Forde, May 10, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- EarlyBirds, an Australian company that has created an open innovation ecosystem, is enabling supply chain innovators, who are creating solutions to increase their resilience and mitigate risk, to find the perfect partners that can help them achieve their goals. EarlyBirds can assist companies, that are actively tackling the complexities of supply chain logistics, find a large corporate benefactor that can act as an early adopter organization, and support their mission with funds and expertise in bringing products to market.

The COVID-19 pandemic was an eye-opener in more ways than one. Firstly, it managed to highlight how precariously the global economy hangs on by a thread and how the house of cards is perpetually on the brink of collapse. Millions lost employment. Industries such as construction, manufacturing, trade, transport, and hospitality were the worst affected. Since people’s incomes were affected, it also reduced demand for goods, significantly disrupting in the global supply chain which was left with little hope for recovery until a vaccine was invented.

The global supply chain has always been an unwieldy and fragmented system, its complexity held together by agreements of fraught diplomatic relationships between countries. When the onus to provide goods and services moved to local providers, the system crumbled. Online shopping inventories, a huge chunk of which are manufactured at the other end of the globe in countries like India, Bangladesh, and China, were not able to reach consumers.

Even on a national level, workers stayed home fearing the spread of the virus, leading to a shortage of drivers and other semi-skilled labor such as warehouse workers. In Europe, the impact of Brexit was felt far and wide as red tape, cross-border checks, and constantly fluctuating exchange rates slowed down the free movement of goods, increasing transport times. In the US, misinformation and widespread panic over the shortage of goods for the foreseeable future lead to a mad dash for essentials such as toilet paper resulting in long lines at grocery stores and straining local supply chains further. Furthermore, even before the pandemic hit, nations were already assessing the overall impact that the global transport of goods has on the environment and energy consumption.

The quest for corporate profits has led to a system where companies try to find the cheapest way to procure raw materials, turn them into manufactured goods, and ship them to where the consumers are. While trying to draw this straight line, they make a lot of sacrifices that can end up weakening the overall supply chain by introducing too many points of failure. For a business, a leaner supply chain is always more desirable but only if it has fail-safes and redundancies to weather a disruption like a pandemic.

EarlyBirds co-founder Jeff Penrose outlines the role that logistics supply chain innovators can play in improving the current landscape by saying, “If you are working on technologies such as the Internet of Things, blockchain, AI, ML and analytics, robotics & automation, or 3D printing, we can help you give your research and innovation a practical application that can make it monetizable. The advancements in IoT can make tracking crucial shipping information such as location, weather conditions, environmental status, traffic patterns, and more, a cinch. The blockchain can add unprecedented transparency to the supply chain, preventing waste and virtually eliminating instances of fraud. AI, machine learning, and analytics can find solutions to problems using statistical methods and doing a deep dive into the data collected by the aforementioned methods. The use of optimization techniques can increase the yield of the supply chain, reduce delivery times, and also save corporations money. Robotics and 3D printing are prime candidates for creating alternate means of production as they can make the sophistication of large-scale manufacturing available to small-scale players. In the future, even hobbyists can enter the market by introducing their own innovations. To find out more about how you can leverage your innovation to secure funding, visit our website at earlybirds.io and sign up as an innovator.”

For more information about EarlyBirds, contact the company here: EarlyBirds Mr Kris Poria and Mr Jeff Penrose +61 401 287 060 support@earlybirds.io ‘FORDE’ SUITE 10, LEVEL 1, 26 FRANCIS FORDE BOULEVARD, FORDE, ACT 2914

What happened The ride in Ford (NYSE: F) stock wasn't very smooth on Friday. The big American carmaker saw its shares decline by nearly 3% on a day when the S&P 500 index essentially traded sideways. A ruling from a court overseas was the key catalyst in that deceleration.

These companies produce the only thing that matters.

(Bloomberg) -- SpaceX paid an employee $250,000 to settle a claim she was sexually harassed by Elon Musk in 2016, according to a report from Insider. Most Read from BloombergOne of the World’s Frothiest Housing Markets Turned Into a Seller’s Headache OvernightElon Musk Gets Defensive Over Twitter Meme as Harassment Report SurfacesStocks Avert Bear Market, Slide for Seventh Week: Markets WrapApple Shows AR/VR Headset to Board in Sign of Progress on Key Project Cracks in US Economy Start to Show a

Russia will cut off natural gas to Finland after the Nordic country that applied for NATO membership this week refused President Vladimir Putin's demand to pay in rubles, the Finnish state-owned energy company said Friday, the latest escalation over European energy amid the war in Ukraine.

Yahoo Finance’s Alexis Keenan joins the Live show to break down how Google’s ad business will be the  target of a GOP-led bill.

