Pennsylvania is a state with a rich history and diverse landscapes | gmc94

Pennsylvania is a condition with a abundant record and assorted landscapes, making it an great spot for scenic street trips. From rolling hills to dense forests to winding rivers, Pennsylvania has a lot of picturesque drives to examine. In this site publish, we are going to acquire a search at some of the most scenic drives in Pennsylvania.

Laurel Highlands Scenic Byway

The Laurel Highlands Scenic Byway is a 70-mile generate that passes as a result of the picturesque Laurel Highlands area of Pennsylvania. The route starts in Uniontown and passes by means of compact towns, lush forests, and spectacular mountain vistas. Highlights alongside the way involve Ohiopyle Condition Park, which options waterfalls, rapids, and climbing trails, as very well as the historic city of Ligonier.

Route 6

Route 6 is a historic highway that operates from the Delaware River in the east to the Ohio border in the west. The Pennsylvania part of the route covers over 400 miles and passes by a assortment of landscapes, which includes forests, farmland, and modest cities. Alongside the way, website visitors can see sights these types of as the Kinzua Bridge Point out Park, the PA Grand Canyon, and the town of Wellsboro, known for its gasoline-lit streets and Victorian architecture.

PA Route 32

Also acknowledged as River Road, PA Route 32 follows the Delaware River by Bucks County in southeastern Pennsylvania. The travel capabilities charming compact towns, historic web pages, and gorgeous views of the river. People can end at points of interest this kind of as Washington Crossing Historic Park, which commemorates George Washington’s famed crossing of the Delaware River, or the Bowman’s Hill Wildflower Maintain, which features over 700 species of native vegetation.

The Countless Mountains

The Infinite Mountains area of northeastern Pennsylvania is acknowledged for its rolling hills and breathtaking vistas. Visitors can consider a scenic push along Route 6, which passes through the area, or choose the back again roads for an even much more scenic route. Along the way, site visitors can see sights this kind of as the Steamtown Countrywide Historic Web page in Scranton, the quaint city of Tunkhannock, and the Susquehanna River.

Grand Look at Push

Positioned in central Pennsylvania, Grand Check out Push is a 12-mile scenic route that offers amazing sights of the Susquehanna River and the surrounding countryside. The route capabilities various overlooks where readers can end and get in the views. The drive also passes by means of the city of Halifax, which has a charming historic district and several exceptional stores and dining establishments.

Delaware Drinking water Gap Countrywide Recreation Place

The Delaware H2o Gap Nationwide Recreation Area is a natural wonderland that spans the Delaware River along the Pennsylvania and New Jersey border. Visitors can generate by way of the park on Route 209 and halt at many scenic overlooks to consider in the spectacular views of the river, waterfalls, and forests. The park is also dwelling to numerous outside routines these types of as climbing, fishing, and kayaking.

Route 30, Lincoln Highway

Identified as the Lincoln Highway, Route 30 is the 1st coast-to-coast freeway in the United States. In Pennsylvania, the route passes by compact cities, scenic farmland, and charming historic sites. Visitors can end at the Flight 93 Nationwide Memorial, which honors the passengers and crew of the United Flight 93 that crashed on September 11, 2001, or the historic town of Bedford, which options special shops, eating places, and museums.

Route 120, Bucktail Trail

The Bucktail Path, also recognised as Route 120, is a scenic generate that runs via the coronary heart of the Pennsylvania Wilds. The route passes by way of dense forests, mountain ridges, and modest cities, offering visitors a glimpse of the state’s all-natural beauty. Along the way, readers can end at attractions these types of as the Elk State Visitor Centre, which attributes reveals about Pennsylvania’s elk populace, or the quaint city of Lock Haven, which has a historic downtown and gorgeous river views.

PA Route 6 Heritage Corridor

The PA Route 6 Heritage Corridor is a specified scenic byway that runs through 11 counties in northeastern Pennsylvania. The route passes via charming smaller cities, historic web sites, and gorgeous purely natural places, featuring guests a glimpse of the state’s various landscapes and cultures. Highlights alongside the way incorporate the town of Hawley, which options exclusive retailers and places to eat, and the Tioga Central Railroad, which offers scenic prepare rides via the countryside.

In summary, Pennsylvania has no shortage of scenic drives to explore, just about every with its one of a kind attraction and magnificence. Irrespective of whether you happen to be searching for breathtaking organic vistas, charming little towns, or historic web sites, you happen to be absolutely sure to uncover anything that satisfies your passions. So, hop in your motor vehicle, roll down the windows, and take a generate via the scenic beauty of the Keystone State.

