Electronics OEMs are leading the charge in e-commerce with electronic goods expected to be one of the fastest-growing sectors. Even as they buy products online for home, these same individuals want to make buys for their organization as well.

The container shipping industry is undergoing a historic wave of consolidation as carriers seek to tighten supply to offset the historical drop in pricing.

Confronted with shrinking profit margins, capacity concerns and rising customer expectations, today's logistics organizations are looking for innovative ways to provide better service at a lower cost and to ultimately increase profitability and competitive advantage. This is why supply chain success extends beyond your workforce and into your partner ecosystem.

In the world of material handling, the notion of "driverless-ness" has been around for 60 years since the first automated guided vehicle (AGV) appeared in a grocery warehouse. High-tech warehouse operations are already used to the sight of AGVs performing tasks such as the vertical storage and retrieval of pallets and the loading and unloading of pallets onto outbound trailers.

The just-completed expansion of the Panama Canal to support larger container vessels is an important and highly visible milestone in supply chain management. Delivering goods in roughly half the time that it would take by alternate ocean routes will save shipping costs - assuming the goods arrive in good condition. But what if the goods are damaged during loading, unloading or while at sea? What if the container never made it on the vessel? That's where "in-transit visibility" plays an important role in supply chain management.

Perhaps no industry deals with volatility in consumer demand quite as much as consumer electronics.

As manufacturing gets smarter with Industry 4.0 and the ever-expanding Industrial Internet of Things, the workforce skills needed to deploy new technology are falling behind.

Suppliers are feeling the pinch of slackening demand for Apple's iconic iPhone, while the shortfall in sales growth could also affect component prices.