There are an estimated 1 million food poisoning cases a year in the United Kingdom. It can have serious consequences, especially for children, those already in ill-health, and older people.
FSA told consumers to check the advice on packaging and follow provided instructions when cooking turkey. Before serving, it is important to use a thermometer to check foods — especially meat, fish and poultry — to make sure they have been cooked to the proper temperature to kill bacteria, viruses and parasites. Proper defrosting is also crucial for food safety.
A turkey should not be defrosted at room temperature. A large turkey weighing 6-7 kilograms could take up to four days to defrost in the fridge. In a fridge at 4 degrees Celsius (40 degrees F), allow 10 to 12 hours per kilogram. Bacteria grow at temperatures above 8 degrees Celsius and below 63 degrees Celsius (about 40 degrees F to 140 degrees F) – the “Danger Zone” for microbial growth.
Commonwealth Bank demonstrated a new blockchain platform underpinned by distributed ledger technology, smart contracts and the internet of things (IoT) to facilitate the trade experiment, tracking the shipment from packer to end delivery in parallel to existing processes.
Chris Scougall, Managing Director of Industrials and Logistics in Client Coverage, CBA said: “Our blockchain-enabled global trade platform experiment brought to life the idea of a modern global supply chain that is agile, efficient and transparent. We believe that blockchain can help our partners reduce the burden of administration on their businesses and enable them to deliver best-in-class services to their customers.”
As part of the experiment, CBA partnered with global agriculture player Olam Orchards Australia Pty Ltd, Pacific National for rail haulage, port landlord Port of Melbourne, stevedore Patrick Terminals and shipping carrier OOCL Limited.
Brexit uncertainty is causing businesses to pass the increase in costs incurred as a result of supply chain challenges on to consumers, according to new research from Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply.
Published on Supply Chain Digital | By James Henderson
Nearly a third (32%) of UK businesses with EU suppliers have already increased their prices as a result of the vote to leave the EU, while two-fifths (41%) plan to increase their prices in the future in order to offset the potential costs of Brexit.Just under a quarter (23%) of UK businesses said they plan to reduce the size of their workforce to offset Brexit-related costs, potentially leading to an increase in UK unemployment, which rose for the first time since Brexit in February 2018 to 4.4%.
Additionally, more than one in 10 (11%) EU companies have moved some of their workforce out of the UK since the Brexit vote.
With 60% UK businesses saying that currency fluctuations after the vote have made their supply chains more expensive to manage, consumers are already paying the price of EU withdrawal some twelve months ahead of official departure from the Union.
The tsunami of big data created by the Internet of Things (IoT) demands that companies employ intelligent data management techniques to separate the wheat from the chaff, or find the ‘good data’.
Posted on SupplyChain Digital | By Dan Brightmore
Adding to the fact that 90% of the world’s data has been created in the last few years alone, it’s vital that businesses grasp meaningful insight from data and analytics – but what key areas should be focusses on for best results, and how could this enhance the backbone of your company, the supply chain?
Embrace machine learning
With IoT set to exponentially increase the amount of available data as billions of devices activate and connect online, companies will need to turn to machine learning. Daniel Newman, founding partner of Futurum Research and CEO of Broadsuite Media Group, warns it will be simply too much for humans to handle alone. Machine learning can eliminate data junk and “keep data lakes clean and consistent”, even when it comes to unstructured historical data, he says.
As the digitization of supply chains becomes ever more the norm, we asked the experts how to manage big data and deliver actionable insights across all sectors
It seems now that I’ve found a correlation between Star Wars and Supply Chain, I just can’t stop myself from writing another blog on the topic.
Posted on 21st Century Supply Chain Blog By Alexa Cheater
My earlier post, May the Force Be With Your Supply Chain, explored how you can use the force (aka attunement to market fluctuations) to realize value by developing a demand-driven supply chain. In this blog, I’m going to cover another topic – why under no circumstances should you let your supply chain be like the Death Star.
That’s no moon, it’s your supply chain! While your supply chain may at times seem as large and complex as a super weapon the size of a celestial body, the one thing you don’t want them to have in common is the propensity to be brought down by one small oversight.
In the case of the original Death Star, that oversight was failing to see the risk a single X-Wing fighter could pose to their thermal exhaust shaft. Luke Skywalker was able to destroy the entire space station with a pair of well-placed proton torpedoes. While that threat likely isn’t going to strike your supply chain, what does pose a very real risk is the failure to see potential areas of weakness.
In other words, not having end-to-end supply chain visibility. If you can’t see all the way up or down your supply chain, how can you possibly spot those X-Wing fighters taking aim at your operations? To avoid total annihilation, or in your supply chain’s case, an unanticipated disruption, ensure you have an appropriate plan of attack, including implementing tools that give you the best chance at success.
Don’t wait for Rebel forces to take down your supply chain. Develop a solid risk management plan before catastrophe strikes!
