Author Archives: just2bruce

Canadian National to move more heavy oil from Western Canada

Posted on April 10, 2015 | Leave a comment

Canadian National is a big player in the trend to move oil by rail.  they will be running unit trains to the East Coast and Gulf Coast.  Since Canadian sands oil is heavier and less flammable, safety will not be as big an issue. Two of my students wrote an interesting research paper on the impact of lower energy prices on logistics.  One of them was in the oil industry.  They concluded that more oil would be moving by rail and congestion and shortages of rail service for other products would be the result.  Looks like that is playing out, despite the low prices for oil

Platts  Canadian National plans to move more heavy barrels from Western Canada – Oil | Platts News Article & Story.

 

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Posted in Logistics

4 Reasons Why 3D Printing is a Niche

Posted on April 2, 2015 | Leave a comment

Well, now MIT has said it.  3D printing is not exactly going to take over the world.  Several important issues (quality, speed, development or setup time) are raised here.  And I think there are others.

 

4 Reasons Why 3D Printing is Still a Niche Application | Supply Chain @ MIT.

 

So I wonder if the maker labs people have really thought this stuff through. What they’re doing reminds me of shop class in high school– we put some folks together and let them make stuff.  But we don’t know whether anyone wants them, and often no one does.  So the yield of products, jobs, economic value might not be large.

Perhaps they should spend more time with design thinking and less with building stuff.  What is the problem, who has this problem, and what would solve it for them?

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Posted in Leadership, Production Operations, Strategy

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OSHPD – HID – Pivot Profile

Posted on March 31, 2015 | Leave a comment

Here is where to get LTC facilities financial info for California. It is easy to compare facilities or counties, or types by using the pivot tables in Excel.  You do have to know Excel though.

CA.gov        OSHPD – HID – Pivot Profile.

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Posted in Friends House