US firms are struggling with long-running worker shortages across a range of industries, and many companies are turning to automation and advanced technology to address the shortfall. Technological advances are resulting in a productivity boom that is sustaining economic growth, as the adoption of automation leads to a surge in efficiency that allows companies to increase profits despite rising employee wages.

Ala.-based Motion Industries is acquiring a pair of Canadian companies in a move that bolsters the MRO distributors' hydraulic and pneumatic capabilities in the region. Perfetto Manufacturing and SER Hydraulics, based in Sudbury, Ontario, provide engineered solutions, services and equipment for hydraulic and pneumatic cylinders, complex power units and more to the heavy-industry sectors such as mining, agriculture and forestry. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The latest Modern Distribution Management Podcast featured a deeper dive into Fastenal's business transformation, which John Gunderson, senior VP of analytics and e-business at Dorn Group, explored in a highly read, three-part written series last year. The three-part series and the podcast highlight Fastenal's decade-long transformation, which led to nearly doubling total sales via organic growth driven by automation, technology improvements and a customer-focused approach.

In an ever-changing supply chain environment, procurement professionals can make use of third-party management software to optimize workflows, comply with environmental or labor laws and stay connected with the different parts of the supply chain all over the world, says Nikhil Gaur, research analyst at Spend Matters. Because these are management systems, not individual tools, they can also ensure that there is ongoing compliance with suppliers and data isn't siloed to one department.

Retail inventories that surged to meet consumer demand driven by the COVID pandemic lockdowns and fiscal stimulus but resulted in overstocks mostly "right-sized" by the end of 2023, according to a Bank of America report. Analysis of corporate payments to shipping and transportation companies as an indicator of inventory orders indicates a flat ordering trend and satisfaction with stock levels among retailers, says the report.

The ATA For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index of 111.0 for January marks a 3.5% drop from December's 115.0 reading and a 4.7% year-over-year decrease. "Bad winter weather in January likely hurt volumes, not to mention sharp drops in a number of drivers of tonnage including retail sales, housing starts and manufacturing output," says ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello.

"Single shot" salespeople who don't have a good follow-up plan with prospects may get lucky with a sale from time to time, but salespeople who develop a plan -- and use AI to enhance those plans -- will see more sales success, writes Linda Bishop, the founder and president of Thought Transformation. Bishop offers a five touch action plan that uses AI to assist in everything from customer research to writing sales letters and thank you notes.

More employers are tracking employee productivity with new technologies, but researchers say monitoring can hurt employee performance and damage relationships between supervisors and their subordinates unless employers use information gathered during surveillance for developmental purposes. Researchers suggest employers be transparent about monitoring, train supervisors to talk about the data with employees and reward employees based on the information.

Federal Reserve policymakers are more concerned about cutting rates too soon than they are about keeping them too high, minutes from the January meeting showed. The summary revealed policymakers want additional evidence that inflation is sustainably falling before cutting rates, though officials agreed rates were likely at their peak.

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