Supply Chain by the Numbers for Week of Dec. 6, 2012

Supply Chain by the Numbers

- Dec. 6, 2012

Apple Committed to (Modest) Reshoring; Port Clerical Workers Maintain the Good Life; Increased Interest in Regional Parcel Carriers; Siemens Sees Procurement Path to Bottom Line Improvement



$100,000
Amount of investment that Apple CEO Tim Cook said the company would invest next year to bring a small portion of its manufacturing back to UAS soil. Details were scarce from the interview with Bloomberg BusinessWeek, and the amount of manufacturing being reshored is likely to be small in comparison to its total production, but Cook seems to indicate he sees a corporate responsibility to create US jobs. "I don’t think we have a responsibility to create a certain kind of job," Cook said. "But I think we do have a responsibility to create jobs."

$195,000

About the total amount of annual compensation clerical workers at the ports of LA and Long Beach will receive under a new contract agreed to this week that got those facilities back in operation after a week-long shut down that idle most port operations, after regular dock workers honored the clerical union picket lines. The previous figure under the old contract was about $165,000, including some $90,000 in base wages, generous health and retirement benefits, and more. The new contract is said to include 11 weeks per year of paid vacation (really?), the value of which is included in the $195,000 total. Not bad, we’d say, for processing paperwork. About 600 workers at the ports have this gig.



	55%
Amount of total supply spend that German industrial giant Siemens now manages centrally, across its far flung business units and geographies, versus less than 30% in 2008, according to a press release from the company this week. That gain after a major effort to improve the procurement process and other supply chain functions under supply chain chief Barbara Kux, who joined the company four years ago. All told, Siemens plans to increase profits by 3 billion Euros annually in both 2013 and 2014 through supply chain improvements, with the focus of better integration of the supply chain with the business, the company says.




11%
Increase in the number of parcel shippers that are using regional or other niche parcel carriers, as they become an increasingly attractive alternative for some of a shipper's parcel volumes. That according to the new annual study from shipping technlogy provider Kewill. The major regionals include companies such as Eastern Connection, Lone Star Overnight, and a few others. They can be especially effective for shipping in zones 2-4, which usually represents the greatest volumes for a shipper, parcel consultant Jerry Hempstead tells SCDigest.