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Photograph byValeriia KoganonUnsplash

Studia 54’s Diverse Approach to Interior Design

The art of residing in the type of Studia 54 can be described as the manifesto of individuality, ongoing artistic search, and modern-day look at on heritage. “We make a new top quality of lifestyle by giving our shoppers with a perception of exclusivity and a new generation of ease and comfort for quite a few several years ahead. We intention to come to be one particular of the ideal international style bureaus by making jobs in our exceptional just one-of-a-form design and style.”

We sat down with Studia 54 to communicate about their artistic procedure, portfolio, and the staff making the magic happen.

Jetset: What design model does Studia 54 lean to, and can you you should expand on that?

S54: We developed our exceptional stylistics and now develop them with just about every job. Distinct functions are the mixture of luxurious and coziness with quite a few information and accents and particular person implementation from job to venture. Devoid of exception, we create unique layout options for every single job considering that they deliver true liquidity and the prospect of rising serious estate costs around time. This outcome is developed with the enable of snug organizing methods, high-high-quality materials, useful and aesthetic pieces of household furniture, and the correspondence of inside decorations to exterior structure.

Jetset: Make sure you explain your most present-day venture/s.

S54: Just about every task is particular in its own way, but we would like to position out our first challenge in the USA—the American premium-class nation home. We have often wanted to function with American shoppers, and we are definitely delighted with the final result. The inside turned out to be light, cozy, and tasteful. We mixed our exceptional stylistics with American classics, and this is how we made an exceptional inside with our special stylistics.

Jetset: What has been a person of your most unforgettable initiatives?

S54: There are some interesting assignments we are at the moment doing work on. For instance, the interior of a former church building in London that will be transformed into an art gallery. We created a dwelling in Cyprus with unconventional planning we phone it “the reversed home.” We are also developing a style and design job for a relatives household in Jakarta that will element a fish lake built-in into the floor. We’ll describe just about every project’s aspects in our portfolio stay tuned!

Jetset: Wherever do you see structure going above the up coming couple of several years? 

S54: In the coming a long time, design and style will go on to strive for sustainability, new supplies, and means of doing work with them will emerge. This pattern, by the way, was one particular of the motives we developed our have home furnishings model, Fiftyfourms. By creating our have products, we recognize how trends get the job done and how to further acquire style.

Jetset: What architectural influences do you have a tendency to lean towards when building a house? 

S54: We favor an open floor plan—spaces easily flowing into each other a minimum of corridors and halls and significant merged rooms as an alternative of modest independent ones. We comply with a related basic principle in architecture when, for example, we boost the glazing place, increase open up-to-under spaces, and minimize the range of flooring.

With a crew of far more than 100 pros from a large wide variety of regions of style, architecture, and development, Studia 54 strives to make and implement models that are aesthetic, present day, and practical. “Our workforce is the drive of the style of the foreseeable future. We get the job done predominantly with the top quality and luxury section of the market.” Centered in Dubai, the UAE, the Studia 54 team consists of 3 distinctive brands, with its business enterprise scope masking all sectors of the world of inside style and design and architecture. “Our group of gurus from a wide range of regions can make desires of a magnificent and cozy daily life occur real.”

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Diverse landscapes at the heart of bee conservation

A blend of buildings and forest will increase the quantity of species of bees in a supplied location

New research from the University of Ga discovered that combined land use – this sort of as developments interspersed with forest patches – increases bee variety and is main to new solutions for bee conservation.

The scientists hypothesized that growth would negatively impact bee range, but the benefits of the review had been stunning. They identified that modest amounts of enhancement essentially experienced a constructive impact on the quantity of bee species existing in a offered spot.

A single of our critical conclusions, I assume, was just how many bees there had been.” —Kris Braman

The team from UGA’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences incorporated Amy Janvier, Kris Braman, Clayton Traylor and Miriam Edelkind-Vealey. The benefits of their function were being printed earlier this 12 months in the Journal of Insect Conservation.

For their research, researchers sampled bees on a wide range of houses all around Athens, Georgia, and labeled the share of development, agricultural fields and forests in the surrounding landscape. This authorized the workforce to hyperlink landscape aspects with the range of bees observed on each individual residence.

(Picture by Peter Frey/UGA)

The scientists found 111 species during their research. Braman, principal investigator and head of the Section of Entomology at CAES, stated she’s satisfied to see the enormous bee variety hosted by Athens.