Gas prices hit record highs on Friday, as consumers are grappling with soaring inflation.

In 1977, the song "Take This Job and Shove It" hit number one on the country music charts and stayed there for two weeks. Today's workers may not know the song, but many of them are probably familiar with the sentiment. Microsoft recently told staffers it intends to raise compensation.

(Bloomberg) -- Russia is cutting Finland off from its natural gas supplies as relations between the two neighbors sour over the Nordic nation’s decision to join defense alliance NATO.Most Read from BloombergOne of the World’s Frothiest Housing Markets Turned Into a Seller’s Headache OvernightElon Musk Gets Defensive Over Twitter Meme as Harassment Report SurfacesStocks Avert Bear Market, Slide for Seventh Week: Markets WrapApple Shows AR/VR Headset to Board in Sign of Progress on Key Project Cra

As one of the leaders in the game development space, Unity Software (NYSE: U) could capitalize on the enormous gaming market, which is expected to be worth $300 billion in the next five years. In a survey done by Unity in 2021, 61% of game developers use Unity to build their games. Shares are down over 73% year to date, between the broader tech-stock sell-off and a recently disclosed machine-learning error that will cause serious problems for Unity's business. Create solutions are subscription-based and help businesses build high-quality video games and other content, and they represented 36% of total revenue in Q1.

A bipartisan group of senators led by Utah Republican Mike Lee introduced legislation targeting conflicts of interest in the advertising technology industry, the Wall Street Journal reports. The legislation could force Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) Google to break up its dominant online-ad business. The Competition and Transparency in Digital Advertising Act would prohibit companies processing over $20 billion in digital ad transactions annually from participating in more than one

Rising expenses and inflation are hurting retail companies. As a result, analysts are lowering their price targets for their stocks.

Germany and Italy told companies they could open rouble accounts to keep buying Russian gas without breaching sanctions against Moscow following discussions with the European Union, sources said. The debate over Russia's demand that foreign buyers pay for gas in roubles has tested the resolve of European governments to take a hard line against Moscow over the war in Ukraine. Poland, Bulgaria and Finland have refused to comply with Moscow's demand that importers pay for gas via rouble accounts with Gazprombank and their supplies have been cut.

(Bloomberg) -- Amazon.com Inc. is testing a service that uses the company’s sprawling network of gig drivers to fetch packages from mall-based retailers and deliver them to customers. Most Read from BloombergOne of the World’s Frothiest Housing Markets Turned Into a Seller’s Headache OvernightElon Musk Gets Defensive Over Twitter Meme as Harassment Report SurfacesStocks Avert Bear Market, Slide for Seventh Week: Markets WrapApple Shows AR/VR Headset to Board in Sign of Progress on Key Project Cr

With bonds and stocks selling off side by side, retirees may have a reason to fear their well-diversified portfolios may not prove enough for retirement. Fixed-income investments are experiencing one of the worst years in decades, and stocks have fallen … Continue reading → The post Worried About Retiring During a Market Crash? Here's What You Need to Know appeared first on SmartAsset Blog.

The creative minds at Coca-Cola are constantly at work debuting new products to satisfy the world's ever-changing tastes, while simultaneously cooking up innovative ways to refresh classic offerings. Following this trend, the beverage corporation recently announced big changes to its second-largest brand, aiming to cool customers off in more ways than one heading into summer.RELATED: These Are Costco's Most Popular Items Right NowCoca-Cola has unveiled the launch of 'Heat Happens', complete with

Gasoline prices will stop rising once consumer demand destruction kicks in, according to one energy trader.

Wells Fargo has agreed to pay $7 million to settle charges from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission regarding anti-money laundering practices.

STORE Capital (NYSE: STOR) has homed in on a profitable niche in the commercial real estate sector. The real estate investment trust (REIT) concentrates on owning profit-center real estate. It's the only REIT focused on the profitability of the underlying property, leaving it with a wide-open opportunity.

China is quietly ramping up purchases of oil from Russia at bargain prices, according to shipping data and oil traders who spoke to Reuters, filling the vacuum left by Western buyers backing away from business with Russia after its invasion of Ukraine in February. The move by the world's biggest oil importer comes a month after it initially cut back on Russian supplies, for fear of appearing to openly support Moscow and potentially expose its state oil giants to sanctions. China's seaborne Russian oil imports will jump to a near-record 1.1 million barrels per day (bpd) in May, up from 750,000 bpd in the first quarter and 800,000 bpd in 2021, according to an estimate by Vortexa Analytics.

Hydrocarbon production in the Permian Basin’s top producing play is set to break records in 2022, spurred by high oil prices and appealing well economies