficiency. Build a central dashboard that surfaces changes across those managing small distributors and vendors in a complex cross-border network, enabling teams to react in minutes rather than hours. According to mckevitt benchmarks, storing capacity and buffer

What Are The New Changes? Key Updates Explained

Begin with a quick audit of dimensioning data and packaging costs to identify the top flags of expensive shipments, and apply changes automatically for multiple items in future orders. This initial review pinpoints where to focus and speeds up the next steps in the process. You’ll see instant gains when you map the structure of current shipments and highlight where dimensioning accuracy affects cost. Key updates include changes to dimensioning rules, new packaging guidelines, and improved shipment planning. In practice, these changes mean you can automatically adjust packaging for many items per shipment, reduce oversized crates, and gain clearer visibility across shipments. A well-defined

Five Ways Industrial AI will Boost Safety and Sustainability in 2025

Launch a 90-day pilot to install AI-powered detection on high-risk lines and measure impact on incidents and energy use, then scale what works. This concrete action converts early results into faster decisions and builds cross-functional support among employees and managers, enabling them to become more confident in acting on alerts. This effort will help safety programs become more reliable. Way 1: Real-time detection and smarter inspections AI streams monitor equipment and worker zones, flagging deviations before they turn into injuries. They support supervisors with actionable guidance during inspections, and this data-driven insight allows teams to help act quickly on alerts. By

Supply Chain Issues - How Home Furnishings Retailers Adapt to Disruption

Recommendation: Source more locally and raise safety stock to blunt disruption in supply chains. In this article, california-based retailers can cut lead times by 4–6 weeks by shifting 20–40% of core components to domestic suppliers, reducing sailings and port delays for outdoor lines and bestsellers. Maintain regional buffers and align replenishment with seasonal demand signals to keep shelves full during peak periods. Demand now leans toward quick availability and flexible formats. Inflation tightens budgets, so offer value bundles, multi-pack options, and modular sets that can be reconfigured as households evolve. Some customers prefer entry-level pieces with durable finishes; others

Haribo Expands Wisconsin Warehouse, Nearly Tripling Space - Supply Chain and Jobs Impact

Recommendation: Complete the 36-foot buildout at the Wisconsin facility to increase capacity and meet rising demands , so america's gummi factory can keep pace with customers and production schedules. This targeted upgrade prioritizes throughput, quality control, and safety in a single, visible step. The expansion nearly triples the interior footprint, moving from roughly 750,000 square feet to about 2.1 million. A phased buildout and construction plan reorganizes the layout to optimize the flow from raw gummi intake to final packaging, with dedicated zones for inbound materials, processing, and finished goods. This is the first-ever major expansion for Haribo in Wisconsin, signaling a

From Sales to Supply Chain - How CRM Streamlines Supply Chain Management

Use a single CRM to align sales with supply chain as your core action today. Consolidate orders, forecasts, and inventory in one platform to deliver a renewal of data flow that supports a data-driven view and turns offers into precise replenishment decisions, ensuring stock and item availability. Between teams, the CRM serves as a real-time lens on stock by products and by product lines, exposing gaps and opportunities. This look reveals data-driven decisions that balance demand with production schedules, improve coordination, and shorten cycles for coming orders. Configure alerts that trigger procurement actions when stock falls below threshold, or when a promotion shifts demand; link

Surging Hospital Energy Costs - Practical Ways to Stabilize Spending

Recommendation: Create a center-led energy program that consolidates procurement, monitoring, and optimization, targeting a yearly savings range of 12–18% by standardizing equipment, upgrading controls, and shifting facility practice. Investments into modernization drive results: upgrade HVAC with optimization controls, install LED lighting, improve insulation, and implement smart meters. Expect energy-use reductions of 15–25% after retrofits in a typical hospital, with payback within 3–5 years and value realized through center gains across campuses, enabling ongoing optimization across operations. To translate that into consistent results, optimize processes at the center of operations: