Articles
Commentary
Are Humans in “The Loop” of Your Future-fit Strategy?
I recently counseled a stealth startup on its go-to-market strategy. It’s a familiar story—Silicon Valley-based, computer science DNA, venture capital funding, and an ambition to jump on the AI train and automate backend processes better than predecessors.
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Foresight and Flexibility: Winning in a Constrained Semiconductor Market
Amidst a memory chip shortage, maintaining a long-term view on cost versus continuity will not only weather this cycle but gain a competitive advantage in the market that follows.
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Powering Progress with Electrification
The utility sector is at the heart of an electrification wave. As societies pivot from fossil fuels to electricity, utilities and power generation companies are not just managing grids; they are driving the charge. Power providers are being asked to deliver more electricity than ever—faster, cleaner, and more reliably—while modernizing outdated infrastructure and contending with fragile global supply chains.
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Deploying Physical AI for Smarter, Safer Inbound Logistics
Physical AI will transform many aspects of the supply chain. Starting with a small, focused inbound logistics use case now can make your warehouse operations more efficient, accurate, and safe, as well as help your organization build the skills needed to extend Physical AI into other areas of your business.
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How Data Can Fix Demand Matching
Supply-demand mismatches are more than just inconvenient; they are costly. From inflated transportation spend to missed SLAs, poor alignment erodes both profitability and customer trust. The solution? Advanced analytics, not just for hindsight, but for foresight and real-time agility.
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Enabling Smarter Government Logistics
If I have learned one thing in my decades of navigating defense logistics, it’s that we can’t afford to solve tomorrow’s readiness problems with yesterday’s systems. Artificial intelligence (AI) is the first new technology with the viability to change how we forecast demand, manage obsolescence, and optimize supply chains. But the path to realizing its potential is met with structural, cultural, and bureaucratic hurdles.
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7 Principles That Make Strategic Relationships Work
Over my years of being part of the third-party logistics discipline, I have often seen and heard shipper/3PL relationships characterized as a marriage. This is a fitting characterization, given the covenant nature and commitment of these strategic business agreements.
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Crises in the Middle East Call for a New Approach in Supply Chain Resilience
By focusing on four key strategic imperatives — identifying risks, understanding their origins, and knowing when and how to activate resilience measures — businesses can transform their Middle East and global supply chains and seek competitive advantage.
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Random Stow or the Disorganized Warehouse?
Random Stow is a warehouse putaway method driven by an algorithm developed by Coupang, an ecommerce monster and formidable Amazon competitor. For the Korean market, Coupang uses this counterintuitive warehouse management method, which stores items wherever there is open shelf space, rather than grouping similar SKUs together. The warehouse might look disorganized. But it is […]
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How Agentic AI Is Redefining Route Optimization in Last-Mile Delivery
Traditional route optimization generates plans based on the data you give it. Agentic AI takes those plans and manages them through execution, making adjustments as new information arrive.
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Riding the 2026 Wave
While doom-scrolling through Facebook late one night, I saw a painting by a friend that captured something I hadn’t quite been able to put into words—so much so that I reached out and asked if we could use it for our January cover. It perfectly reflects a good way to look at the year ahead. […]
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6 Ways to Reclaim Margin
For many mid-size companies, freight costs have quietly become a dangerous threat to profit margins. These six strategies offer actionable starting points to reclaim margin and build more resilient logistics operations.
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AI in Supply Chain Management: How Useful Will It Be in 2026?
Rating Highly Readers rated AI’s expected usefulness on a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being transformative). Note: Fractions were rounded up. Average rating: 8 Range of answers: 3 to 10 Artificial intelligence will be transformative—driving forecasting, inventory optimization, and decision-making. It’s also powering digital twin roadmaps by connecting AI-driven forecasts to simulation models […]
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Transitioning to a Circular Supply Chain
Shifting from a linear to a circular supply chain model is not a challenge of the distant future but a pressing matter for supply chain professionals around the world.
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Unlocking the Potential of Case and Item Picking Systems
Whether refining existing systems or embarking on the automation journey, the secret to optimizing the picking process lies in data. Here’s how to ensure success.
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Beyond the Rush: Practical Warehouse Strategies for a Sustainable Peak Season
Sustainability and safety are not seasonal—they’re foundational. But during peak season, warehouse operators must elevate their efforts. Here’s how.
Read MoreWhat Supply Chain Tool or Strategy Is Your Most Valuable Player?
Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are the unsung MVP of the modern supply chain. They connect transportation, insurance, compliance, and analytics into one real-time system. –Johnny McCord CEO and Founder Loadsure AI-powered process intelligence. By using data to map the flow of supply chain processes, organizations can uncover bottlenecks and delays, automate tasks, and measure performance […]
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5 Supply Chain Developments That Defined 2025
As we closed our last edition of 2025, I looked back at reader emails and conversations and saw a clear pattern: This was a year of fundamental transformation. Evolving technology, geopolitical events, and demanding customers created constant pressure on your supply chains and drove five strategic developments. 1. Tariffs redefine the cost and complexity of […]
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How to Conquer Seasonal Surges
Here are three actionable strategies that retailers can implement to help overcome peak season inventory challenges while building a more robust, agile, and profitable supply chain for the future.
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Somewhere Henry Ford is Smiling
Henry Ford revolutionized car manufacturing by inventing the moving assembly line. Besides saving time and money, that new process made the Model T affordable and ubiquitous. Today, thousands of vehicle plants around the world still use that method. Using Ford’s method, modern vehicle assembly lines are a moving and sequential process where a car’s frame—called […]
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