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The average price of a gallon of diesel fuel the week of June 6 was 18% higher than it was at the beginning of this year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and the June 6 price of that fuel in California was 20% higher.

Because transportation costs outweigh warehousing costs several times over and continue to rise, most companies think outside that big box called the warehouse when the topic is logistics and concentrate instead on how things get to their destination.

The successful application of just-in-time delivery requires every link of the supply chain to remain unbroken. Trucks and their cargo must arrive within a very precise, predetermined period of time — often only hours before the cargo is needed on the assembly line.