“One of our important conclusions, I imagine, was just how a lot of bees there had been,” stated Braman. “The number of species we observed signifies about 20{6d6906d986cb38e604952ede6d65f3d49470e23f1a526661621333fa74363c48} of the bee species that are acknowledged in Ga. If you think about all the distinct habitats where by you can obtain bees — in far more natural or wild options, orchards and all types of habitats — for us to get that lots of species was extremely gratifying.”

In addition to revealing how several bees ended up current, the success showed the significance of forest remnants, which are little items of forest still left in otherwise created locations. More species are possible to are living in a landscape that has both equally open up, made spots and forest remnants, than in just formulated land or just forest.

Braman stated this reveals the enriching influence of more blended landscapes with a number of land-deal with varieties. Getting only forest protect restrictions bee range to forest-dwelling species. But forest patches in combination with other land-use types preserves forest-dwelling species and hosts other bee species that prefer open up spaces. Braman stated that some species — like the Morrison’s miner bee (Andrena morrisonella) — will have to choose the far more open habitats presented by designed parts.

(Photograph by Andrew Davis Tucker/UGA)

Braman famous that the results may be a valuable framework for potential study to help in bee conservation.

“I imagine this function serves as a groundwork for future discovery that can assist us understand what we need to plant additional of for bee conservation,” explained Braman. “Entities like UGA’s Condition Botanical Garden of Ga have plant-conservation initiatives and they’re pretty intrigued in what they can do for wildlife, which includes bees, so we can use this investigation to glimpse at that extra in the foreseeable future.”

Braman explained the primary writer of the paper, Janvier, a next-12 months master’s university student in the Office of Entomology, passed absent in 2020 throughout the facts-collection section of the research. Braman and the other authors chose to honor their colleague by publishing the completed research with Janvier detailed as very first writer.

Diverse range of skiers flock to Hunter

When snowboarding enthusiast Marquis Williams, 51, was working as a financial exec for American Express in the late 90s and early aughts, his job would often take him around the globe — he even lived in Prague working with Amex for several years.

“I’ve skied all over the world,” says the former restaurateur and now multi-property owner.  “Out West, Europe, you name it.”  But his favorite mountain, where he now owns a second home with his family and has a season pass to? Hunter Mountain in the Catskill Mountains of New York.

Not for its crazy vertical (it offers a 1,600-foot vertical drop, often coated in man-made snow), nor for its thousands of acres of off-piste terrain (there are 13 lifts and 67 trails, all inbound). It’s simply fun — and partially because not everyone looks the same.

“In a lot of parts of Europe, everyone on the slopes was blonde and blue-eyed,” says Williams, who is Black. “At Hunter, because it’s so close to the city, there is so much diversity. Not just the color of people’s skin or the language they speak, but their religious affiliations, their socioeconomic backgrounds. At so many resorts I’ve been to, people look like they just walked out of the ski shop where they asked for the most expensive snowsuits or gear they had. At Hunter, you can ski in jeans and an Islanders jersey and no one bats an eye. It’s like being in the city — you can see a skier in a hijab, or a yarmulke. It’s just part of the natural landscape.”

Shira Derasmo, an Israeli by way of California, grew up skiing at Lake Tahoe but prefers Hunter. “It feels less competitive at Hunter. Less intense. Less snotty. It’s welcoming.” 

Shira Derasmo, an Israeli by way of California, grew up skiing at Lake Tahoe but prefers Hunter. “It feels less competitive at Hunter. Less intense. Less snotty. It’s welcoming.” 

Courtesy Shira Derasmo

This, he says, is exactly what makes the Hunter crowd so interesting. “I’ve never felt any type of pretentiousness here,” he says, adding that the après-ski scene is his favorite in all the world. “It’s just a fun hang, an anyone-is-welcome type of vibe. Sometimes a group of us will go and not even snowboard, but just sit at the base, have a drink, watch the skiers in the terrain park and meet people from all walks of life. Everyone is down to talk, and everyone there is cool. It’s just a down home, great spot.”

Shira Derasmo, 44, who is Israeli, agrees. Also a snowboarder, she grew up in California, where she regularly skied at Lake Tahoe, occasionally Mammoth or Big Bear. Now she and her husband and their three-year-old daughter live mostly full-time in their second home in nearby Tannersville.

“For nine years I’ve been skiing almost exclusively at Hunter,” says the founder of Cuttlefish Communications, a PR firm. She says despite knowing there are bigger mountains out there, she has no real desire to go anywhere else.

