Supply Chain by the Numbers
   
 

- Nov. 1, 2012
   
  Supply Chain by the Numbers for Week of Nov. 1, 2012
   
 

Low Nat Gas Costs Mean Factories in the Midwest; Lots of Logistics Jobs Coming, not Enough Workers;  POS Data Not Yet Being Leveraged by Many; New JDA Has Major Presence in CPG
   
 
 
 

20

Number of years since fertilizer plant was built in the US, during which time some 50% of US capacity was closed, some of it dismantled and sent overseas, chasing lower labor costs. Now, an Egyptian company named Orascom Construction Industries is building a $1.4 billion plant in Iowa. Why? Extremely low cost natural gas is giving the US generally and the Midwest especially a major cost advantage over the rest of the world in heavy gas using sectors such as chemicals, glass and metals, in addition to fertilizers. See Could Low Natural Gas Prices Drive Manufacturing Renaissance in Midwest?
 
 



 
 
 

270,200

The average number of new jobs the logistics industry is expected to create over each of the next four years in the US (2013-2016). That means some 1,080,800 jobs in total, according to a new report from the Georgia Center of Innovation for Logistics. The report, however, projects only about 28% of these jobs will be filled. The categories of logistics employment were: Logistics Operations, Industrial Engineering, Warehouse & Distribution Labor, Trucking, Freight Rail, and Air Cargo Supervisors. The fastest overall US growth is projected to come in Logistics Operations (mostly "white collar" jobs, estimated to grow by 22% through 2018. Not surprisingly, "truck drivers"represents the largest area of shortage, but the report also projects a big shortage of warehouse employees too.
 
 
 
 
 
87

Number of the top one hundred consumer goods companies that are customers of either JDA Software, RedPrairie, or both, according to notes from the announcement today that RedPrairie is acquiring the larger JDA and taking it private, in a deal valued at $1.9 billion. That will result in a company with combine revenues of almost $1 billion, and be named JDA Software, in one of the most significant mergers of all-time in the supply chain software industry.
 
 
 
 
 
19.8%

Percentage of consumer goods manufacturing respondents who said their companies used store-level POS data at a "high level" to drive their supply chains, according to a new report from CSCO Insights on Building the Supply Chain from the Shelf Back. Conversely, just under 50% of manufacturers said their companies operated at a somewhat low level of POS leverage or worse. Interestingly, retailers themselves had an even less favorable impression, with just 3.1% saying that they thought their vendors were using POS data at a high level. To download the excellent report, go here: Building the Supply Chain from the Shelf Back
 
 
 
 
 
 
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