This is one product I do not need to post a disclaimer on. It is provided by the New York Feds! GSCPI is a composite index made up of a number of other indexes such as Purchasing Managers Index (PMI), Harpex Index, the Baltic Dry Index, and BLS (US Bureau of Labor Statistics). The detailed methodology is not explicitly published […]

Two new products that delivery the same value! Disclaimer first: I have ZERO association with either of these product vendors. Also, I’ve seen these earlier but just wanted to note it down for the blog. Be it returning a pallet or returning a container, return of a load unit is always a headache. Especially containers. A large percent of what […]

Regular disclaimer: No relationship whatsoever with the company making the product. In fact, just got a WhatsApp forward about it a little ago. You might have read that truckers get paid for driving time, and never for waiting time. And truckers spend a long time waiting to load and unload material. This, along with regulations such as hours of service […]

Google has a strong map solution. Unknown to most outside IE & IT jobs, it also has OR-Tools, with a good subset of tools for routing. Now, it has mixed these two (I guess) and has come out with Last Mile Fleet Solution on its Maps platform. Apart from driver assist and shipment tracking capabilities (easy and easy), it offers […]

As usual, disclaimer first: No association whatsoever with this product. In fact, just learned about it. I generally like indexes and databases, especially ones that have a global outlook. Here’s one that I think is very useful… Drewry World Container Index tracks composite container costs globally, along with other interesting factoids such as spot rates, BAF (Bunker Adjustment Factor) charges, […]

I am big fan of Excel, and I know it has a ton of features. I’ve been using it for more than two decades and still discover new things it can do… All backward compatiable. Such a wonderful product… This post is about a template and couple of neat little tricks you can use to save good time in your […]

Disclaimer first: No association whatsoever with this product. In fact, just learned about it. As advertised it is a pallet that can: Be tracked and traced in real time. I am assuming there is some sort of a GPS tech to geo-locate and GSM to communicate. Not sure what this will do to the overall cost as even implemented at […]

There is a Dilbert cartoon where Dogbert and PHB talks about two kinds of management problem. Dogbert says “There’s the kind you can solve by yelling and the kind you can solve by buying some sort of software”. (You can see the actual cartoon by following the link above. I wanted to buy the license to post it here, but […]

When people talk of supply chains, they typically talk about the supply chain of products that form the main business. Cars, computers et al. However, there is another parallel supply chain that runs below the radar but is much more complex and challenging. That is the supply chain that supports after-market services. A brief on the complexities involved in such […]