“The people I meet in the lodge and lift lines at Hunter are so overwhelmingly nice. Like, ‘I’m having a house party, you should come,’ type of nice.” (She adds that she even has gone to a house party with people she met in the lodge after a day on the slopes.)

“It’s similar to being in the city, in that people will talk to strangers. They’re not cliquey the way they can be at other resorts. And you can be on a lift with people from all walks of life. I’ve ridden with a plumber, a graffiti artist, a CEO. You just get that vibe that people want to chat and talk about where they’re from, how often they come, their favorite runs of the day. It feels like a community.”

She also notes that, despite Hunter’s occasional reputation for being home to party bros who might mow you down on the slopes, she’s faced much ruder skiers out West, where there’s more of a sense of entitlement on the slopes. “It feels less competitive at Hunter,” she says. “Less intense. Less snotty. It’s welcoming.”

Marquis Williams was in his 20s when he began skiing at Hunter, taking buses from New York City to avoid a pricey overnight stay. Now he and his family have a second home near Hunter and a season pass at the ski resort, where the low-key vibe, he says, hasn’t changed.

Marquis Williams was in his 20s when he began skiing at Hunter, taking buses from New York City to avoid a pricey overnight stay. Now he and his family have a second home near Hunter and a season pass at the ski resort, where the low-key vibe, he says, hasn’t changed.

Courtesy Marquis Williams

That could be partly due to the fact skiers can easily make a day trip out to Hunter, which draws a younger crowd — buses like OvRride bring skiers from various locations in the city to base lodge three days a week, sparing anyone from having to spring for overnight accommodations.

(OvRride’s CEO and President Jamie Kiley agrees that Hunter was their number one destination for many years, though he says recently, Belleayre has picked up Hunter’s mantle as the most popular ski mountain for their riders, partly due to the convenience of being able to rent skis and book lessons at Belleayre with the bus ticket.)

“When I used to come here in the 90s, it was a lot of day trips,” says Williams of his 20s. “It wasn’t too expensive that way. You’d go and come right back. Though there was a lack of decent housing back then,” he says, noting that’s what prompted him to buy his own rental property in nearby Lanesville in 2019.

Today, the town has seen a huge surge of hip new hotels and home rentals — three new hotels opened in the area or changed ownership in 2021 alone, and German beer garden Jägerberg, across from Hunter’s entrance, offers an added après-ski option. Nearby Tannersville also added two new restaurants in the last few months, and more hotels are in early planning stages.

Still, Williams says Hunter’s low-key vibe hasn’t changed one bit in the 25 years since then. “There are plenty of wealthy people who ski at Hunter,” he says. “But if someone hit the bar dressed to the nines in the most expensive ski suit you could buy, it would probably be weird.”

Hunter is ‘a welcoming place’

Jamie Kiley says Hunter for years was the top destination for his ski bus service, OvRride, though lately Belleayre is becoming a more popular mountain for NYC daytrip skiers.

Jamie Kiley says Hunter for years was the top destination for his ski bus service, OvRride, though lately Belleayre is becoming a more popular mountain for NYC daytrip skiers.

OvRride

Adam White, Senior Manager of Resort Communications Northeast at Vail Resorts, which acquired Hunter from Peaks Resorts in 2019, says there are plenty of reasons why Hunter feels more accessible: it’s what some might call a “starter mountain.”  

“Hunter is the people’s mountain,” he corrects. “Its proximity to New York City [126 miles south], the melting pot of the world, certainly means it caters to one of the most diverse groups you’ll ever see at any mountain.


One could make the same argument for neighboring Catskills peaks. As Kiley points out, Belleayre is gaining on Hunter’s “people’s mountain” status and is a favorite among locals. But Hunter still has an unstuffy, friendly appeal, more so than Windham, he says. Maybe that’s what attracts new skiers.

“It’s the very first place thousands and thousands of people will ever ski in their life, so you can’t be pretentious,” says White. “Hunter’s entire identity is that it’s a welcoming place.”

Which means total newcomers to the sport can feel safe falling down on the bunny hill over and over, and no one will make them feel bad for it — instead, they’re more likely to pick up your poles, bring you safely back to the lift. They might even stay with you and give you some pointers.

“It’s not trying to be exclusive,” White says. “It’s trying to be as inclusive as possible.”

Still, he notes that just because the clientele at Hunter is diverse, there is much, much more that needs to be done in that area in the sport as a whole. “A barrier for a lot of people with skiing for decades has been the cost,” he says, noting that Hunter recently dropped its lift prices by 20 percent to try and combat that issue.

