KarstadtQuelle AG has renewed and expanded a 5-year contract worth over a total of 100 million euros of revenues with TPG Post Parcel Service, a business unit of TNT?s Mail division, for the distribution of a variety of parcel consignments.

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The European Commission has proposed to repeal the block exemption of liner conferences from the EC Treaty competition rules? ban on restrictive business practices (Article 81). The current block exemption, established by Council Regulation 4056/86, allows carriers to fix prices and regulate capacity jointly.

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CP Ships Limited today announced that at a shareholders meeting held today its shareholders approved the amalgamation of CP Ships and Ship Acquisition Inc, an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of TUI AG that currently holds 88.97% of the outstanding common shares of CP Ships. Holders of 99.8% of the common shares voted in favour of the amalgamation. Subject to the satisfaction of the conditions contained in the Amalgamation Agreement between CP Ships and Ship Acquisition Inc and the filing of articles of amalgamation, the amalgamation is expected to occur on 20th December 2005.

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The Kuehne + Nagel branch in G?rtringen (near Stuttgart) has concluded a long-term logistics partnership contract with leading European polymer sealing solution supplier Busak+Shamban. This significant new business will be implemented over the next five months at the recently completed extension of the Kuehne + Nagel logistics centre in G?rtringen.

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If you still think of your process as purchasing, you are living in the 1960s. Competition today is no longer company to company, but rather supply chain to supply chain. Since many of us in the same industries use many of the same suppliers, a good procurement process must evolve into fully integrated supply management. How you answer the 10 questions outlined here tells whether your supply management organization is a strategic resource or just a drain on corporate competitiveness.

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The Departmental Advisory Committee on Customs and Border Protection?s (COAC) ? Customs ? Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) Subcommittee has released copies of new draft minimum security standards being developed by the Department of Homeland Security?s (DHS) Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP).The new criteria affectshighway and sea carriers.

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RFID readers using the UHF band are among the most expensive purchases for companies complying with supply chain mandates from Wal-Mart and others. These companies consistently cite UHF reader costs as verging on the prohibitive. Why, and what will bring those prices down?

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Capacity is increasingly going to shippers who’ve learned to be good customers. What place does logistics have in the overall business process? Core elements such as transportation haven’t changed much over the years, but the complexity certainly has. With supply chains extended over a wider geography, demand has been concentrated at ports of entry, putting pressure on port operations and domestic long-haul transportation capacity. Shippers and consignees are learning that being a good customer to carriers is one of the best ways to ensure access to capacity.

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The challenges inherent in contracting with logistics and transportation intermediaries differ depending on the type of third party involved: an asset-based third-party logistics (3PL) company or a non-asset-based 3PL, a freight forwarder or a transportation broker. Savvy shippers should know the law governing each type of 3PL in order to protect their companies’ interests.

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When one thinks of a global, just-in-time, make-to-order supply chain, the first company that comes to mind is Dell. Dell’s model might be charac-terized as a Command and Control model. This, however, is not the only model for running very lean with a global supply chain. Sun has a different model - which we call the Empowered Trading Partner model - that is also worth studying.

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