Articles

Case Studies

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Autumn Bayles: Taking the Cake

Autumn Bayles has a big job, but it’s also a sweet one. Most people who grew up in the mid-Atlantic region know the Tastykake brand as a popular lunchbox staple. Bayles’ employer, the Tasty Baking Company, has been turning out snack-sized cakes and pies under that name in Philadelphia since 1914. During three tough years […]

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Fred Clark: Just What the Doctor Ordered

In January 2003, Army sergeant Fred Clark was on leave at his home in Fort Hood, Texas, when his colonel called him into the office. Clark, a senior logistician, learned that the Army was moving him to a different unit, which would deploy to Kuwait in 10 days. For 48 hours, Clark and his new […]

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Barry Schap: Pumping It Up

The United States is expected to produce 13 billion gallons of ethanol in 2008, according to the Renewable Fuels Association. Barry Schaps, senior vice president of logistics at VeraSun Energy in Brookings, S.D., moves most of that supply. By the end of this year, when it completes a merger with U.S. BioEnergy and opens some […]

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Michael Strauss: Putting Military Training On the Line

In the early 1990s, artillery officer Mike Strauss was leading an Army convoy down a German country road in the middle of the night when he got word of a breakdown three-quarters of the way back in line. The stopped vehicle blocked the road so completely that nothing behind it could squeeze past. One of […]

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Kathy McCurry: A Wild New Ride

More people would swap their cars for motorcycles if only they knew what to wear. That’s the premise behind Classy Rider Apparel, a business that makes motorcycle jackets with mainstream appeal. In the five years she has been running Classy Rider as a one-woman operation, Kathy McCurry has learned to manage suppliers in China, coordinate […]

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Message On a Bottle

Thanks to new pedigree technology, pharmaceutical manufacturers and sellers no longer find establishing chain of custody a bitter pill to swallow.

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Jamie Meadows: He’s Got Your Back

Jamie Meadows was still completing his college degree when he reported for a summer job at ConAgra Foods in Newport, Tenn. The plant was adding a new ketchup production line and needed some reorganization. “The plant engineer called me into his office, threw a blueprint on the table, and said, ‘Design our warehouse,’” Meadows says. […]

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Bethany Adamonis: Ready for the Real World

When Bethany Adamonis headed for her co-op job last January, she didn’t know a great deal about supply chain management, her college major. Up to that point, she’d taken only one course on the subject, an introductory class that was so theoretical she couldn’t see how the principles she learned would play out in the […]

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