“The affordability movement is so important, mainly so that so many more people can experience it and see if it’s for them. Because once you catch that bug, it ends up being a lifelong thing, something they share with their families and generations to come. The health and future of the industry relies on that.”  He says that historically, the classic profile of a skier has been people who look the same and are in similar income brackets — yes, that means wealthy and white. He’s intent on changing that.

“The people on the mountain needs to be a reflection of our society,” he says, adding that Vail actively reaches out to various ski groups like the National Brotherhood of Skiers and Albany’s Nubian Empire Ski Club to bring them to slopeside events.

“You have to actively reach out to groups that are underrepresented, and make sure people feel like they belong so they want to come back. It’s about making an effort to engage, and to get rid of that air of elitism that skiing has had for so long.”

White also talks, in the way that skiing enthusiasts often do, about that joyous feeling you get when you’re outside on a run, enjoying the crisp air, taking perfect turns down a perfect trail. “I want to share that feeling with everyone,” he says.

White, like Williams and Derasmo, agrees that there’s probably no resort like Hunter Mountain in terms of diversity, but also in terms of its easy-going vibe and casual friendliness, which he attributes to its location.

“There’s an attitude of acceptance there,” he says. “That feeling of ‘everyone being in it together’ informs that attitude. That’s always been a key part of Hunter’s DNA, and we’re committed to preserving that identity.” 

More Outdoors News and Travel



Diverse landscapes – Garden Center Magazine

illustration © Golden Sikorka | Adobe Stock

Whether you’re delivering products to your customers or relying on deliveries and inventories of those goods, supply chain disruptions and skyrocketing costs are impacting every garden center business. Regardless of where they lay in the supply chain, disruptions are taking a heavy toll on independent retailers, many of which have few resources to absorb or push back on price increases, and even less leverage to pass those higher costs to customers.

A whopping 44{6d6906d986cb38e604952ede6d65f3d49470e23f1a526661621333fa74363c48} of small businesses recently reported temporary shortages or other supply chain problems, according to a survey of approximately 800 companies by Vistage Worldwide Inc., a coaching and advisory organization for small businesses. Fortunately, even this far into the disruptions, planning, increased supply chain management, adding potential suppliers and increased technology can help every independent garden center retailer cope with, or even profit from, rising prices and the supply chain disarray.

Coping with a volatile supply chain

Garden centers develop supply chains so they can reduce their costs and remain competitive. An efficient, optimized supply chain is extremely important in the fulfillment of customer orders. However, it can also result in lower costs and a more efficient production or sales cycle when managed correctly.

Supply chain management, or SCM, is the umbrella term that covers product development, sourcing, production, procurement, logistics and more. Without SCM, an independent garden center runs the risk of losing customers and its competitive edge.

SCM isn’t just about creating an efficient process; it’s also crucial to mitigating risk and ensuring everything runs smoothly. After all, many elements make up the supply chain from manufacturing sites to warehouses to transportation, inventory management and order fulfillment. So it should come as no surprise that managing the supply chain, along with agile and efficient adoption of technologies, is creating a new way of operating.

Without an optimized SCM process in place, the chain can fall apart from the very beginning. A dynamic approach to managing supply chains exists and provides everything a garden center needs to create a more robust supply chain. Apply agile strategies toward real-time disruptions, use powerful analytics that address and resolve root causes, and find management practices that pave the way for long-term growth.

Flexibility vs. resilience

When it comes to coping with disruptions and changes, flexibility and resilience are critical traits for success with a volatile supply chain. A resilient supply chain can weather the storm if one of its suppliers has to shut down production. And a flexible supply chain can adapt to market trends and conditions in the blink of an eye.

With the rate of disruptions continuing and, in many cases, increasing, change management is required. It is important to focus specifically on dealing with disruptions and, if at all possible, avoiding them (via flexibility). This will be a largely operational hurdle involving establishing strategies for particular events or changes — often with the help of digital technology.

Just in time

While there is no single best way to create a winning supply chain strategy, a popular option among those with inventories is so-called “just-in-time” management for inventories of raw materials, supplies, goods and products. Just-in-time management cuts final producers’ costs while redistributing some of those costs to intermediate producers, who wind up either holding extra stock or finding other ways to cope with demand-side fluctuations.

