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Pakistani economy isn't falling or failing anymore. I'll show you how. Pakistan’s Current Account shortfall narrows to $579 million in first month (July) of the year 2019-20 as compared to $2.13 billion in July last year, showing a decline of 72.81%, State Bank of Pakistan Reported recently. The details show that Current Account Balance without official transfers shrank to $664 million in the corresponding month against $2.27 billion in same month of last year. Balance of trade in goods also plunged from $3.485 billion in July 2018 to $1.847 billion in July this year, whereas balance of trade in services also fell to $473 million compared to $517 million. Workers’ remittances have been posting a positive trend for last year and in July 2019 too, it witnessed an encouraging result as it increased to $2.04 billion compared to $1.982 billion in same month of last year. As a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), the current account deficit narrowed to 2.5% in t...

Let’s take the opening paragraph from the attached article from wiki - “The environmental impact of shipping includes  air pollution ,  water pollution ,  acoustic , and  oil pollution . Ships are responsible for more than 18 percent of some air pollutants” That’s actually rather good, considering that international shipping transports 90% of everything that you and I and the rest of the world use.  Ninety Percent of Everything by Rose George As Austin Bugden rightly says, shipping is the most efficient way of transporting large volumes of cargo around the world, and it’s the reason why it is less polluting than vehicular traffic or any other means of transportation. There’s another article out there that states one ship produces more pollution than all the road vehicles in the world or something similar, but you wouldn’t be able to drive those vehicles if shipping didn’t get them to wherever they are used in the first place. Car carrier - of whic...

Enterprise resource planning software (ERP) combines various applications that facilitate the flow of information within an organization, making it a powerful tool for logistics. This software lets fleet operators manage business functions like product distribution and staff maintenance, and provides companies with valuable data at every stage of the supply chain. Here are three ways ERP benefits logistics and transportation. 1. It Optimizes Inventory Control With ERP, transportation companies manage inventories on a personalized dashboard, letting them view orders, sales, and deliveries from one centralized location. This allows for better decision-making: companies can make predictions about future orders based on previous sales trends. ERP also expedites distribution times. Research shows that this software speeds up order-to-shipment times for distributors by 23 percent. ERP programs come with real-time data analytics that provides companies with valuable business intellig...

You go to a stationary store and ask for a pen. That pen was manufactured in a factory, located hundreds of miles away from the store you're at. Now you take the pen into your hand and write a few words with it. Impressed with the product, you google the manufacturer  ABC pens  - Using this as an example, lets define all the above Operations - A broad term covering every department present at the factory site enabling the manufacture of pens - human resources, power, water, maintenance, machinery, security, information technology etc. When the CEO says “Our operational costs for this year have gone up”, he means they had to spend more money to produce a pen per se this year as compared to the last. Supply Chain - Supply chain consists of a chain of suppliers - individuals, their factories and trucks(or trains). Lets say companies A, B and C   supply ink, plastics and lead to ABC pens respectively. Following constitute the supply chain of ABC pens A - supplier...

Shifting supply chains is a lot more difficult than it seems. As an example, if the United States applies new tariffs on China, but not on Vietnam, it may seem like an obvious solution to source from Vietnam. There are several problems that emerge. First, even if China and Vietnam were equally capable of handling orders, it would take time and money to make the shift. Companies place orders in advance and have established relationships with vetted suppliers. Second, one reason that so many supply chains run through China is that over the decades China has become adept at managing supply chains and supplying products. While other countries are improving, they often cannot match China for quality or scale (this, of course, depends on the product). Third, even if there is sufficient productive capacity in a new country to handle the diverted supply chain, there can be real questions about infrastructure – are roads and ports equipped to handle the new volume of trade? One importa...

A Purchase Order (PO) is a formal confirmation letter, often sent by the buyer to provider/supplier for the confirmation of the purchase of Goods or Services. It often is followed by a contract from the supplier and it includes specific payment terms as well to prevent issues from happening during purchase. Therefore, it's important to be precise about the details of the order, and mention item codes, specifications, date of delivery, payment terms, item description, specific quality needs, packaging, etc. However, this letter also functions as an agreement between the purchaser and the seller.

Autonomous mobile robots are impacting the supply chain sector in several key areas. These include Picking Packing Forklift operation And various other applications The most aggressive early adopter today is China. Today, China leads the world in industrial robots, representing more than 30 percent of the market. Close to 150,000 robots will be bought in China this year. China is also expected to exceed the U.S. and Europe in the installed base of robots in factories this year. As a result, robotics companies in China are flourishing. Shanghai’s  Quicktron  was founded in 2014. It won  Alibaba  as a customer, and has scaled up to sell more than 5,000 robots since then.  Geek+ , another Chinese robotics startup, is in the midst of raising another $150m, from investors such as GGV Capital, D1 Capital Partners, and Warburg Pincus. Geek+ has won Xiaomi, SF Express, Alibaba and Suning as clients, and claims to have sold over 7,000 robots. And Chinese e-c...

The future of supply chain and logistics, in my view, revolves around several key trends, including the last mile, drones, and self-driving trucks. These trends at the intersection of technology and logistics evolve out of a long history of innovation. In fact, i nnovation in transportation  has helped to shape our world in powerful ways. In 1869, Leland Stanford drove the Golden Spike into the ground in Utah, creating the first coast-to-coast railroad. In 1956, Malcolm McLain refitted an oil tanker to carry 58 shipping containers from Newark to Houston. Both of these breakthroughs helped the US to build a world-class infrastructure and lead the global economy. Today, we are in the early stages of a powerful technology disruption that will reshape our world in even more significant ways. How will drones shift freight patterns? Will self-driving trucks take over the roads? Can 3-D printers enable companies to compress their supply chains? Will “the Amazon effect” spark a new ...