As businesses are unable to ship full containers, the demand for Less than Container Load (LCL) shipping is increasing. In response to this, DHL has announced the launch of its guaranteed weekly LCL services connecting Bangkok to Los Angeles, Hamburg and Tokyo. The LCL market from Asia is expanding as Averitt Express already has a service to Memphis. The service is aimed at by-passing the busy port of Los Angeles as the final destination for cargo and using Memphis instead, which is better for businesses in the south-east US.

DHL’s new Bangkok to Los Angeles LCL service has been part of an increased LCL presence in Asia. Since the start of 2009, DHL has launched ten other direct calls from China, Japan and India to meet increasing LCL demand.

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Global risk advisers, Aon and strategic business partner, State of Flux, have published the 2009 Risk in 21st Century Supply Chain survey, in which 75% of respondents site financial failure as the greatest risk to their supply chain. Other key risks identified by 43% of firms are physical damage at a supplier’s facility and 29% highlight data security.

In the survey businesses acknowledge that risk management is vital for their survival. A number of drivers were recognized for supply chain risk management including corporate governance, performance improvement and the current credit situation, which was noted by 30% of firms.

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Has the drive towards reducing carbon emissions in the supply chain reached the tipping point? This week, one of the UK’s largest supermarket chains, Waitrose, has announced that it is to bulk import wine from Chile and bottle the cargo in the UK. The product is shipped from Chile in 24,000 liter recyclable flexi-tanks and bottled a plant outside of Durham in the north-east of England.

Apart from the reduction in carbon emissions, 47 tonnes per year, Waitrose is saving a staggering 40% in production costs. Waitrose is committed, as are the other UK supermarket chains, in reducing packaging, but is this move more to do with improving profits than carbon emissions? I am not at all knowledgeable about wine from Chile or elsewhere, but shipping it half away around the world in a 24,000 liter tank probably means that it will not be in the cellars of wine connoisseurs, given its £3.99 (US $6.48) price.

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The world’s electronics makers have been ranked by the environmental group Greenpeace in the organizations new “Guide to Greener Electronics” report. In the 12th edition of the report since August 2006, Greenpeace find that three of the largest personal computer manufacturers, Lenovo, Dell and HP, are propping up the bottom half of the table. These three companies have been singled out due backtracking on their commitments to eliminate PVC plastic and brominated flame retardants (BFR’s) from their products by the end of 2009.

Greenpeace continue to lobby Lenovo, Dell and HP to do more to reduce toxic chemicals. This has gained pace now that Apple have produced machines virtually free of PVC and completely BFR-free, demonstrating the technical feasibility and supply-chain readiness of producing alternatives to hazardous substances, such as PVC.

At the top of the table of electronics firms, Nokia, Samsung, LG and Sony Ericsson, have all been praised by Greenpeace due to their efforts to eliminate toxic chemicals from their products.

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In their 2009 corporate responsibility report, UK supermarket chain Tesco has set a target to reduce food packaging weight by 25% by 2010. This goal is to be achieved by working with over 250 suppliers on over 3,600 packaging reduction initiatives for both own-label and branded products. Of Tesco's 3,057 own-label packaging reduction initiatives, 2,000 have already been completed.

By reducing spoilage and waste, effective protection of food products helps to reduce their overall environmental impact. In some countries, the lack of packaging or inadequate packaging in the supply chain causes up to 50% of all food to decay before it reaches the consumer. In the UK, where food is more efficiently packed, only 3% of the food produced fails to reach the consumer, mainly due to better packaging.

This initiative by Tesco, who also own the US supermarket chain Fresh and Easy, comes on the back of announcements by other UK supermarkets. Sainsbury’s plans a reduction in cereal packaging, which I mentioned last month, and Marks and Spencer, has set a target to reduce the weight of non-glass packaging by 25 per cent by 2012.

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A report highlighting customer satisfaction among 1242 users of Sales Force Automation (SFA) products has been published by Independent IT Analyst Inc. The report valuated leading sales force automation solutions and offers information on implementation success/failure rates, best user interfaces and best reports. The report also compares vendors, such as Oracle, Salesforce.com, SAP and Microsoft, by customer satisfaction, return on investment and ease of use.

The report states that more than 40 percent of buyers would not make a purchase from the same SFA vendor again. Although this information is important for future purchasers of CRM and SFA products, the high percentage figure must be extremely disappointing to the major vendors. However, despite this fact, it is unknown how many users would actually terminate their current SFA system and purchase a product from a new vendor.

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Tempur-Pedic, the manufacturer and distributor of premium mattresses made from a viscoelastic, temperature sensitive material, has chosen a suite of supply chain management solutions from Supply Chain Consultants (SCC). Tempur-Pedic will implement SCC’s Zemeter Demand Planner, Replenishment Planning, Azimuth S&OP management reporting tool, and the Performance Management Dashboard tool.

Other mattress companies have not been successful with their supply chain software. Select Comfort terminated its SAP implementation after two years and $20 million, which led to a loss of 120 employees.

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Logistics firms appear to be big losers of high-street retailer, Eddie Bauer’s, chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. Expeditors International of Washington is owed $700,000 and is the sixth largest creditor. This is significantly less than the $75 million owed to the Bank of New York.

Other logistics company’s owed money includes the parcel shipping specialist, Newgistics, who are owed $200,000, while FedEx are owed $131,000. TranzAct Technologies was another casualty, owed $100,000. TranzAct helps company’s with freight audit and payment, rate negotiation and contract development. In total Eddie Bauer reported $426.7 million in debt against $476.1 million in assets.

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Safexpress, India’s leading Supply Chain and Logistics Company, opened it latest logistics park in Kolkata this month. This facility covers 184,000 square feet and it the fourth of the thirty-two logistics parks that Safexpress plan to open at industrial hubs in India. This year Safexpress have opened high-tech logistics parks in Gurgaon, Nagpur and Ahmedabad.

Safexpress has become India’s leading logistics firm with over 550 locations and more than 3,000 vehicles, operating over 1000 routes which are linked through 41 super hubs & hubs. With the introduction of free trade warehousing zones (FTWZ) and special economic zones (SEZ) in India, high-tech warehousing will be a key element in the future development of the supply chain for manufacturers and retailers.

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Will superstar athletes be so pleased when they see their images on a bag of Wheaties rather than a box? It is possible that the humble cereal box could become the next casualty in the war on waste. In the UK, Sainsbury’s, a major supermarket chain, announced a radical overhaul of their approach to packaging. They are looking to reduce the weight of packaging by a third by 2015, which equates to some 50,000 tonnes of waste. With this goal the company has already eliminated some cereal boxes and replaced them with a 100 per cent recyclable plastic package.

Although many US cereal makers will disagree with Sainsbury’s approach, the move was born out of consumer’s heightened environmental concern. The high waste involved in packaging was the top peeve on customer surveys. Sainsbury’s also said it would also reduce or eliminate altogether the cardboard layer used to package pizzas, tomato puree, yogurts and ready-made meals.

Sainsbury’s has already been active in reducing waste in other areas by selling milk in polythene bags and replacing 150 million trays of its ready-made meals and organic food with compostable packaging. In 2008, it reduced the environmental impact of its plastic carrier bags by 43 per cent, against an original commitment of 25 per cent.

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