Unfortunately, the major problem of relying too heavily on just-in-time is glaringly evident in the industry credited with inventing it. Automakers have been crippled by a shortage of computer chips — vital car components produced mostly in Asia. Without enough chips on hand, automobile plants around the world have been forced to halt assembly lines.

Still, today’s shortages raise the question of whether some garden center retailers have been too aggressively reaping savings by slashing inventory. Despite their role in the supply chain however, many key players say they don’t want to replace just-in-time entirely because the savings are too great.

Alternate suppliers

Many businesses have been using alternate suppliers to combat rising inflation, supply chain disruptions and labor shortages. Relying on backup suppliers to battle shortages or shipping delays is rapidly becoming the “new norm” for many garden centers.

Shifting suppliers allows a business to “optimize costs.” An alternate supplier allows an IGC to quickly respond to supply chain disruptions, minimizing the impact on their bottom lines. Unfortunately, few are completely immune to supply chain disruption and are forced to hike prices if only to keep ahead of rising inflation.

What’s more, maintaining multiple potential suppliers, however, requires planning — and a great amount of work. Of course, every business relying on numerous suppliers has a certain amount of flexibility when supply chain breakdowns occur. That has allowed them to better shield themselves from the impacts of COVID-19 outbreaks, extreme weather events and other supply chain disruptions.

Spot bidding

It’s no secret that supply shortages and disruptions have led to a record number of canceled contracts and the rise of “spot bidding.” When supply and capacity are strained, previously negotiated contracts and agreements are all-too-frequently thrown out the window, leaving little alternative to the incredibly inefficient spot bidding.

Spot bidding requires many of the same, time-consuming, repetitive steps as the original process to reach out to potential carriers or suppliers, collect data and make new award declarations.

Far too many within the industry failed to anticipate the sheer volume of canceled contracts or the rise of spot bidding, among other economic challenges. Complicating matters today, when an outsourcing need arises, many are turning to what is familiar and ignoring the impact of new problems with old, outdated processes and technology.

Since it is often conducted outside of a formal sourcing process, spot bidding often introduces bias, where the business favors certain suppliers in the interest of speed, reducing the competitive tension that might have resulted in better offers.

Understanding that in order to remain competitive and guard against disruptions, integrating new suppliers — and identifying which supply lines no longer hold value — is imperative. A garden center that overlooks emerging suppliers to preserve incumbent relationships does so at the expense of innovation and resiliency.

According to many experts, a lack of a cohesive strategy and technology are the biggest hurdles to building future-ready supply chains. Fortunately, in an effort to upgrade these methods, many businesses are overhauling their old systems and attempting to streamline processes using optimization and automation technology for a more modernized supply chain.

illustration © Golden Sikorka | Adobe Stock

Optimization

A fundamental way of achieving preparedness is to optimize processes wherever possible — especially in the procurement function. Optimization makes it possible to balance cost and speed objectives, give suppliers flexible bidding options and eliminate “lowest price wins” awards.

With the right solution, the IGC retailer has the capability to handle everything from spot bids to large-scale RFPs, with a supplier-friendly interface that improves the operation’s direct materials, supplies or service award decisions. One such solution involves automation.

Automation

A computerized sourcing process can establish spot bidding and mini-tender events within minutes, managing and automating everything from inviting carriers and collecting bid data to generating award recommendations based on a set of criteria. A computerized system goes beyond cost savings by creating more efficiency.

By reducing time-consuming, monotonous tasks, optimization and automation technology allows the garden center’s key personnel to do what they do best — focus on supplier relationships, accomplish broader goals for the operation and drive innovation.

A problem without an answer

With price hikes already common, inflation expectations are posing potential problems for some retailers. Pandemic buying and supply shortages exposed flaws in many supply chains that will continue to be exploited in the months ahead.

Although many retailers learned how to cope with on-the-fly solutions (duct tape and chewing gum?), most postponed long-term investments while grappling with more immediate issues.

Today, IGCs can utilize past lessons and move forward. For some, that will mean stockpiling more inventory and forging relationships with additional suppliers. Unfortunately, for far too many garden center owners and managers, the pursuit of cost savings will once again trump other considerations.

Disruptions in the supply chain aren’t going away any time soon. The bottom line is that there is no single best way to create a winning supply chain strategy. However, by leveraging optimization and automation to create a future-ready supply chain, retailers can leave antiquated approaches behind and progress to modernity. The operation’s future may depend on it.

The author is a business writer based in Pennsylvania. His tax and financial features have appeared in business magazines and trade journals for more than 25 years. Reach him at MEBatt12@Earthlink.net