Datex Blog 

Manufacturing Technology Orders Increase in 2021  According to the Association for Manufacturing Technology, orders for manufacturing technology increased 9% from May to June 2021, a period which also recorded 42% more orders than last June.  In short, this means that...

Rampant need for last mile delivery due to increased use of e-commerce leads to new collaboration with 3PLsSetting the Stage for the 2021 Continued Growth in E-Commerce and Last Mile DeliveryFueled by COVID-19 lockdowns and consumers working from home, the explosion...

Chinese Rare Earth Mineral Bet Relies on Taliban     Much has changed in the past twenty years since the United States invaded Afghanistan.  The world was a much less sophisticated place, in terms of technology.  In 2001, there were no iPhones or Android...

Walmart’s New Business:  Last Mile Delivery   Walmart is launching Walmart GoLocal, a new white label delivery service for companies other than its own.  The new service includes product delivery with multiple timelines and complex delivery requirements.  Walmart...

Amazon Continues Its Ongoing Investments in Future Growth   Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain disruption has erupted and waned.  As businesses were in lockdown, production was impacted, and goods were not able to reach retail and consumer...

Going Up:  Industrial Real Estate Rents Escalate Due to Demand   With vacancy US vacancy rates at a record low of 4.5% in Q2 for industrial real estate, demand continues to outpace supply.  The asking rent for industrial space shot up 6.8% year-over-year, largely...

It’s not just the pandemic.  Over the past year, the supply chain has been disrupted by a variety of factors, from lockdowns, port delays, the Suez Canal obstruction by the Ever Given, and most notably by labor shortages. Strong consumer, anticipated increases in...

Frito-Lay Bucks the Trend Last year, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Frito-Lay simplified its portfolio, temporarily shedding 21% of its SKU portfolio to increase its efficiency.  The move, popular with other supply chain businesses last year, helped the company to...

According to an original investigation published in JAMA in 2020 using publicly available data, drug companies spend $1 billion on research and development to bring one new medicine to market.This study included 63 of 355 new therapeutic drugs developed by 47...

Food Industry Shaken by JBS Ransomware Attack The ransomware attack on the largest meatpacker in the world seems to have shaken up the food industry and instigated questions about its cybersecurity.   JBS, based in Brazil, has operations across the globe and was...

Labor Shortages Driving Supply Chain Disruptions It seems as if nearly every day now we are hearing about supply chain disruptions.  What are the primary drivers of this problem?  Notably, labor shortages and transportation impediments. Ports in various locations...

The COVID-19 Pandemic:  The One-Two Punch for the Cold Chain As the pandemic began, then raged on, consumers were locked down, trapped in their homes with their families.   The supply chain struggled to adjust to the dynamics of the pandemic.  With restaurants,...

Amazon Invests in New Disaster-Relief Hub Amazon currently owns over 800 warehouses and has increased its real estate footprint by 50 percent from 2019 to 2020.  In its usual forward-thinking capacity as a supply chain industry leader, Amazon has learned from the...

Wood Wields Power over Housing Starts and Renovation As with numerous industries, the lumber industry experienced supply chain disruptions due to mill closures during COVID as well as a rampant escalation in demand for which the industry was not ready.  The lack of...

New Bipartisan Bill Offers Incentive for U.S. Chip Production New legislation originating from the Senate Finance Committee provides a 25 percent tax credit to semiconductor producers that manufacture their silicon in the United States.  This incentive would apply to...

UPS Leverages COVID Infrastructure Investment to Ramp Up Pharma Cold Chain Service Building the infrastructure needed to distribute the COVID-19 vaccine, including freezer farms, dry ice production and tracking technology is about to come in very handy for UPS.  With...

Since last year, semiconductors have been in short supply across the globe.  Initially anticipated to only last a short time, now the semiconductor shortage is at pandemic proportions, impacting industries from electronics to home appliances, cell phones and vehicles....

Supply Chain Problems Are Not Limiting U.S. Economic Growth Although supply chain disruptions held back supplies needed for manufacturing, the United States economy grew at a slightly faster pace in both April and May 2021 according to a Federal Reserve report. ...

Chinese Burst Steel Bubble Is a steel shortage creating a bubble?  With steel in short supply, steel stocks are rocketing to the moon.  U.S. Steel is up 200 percent in only 12 months and Nucor is up 76 percent just this year.  The pandemic last year forced...

What Is Omnichannel? You undoubtedly have heard of omnichannel.  The word is widely used when talking about everything from mobile devices, customer loyalty, online marketplaces, and digital channels to the customer experience.  Do you really know what omnichannel is?...