We’ve arrived at 2017. Though I don’t recall seeing any technological predictions anchored on this particular year, we can look at what we’re supposed to be working toward with respect to the predictions for 2020 and what has come to light last year. From that perspective, you can see that warehousing tech is a really…
Here is what we know: At most companies, products reach customers through a very standardized process that looks like this: If no disruption occurs, the gap between supply and demand is minimal and everything goes well. It works in theory, but if you’ve worked in the supply chain long enough, you already know it often…
For smaller warehouse facilities, the word “automation” conjures visions of massive machinery projects, huge capital expenses, and radical business process overhauls. However, automation can, and often does, start on a much smaller scale. Automation can start from something as simple as using spreadsheets to track inventory, personnel, or shipments. However, as a facility begins to…
Hurricane Matthew was battering the southeastern United States coastline as I wrote this, causing shoreline wind damage, inland flooding, and evacuations. This happened after the storm crossed the Atlantic and caused death and destruction in Haiti and other Caribbean islands. Even the Orlando theme parks were closed, signifying the intensity and danger of the storm.…
While ecommerce continues to grow among business-to-business (B2B) companies, an important gap still needs to be filled: mobile. According to Forrester, almost half of B2B companies are currently operating without a mobile strategy, and only 18% are able to support a mobile buying experience with their current technology systems. As electronic suppliers become more digitally…
Electronics counterfeiting is gaining attention as evidenced by the recent IEEE International Symposium on Hardware Oriented Security & Trust (HOST). More than 250 industry and academic leaders attended the conference to address the growing threat that counterfeit devices are posing to the security of the electronics supply chain. Inadvertent use of recycled, refurbished, or re-marked…
Right around its 25th birthday, America II decided to start to move away from its roots in independent distribution to focus on making a place for itself in the franchised electronics distribution landscape. Brian Ellison “We realized that, although we've been on the independent distribution side of the business, we needed to have a broader…
Technology is not a silver bullet to bring down every business problem.Instead, process drives cost savings and technology enables better processes. The two cannot be separated. Process and procedure produce the benefit; whereas, technology provides the capability to not only deploy such a process, but also to establish processes in the form of a system…
Electronics distributors have been eying the e-commerce giant for a while, especially as the company launched is business-to-business (B2B) push last year. This week, the company announced strong financial earnings, a sign that says that the company's big strategies may be working. It's a little hard for the human mind to get around Amazon's identity.…
The faster the better is the overriding value in design these days. To support this, Arrow Electronics and Cadence Design Systems have developed a collaboration to bring integrated design tools to design engineers. The goal is to help design engineers accelerate the pace of new product development and get products to market faster and cheaper.…