Manufacturers and trucking companies are realizing those benefits through new collaborative-logistics models powered by advanced software and the Internet. They are reducing costs by sharing truck capacity and warehouse operations, and consolidating small shipments from several companies onto one truck. Manufacturing's wealth of IT data is being parlayed into new maintenance-management strategies. As CIO at Akron, Ohio-based Myers Industries Inc., Andrew J. Winer doesn't fit the traditional profile of a maintenance executive. A lot, he has discovered.
Federal agenda mixes politics and several private-sector principles.
The new CEO has taken seven months to size up the organization. And now he wants to put more of his own management stamp on things. A long-term relationship doesn't automatically mean a renewal of contract at DaimlerChrysler. It looks as if a battle is about to brew in the auto world. No, I'm not talking about Ford and Firestone again.