Black Friday is make-or-break for many retailers, but once the orders are placed and shelves are stocked, the attention tends to turn away from the Supply Chain.
But this season is a little different. Retailers are trying out new strategies to bring consumers in-store or onto their websites. Companies are partnering to ease delivery, fulfillment and in-store initiatives. Meanwhile, store managers are on the front-lines balancing inventory needs with customer experience.
It’s easy to get lost in the noise with all these new initiatives, but supply chain managers must keep their eye on the prize and ensure their job is helping sales, too. Professionals are toeing the line between being efficient and cannibalizing brick-and-mortar sales through inventory shifts.
Rod Daugherty, vice president of product strategy at Blue Ridge, recently wrote to me in an e-mail: “In other words, have you done such a good job facilitating your e-commerce fulfillment from stores that you are sacrificing service for walk-in traffic?“
What indicators should supply chain managers be looking out for this holiday season?
Apple has been named as China’s greenest supply chain, followed by fellow tech giant Dell, and apparel specialist Levi’s.
The ranking comes from environmentally-focused Chinese NGO the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE), which reports on efforts in reducing the environmental impact of our supply chain in China.
It has released findings from its index rating the performance of around 250 brands across 14 industries in terms of how they manage environmental performance in their supply chain in China.
The index takes into account a number of factors, including ‘Responsiveness and Transparency’, ‘Compliance and Corrective Actions’, and ‘Energy Conservation and Emissions Reduction’.
In its score out of 100, Apple received a leading result of 82.5, with Dell receiving a score of 81.
The value of the Cloud Supply Chain Management (SCM) market is projected to reach $11bn by 2023, according to new figures.
Surging adoption in transportation management has been one of the major drivers for the cloud SCM market, research published by P&S Market Research found.
As the world’s transportation networks and supply chains become increasingly intertwisted and complex, the systems that support them are advancing and improving at a rapid pace.
The systems that support them are advancing and improving at a rapid pace
Software vendors have been integrating more transportation optimization capabilities into their solutions, making it easier for shippers to streamline their supply chains, while also making them more cost- and time-efficient. This has been augmenting the growth of the cloud SCM market.
During the course of the analysis, P&S found that demand planning and forecasting is projected to witness the highest growth, with 20.3% CAGR during the forecast period, among all solutions in the cloud SCM market.
Demand management solutions help to predict and manage replenishment effectively, align price and profit margins, better leverage past product performance and maintain a leaner and more profitable supply chain.
In a statement, P&S said: “Demand management solutions takes supply chain management to the next level by enabling an automated ecosystem that simultaneously maps demand forecasting against factors like financial predictions, supply restrictions, inventory counts and customer commitments, as well as patterns of behaviour that can affect demand at any given time.
Global freight transport is a key component in the trade of goods and materials, but new demands on the transport network are creating fresh challenges for data.
Transport companies are endeavouring to meet those new demands, but are they successful? Discover how an adaptive, intelligent supply chain – built around standards – accelerates innovation and drives change.
Imagine an advanced interconnected freight transport network that connects goods safely, quickly and cost-efficiently, a network that makes different modes of transport easier to use than ever before, and provides reliable, predictable and accessible information to enable moving a product from A to B to reach its final destination.
An adaptive intelligent supply chain built around standards accelerates innovation and change!
In today’s congested world, most would agree that the e-logistics related to movement of goods is a growing field, and one that will not plateau. Companies are seeking faster and better ways to get product to market and on consumer’s shelves or in their driveways. At the same time, many would agree that demand frequently outstrips the available capacity of transport infrastructure. There can be few companies that have not experienced sporadic load disparities, slow freight movement, or high transport expenses.
Global growth
Every product in our homes and offices got to the shop shelves as a result of efficient, safe and rapid transport, sometimes in the same city, at other times from across the globe, and often using multiple modes of transport such as rail hubs, air freight and land-based services. The movement of freight is changing in ways that could barely be imagined a few generations ago and at a pace that is faster than any in recorded history.
To better understand the impact of global freight movement, consider this. The freight industry transports trillions of dollars’ worth of goods every year to every corner of the globe and back, through an increasingly interconnected and interdependent global freight supply chain. In 2015, world trade in goods was valued at about USD 16 trillion, according to the UNCTAD report Key Statistics and Trends in International Trade 2016, the latest analysis of trade-related issues by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. Each seaport and airport is connected to road and rail networks with intermodal dwelling times, reflecting the multimodal nature of most freight journeys.
Today’s consumers expect fast shipping times and low costs. In order to cater to their needs, retailers are increasingly integrating logistics technology to innovate the process.
That said, ports have up until now remained unthreatened by disruption. They will always be an established partner for retailers because of the unlikelihood of new entrants and the geographic monopoly they have. There’s also the fact that retailers don’t want to build their own ports, as that requires so much time, expense and expertise.
