Chinese New Year, also known as the Lunar New Year or the Spring Festival is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. 2011 is the year of the Rabbit and Chinese New Year will kick off on Feb. 3rd and last for approximately 3 weeks. You may wonder-what impact can Chinese New Year have on the global supply chain, specifically, the availability of incoming goods from overseas and delivery timelines?

What a pain in the proverbial behind... that dreaded call from your customer letting you know that there's an "issue" or "problem" with your companies product and that you're going to have to fix it... and of course, it needs to be done right away. As Murphy's Law would have it, there are orders pending and empty shelves mean lost revenue. The pressure is on and you're not sure how to react. What to do, what to do??? The answer may be as simple as picking up your phone and calling the 3PL company that you deal with.

What a pain in the proverbial behind... that dreaded call from your customer letting you know that there's an "issue" or "problem" with your companies product and that you're going to have to fix it... and of course, it needs to be done right away. As Murphy's Law would have it, there are orders pending and empty shelves mean lost revenue. The pressure is on and you're not sure how to react. What to do, what to do??? The answer may be as simple as picking up your phone and calling the 3PL company that you deal with.

We are very proud to announce that our customer was recently recognized by Best Buy/Future Shop Canada who gave them their "Best in Class" award for compliance excellence. To achieve this prestigious award, they needed to have less than 2% combined missed appointments, late arrivals and pick accuracy.

Typically, a 4pl (4th Party Logistics) relationship has your customer wanting to open a distribution center in a city where you as the 3rd party logistics provider do not have a facility and you as their relationship manager want to control the communication. If you pick the right partner a 4pl can be a new source of revenue for your company with very little labor, time and resources invested; picking the wrong one can ultimately, damage a relationship with your client. These relationships can be tricky for a number of reasons and hopefully this will help in recognizing what to ask and how to manage this partnership.

On Friday September 17th, a delegation from the Japanese Warehousing Association visited McKenna Logistics Centres warehouse in Delta, British Columbia. Twenty three delegates from across Japan toured the McKenna facility and listened intently as we shared ideas on how we conduct business in Canada and how the owners / operators from Japan handle their facilities.