Supply Chain by the Numbers: Week of August 20, 2009
   
 

-August 20, 2009
   
 

This Week’s Supply Chain by the Numbers – JC Penney Inventory Reduction, US Factory Utilization, Union Pacific, Home Depot

   
 

The Supply Chain and Logistics Numbers Worth Knowing This Week: Penney's Inventory Reduced is a Penny Earned, Recession's Tools Found in Idle Factories, Union Pacific Pays to a Captive Audience, Home Depot Rapidly Deploys New Rapid Deployment Centers

   
 
 
 

12%

Inventory reduction by retailer JCPenney in Q2. The company recently announced, as like other retailers it keeps cutting inventories to match demand and reduce mark downs. Now, JCP predicts to be profitable for the year, as margins rose 1% in Q2.
 
 



 

65.4%

The level of current factory utilization in the US – and that’s after a small rise in July, the first in many months, according to Federal Reserve Statistics. The level of decline in factory utilization in this recession is the sharpest since the Great Depression, and is down about 11 percentage points since last July.
 
 
$100 million

The estimated level of rate reductions and reparations expected to be provided by Union Pacific to coal shipper Oklahoma Gas & Electric Co. over the next decade, after a recent Surface Transportation Board decision that UP had not correctly calculated the maximum mark-up over costs it was allowed to charge this “captive” customer.
 
 
 
 
$33.9 million

The cost for the eighth and most recent of Home Depot’s “Rapid Deployment Centers,” or new flow-through DCs that are a key element of the retailers supply chain transformation. The newest RDC was opened last week in Monroe, OH, between Cincinnati and Dayton, and is one of about 20 that Home Depot plans to roll out in just about 2 years.