However, this doesn’t mean ports can avoid innovation altogether – they have to compete against each other as well as against the potential of disruptive entrants. Below are three of the main ways ports can become more efficient and stay relevant.
1. Move to full data transparency
The move to full data transparency is a contentious issue, with some existing parties fiercely protecting the status quo. It’s not uncommon for freight forwarders to charge premiums, using the lack of data transparency as a way to cover up inefficiencies. As truckers get paid by the hour, long wait times translate into more money. In Long Beach, the average wait time for truckers hovers around 100 minutes, and it’s not unheard of for them to wait up to 8 hours and leaving without a container.
The problem is that port authorities tend to be passive when it comes to innovation, functioning more as landlords rather than investors.
However, as automation reaches more terminals, data is becoming increasingly accessible. With a smarter digital infrastructure, terminals can speed up supply chains and offer a more transparent service to customers. The Port Authority at Rotterdam is a good example of a port that’s conscious of innovating – it spends more than $2 billion a year upgrading physical and digital infrastructure and operations.
2. Automate your ports
On the face of it, automating a port seems like a pretty costly option. For example, it costs around $600 million for OOCL to move their newly-opened terminal at Long Beach, California from diesel, manpowered cranes to fully-automated electric cranes – with a large IT expenditure on top of this.
In the short term, this might appear to be unnecessary spending but in the long run, making these updates will save ports an enormous amount on labour costs. Ports that run on software work more efficiently and free up resources for other tasks.
Predictions vary by decades, but most agree it is coming, with major implications.
In the first decade of the 2000s, there was growing concern about so-called “Peak Oil,” based on a theory developed by Shell oil engineer M. King Hubbert, who in the 1940s predicted that output of oil in the lower 48 states in the US would peak in the 1970s, a projection that turned out to be spot on 30 years later – for a time.
Others jumped on the concept to predict a top for global oil output, with many in the 1990s saying that world oil production would peak about 2008. That turned out not to be true, as fracking and other unconventional techniques greatly added to oil output, pushing prices way down.
Now, rather than concerns about Peak Oil supply sending prices way up, as we saw for a while in 2008, now the oil patch is more focused on Peak Demand – the point at which world consumption of oil reaches its inevitable peak.
In 2015, oil’s share of world energy consumption increased modestly for the first time since 1999, driven by dramatically falling prices.
A combination of more efficient car engines, a trend towards electric vehicles, rising using of solar and wind power and more have many convince Peak Demand is near – with a huge impact on society, the supply chain, the global warming discussion and more.
The Wall Street Journal reports that forecasts for peak oil demand diverge by decades. For example, the Paris-based International Energy Agency predicts that demand will grow, though slowly, past 2040. Meanwhile, the two biggest US oil companies, Exxon Mobil and Chevron, say peak demand isn’t in sight, while some big European producers predict that a peak could emerge as soon as 2025 or 2030.
Of note is the fact that the consumption of oil in developed economies has been declining for many years.
TheGreenSupplyChain.com covers that report each year, noting last year BP’s analysis showed that oil’s share of world energy consumption in 2015 increased modestly for the first time since 1999, driven by dramatically falling prices.
As political heavyweights made their way to Brussels for the second round of Brexit talks, British Brexit Secretary David Davis urged all sides to ‘get down to business’. The European logistics and supply chain industry will be hoping more than most that they do just that.
In June 2016, British voters chose to leave the EU, sparking huge debate across Europe on how that exit could be achieved, and what the likely impacts would be for people and economies across the Union. Of course, within each member state, opinions are divided about whether or not Britain’s decision to leave is a wise move or a disaster, but one thing is certain: the impact of Brexit on Europe’s logistics industry will be huge.
Importing goods into Britain from the EU
If Brexit negotiations result in Britain not being part of the Single Market, tariffs will be applied to goods entering the UK from other EU countries, forcing those goods to become more expensive.
Britain, along with the majority of EU member states, has a service-based economy, which means that is has to rely heavily on the import of natural resources. Many EU countries are interlinked in their dependence on imports of fuel and petroleum products, with 27% of Britain’s petroleum products, for example, passing through the EU on the way to Britain. Ultimately, it will be consumers across Europe who feel this impact most acutely, as hauliers and logistics firms will simply pass on the increased costs to their customers.
Customs and border controls
Under the Schengen agreement, residents of EU member states enjoy extremely relaxed border controls, and are generally free to cross borders without being stopped. The Single Market also means that goods and services can be freely traded throughout the eurozone. Inevitably, when Britain leaves the EU, this will have to change, and stricter border controls will be reinstated between Britain and its EU neighbours.
Nowhere is this likely to be more pronounced than on the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, which, of course, remains an EU member state. Trade between Northern Ireland and the Republic is strong, and it’s thought that border controls could cost businesses billions each year, with a knock-on effect felt throughout the logistics industry.
