Category Archives: Production Operations

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INTTRA urges industry-led standards for containers and logistics

Lee Hong Liang has written an interesting article about the call for standards in maritime documentation.   To my view, it’s no doubt needed badly, and has been for years.  The desires of maritime operators to work as local optimizers has hurt their presence in supply chains, which are the ultimate cooperative enterprise.  That won’t do any more, especially with supply chains themselves changing so fast in the light of trade wars and operating location changes.

Devolution of supply chains is occurring, if I can borrow a word from the port governance literature.  Now they are more focused on insuring end to end performance rather than perpetuating themselves to get ‘volume’. There are too many external factors driving changes.  Trump’s trade wars are just the ultimate hyper-push to this trend.

Apparently INTTRA has been purchased by another firm, so it remains to be seen how much impact this will have.  But the effort is much appreciated.

 

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via INTTRA urges industry-led standards for containers and logistics

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Posted on November 28, 2018 by in Logistics, Production Operations, Shipping, Supply Chains

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Six operators join to form the UK’s largest logistics company

Alex Lennane has written in the Loadstar about the merger or assimilation of six UK diverse logistics firms under one management.  Perhaps this is what’s necessary to get firms to work together– a bigger hammer.  If they cannot learn to do it on their own, let’s put them together under one management.

However, this approach is fraught with issues. Most mergers do not reach the state of grace they envisioned, because of resistance to change within.  And much of the value of a firm is in its people, and their skills at dealing with the countless exceptions that mark any business.   Another is the heterogeneity of the businesses– every firm in a merger thinks their way of doing something has to work that way for them.  It might not be true, or it might, but even thinking it draws boundaries that can take considerable effort to crack.

We will have to see if this new management structure generates rewards the size the PE firm expects.  Of course if they just make something big enough to sell publicly with temporary results, that will be enough for them to make their money and pass the risk on.

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via PE firm puts six operators together to form the UK’s largest logistics company – The Loadstar

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Posted on November 23, 2018 by in Logistics, Production Operations, Strategy, Supply Chains, Trucking

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Has Blockchain Reached its RFID Moment?

 

Walmart lettuce bag

A good summary by Alexis Bateman and Chris Cottrill of MIT comparing Walmart’s intro of blockchain for leafy greens to their introduction of RFID. As before, they are compelling suppliers to participate.  That gets it done, but does not ensure that there will be a fair division of the benefit.  And of course, it is not clear that there will be benefit.  The technology is still too new.

I’m troubled by the fact that a permanent log of readings from handheld devices may not allow device errors to be corrected.  Some suppliers may be unfairly implicated if reading errors occur. However, if the application only tracks possession and not the presence of disease bacteria, that may not be much of a problem. I suspect that mixing lots from several farmers in a single bag may be a bigger and more contentious legal dilemma.

And it’s not a solution for the little guys. Only a behemoth like Walmart could impose such a requirement.  About as far from the original blockchain concept of decentralization as one can get.

Nonetheless, I’m sure we will learn a lot from the experiment.

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via Has Blockchain Reached its RFID Moment?

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Posted on September 29, 2018 by in Logistics, Production Operations, Supply Chains, Sustainability

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