“Everyone at the plant has a duty to protect the products that we're sending out to the customer. Ultimately, you really have to think about it as sort of a ‘circle of life.’ What's my responsibility with what I'm doing in this part of the process, and what’s going to happen when this product reaches the consumer?” - Nathan Walts, CEO, WorkForge The food supply chain is uniquely complex and critical, because when something goes wrong lives are at stake. Regulations and standards play an importan...
Mar 13, 2025•30 min
Back in October, when the East and Gulf coast port strike ended after 3 days, we knew there would be a part 2. Short though it was, the strike is estimated to have cost the U.S. economy $3.8 - 5 Billion per day, but that wasn’t seen as the greatest ‘cost’ at the time. With the Presidential campaign in full swing, all eyes were on the impact it might have on the candidates’ relative popularity. Now that the members of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) have ratified the deal negot...
Mar 06, 2025•20 min
Since President Trump took office on January 20th, speculation about tariffs has been omnipresent in supply chain planning conversations. But we do have a guide to the administration’s philosophy, A User’s Guide to Restructuring the Global Trading System, written by Stephen Miran and published by Hudson Bay Capital in November of 2024. Miran is Trump’s pick to lead his Council of Economic Advisers, and will be appearing before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs the day t...
Feb 27, 2025•26 min
“I talk to people and I record it. That’s it.” - Joe Rogan People often say that we all need to learn to communicate better, and that is true. But we need to invest more effort on the listening side than the talking side. Joe Rogan and Charlamagne tha God are standout media personalities and cultural icons. They are also fantastic listeners and exceptional conversationalists. Their ability to prepare for and host interviews has earned them millions of subscribers and billions of downloads, makin...
Feb 20, 2025•25 min
Who will decide when EV trucking goes from being an option available to anyone to an enforceable mandate that everyone must comply with? That question is at the heart of this week’s interview. Kelly Barner had the opportunity to speak with Nebraska Attorney General Michael Hilgers. His state is on the front lines of a legal effort to ensure that if regulations end up driving the EV transition, that those regulations are properly established - undertaken by elected officials with a vested interes...
Feb 13, 2025•45 min
“ If anyone thinks that they know it all, they're in the wrong place .” - Dylan Admire The series of relationships that make the freight industry work is like a supply chain in and of itself. Under the freight agent model, agents help shippers find capacity through brokers who hold carrier contracts, facilitate financing and payments, and carry the MC number under which the agent operates. When this model works well, everyone wins–but when it doesn’t work as all of the parties expect, the fallou...
Feb 06, 2025•59 min
“It is almost always the cover-up rather than the event that causes trouble.” - Tennessee Senator Howard Baker, in reference to the Watergate scandal Whether you shop at Macy’s or not, you surely know the brand. In 2023, Macy's was the leading department store in the United States by revenue, with sales of approximately $23 Billion. On November 25, 2024, Macy’s delayed an earnings announcement planned for the next day. They had discovered some “creative accounting” and wanted to conduct an inter...
Jan 30, 2025•22 min
“Now an unelected group of powerful actors has opened a three-front effort to transform the nation’s logistics fleet from diesel-powered to electric-powered at a breakneck pace. This terrible policy is being crafted almost entirely out of public view. Nebraska is fighting back.” - Mike Hilgers , Nebraska Attorney General (WSJ Op Ed, Jan 17 2025) If you expected the transition from diesel-powered to EV trucking to take place on the open road, think again. Instead, it looks like this systemic chan...
Jan 23, 2025•19 min
“India is putting their money where their mouth is. If they're able to execute upon a free trade agreement or a pseudo free trade agreement...then that would create the fluidity to buoy all of those ships in that harbor.” - Samir Kapadia - Managing Principal at Vogel Group and Founder and CEO at India Index Regardless of the topic, 2024 was filled with ‘what if’ conversations. We were waiting to find out who would win the U.S. Presidential election–and therefore whose policies would be dominatin...
Jan 16, 2025•40 min
“We have that emotional pull to group together as humans and fight the automation. The reality is you cannot have one without the other, and they are very much working together.” -Matt Naslund , Chief Commercial Officer, Mytra As businesses look to streamline operations and optimize decision-making, a combination of hardware, software, and automation offer a solution. The challenge then becomes figuring out where automation makes sense–and how quickly and heavily organizations should implement s...
Jan 09, 2025•43 min
In 2001, Jim Collins published the book ‘Good to Great.’ He was supported by a team that invested 10.5 ‘people years’ over the course of 5 calendar years to figure out what allows some good companies to become great companies. Their research revealed key findings about leadership, use of technology, building a team, company culture, and vision. In this episode of the Art of Supply podcast, Kelly Barner re-reads ‘Good to Great’ in light of 2025 business conditions: Reviewing some of the key point...
Jan 02, 2025•21 min
Many of the supply chain news stories we covered in 2024 look ready to carry right over - or even rise to the top - as we start a new year. Some of these stories are likely to re-emerge with the incoming Trump Administration, while others are ready for a change in direction thanks to geopolitics. Supply chain professionals that already have an eye out for breaking news will be best positioned to respond as needed. In this episode of the Art of Supply podcast, Kelly Barner highlights five 2024 ne...
Dec 26, 2024•18 min
This year on Art of Supply, we welcomed a fantastic group of guests. Each interview episode creates two kinds of challenges: asking questions worthy of the guest’s expertise and capturing a conversation that lives up to audience expectations. Looking back on the interviews we ran in 2024, there are a few key messages that stand out, as individual points of view and what they collectively offer supply chain professionals as we move into 2025. Don’t ever make a decision solely on short term cost. ...
Dec 19, 2024•23 min
“I think if you could summarize what the trend is going to be in the future - It's going to be volatile. That's the trend.” - Tim Richardson , Founder and CEO of Iter Consulting In order to be influential with the C-suite, someone must have experience and expertise in a given subject. They must do detailed technical work and analysis to prepare their strategy recommendations and to be ready to answer questions. They must have a strong grasp of their domain, no matter how complex it is - but they...
Dec 12, 2024•46 min
“Polling is a science of estimation, and science has a way of periodically humbling the scientist. So, I’m humbled, yet always willing to learn from unexpected findings.” - J. Ann Selzer , President and Owner, Selzer & Company Data and analysis are at the heart of nearly everything attempted in modern business. And while human skill is critical in the process of converting data into insight, human nature may ultimately determine whether the effort can be successful. This episode is about ‘herdin...
Dec 05, 2024•20 min
“The reason I like listening is I think, ‘If I'd have been CPO there or in other organizations, what would I have done to try and prevent that? And what red flags would I have held up? And what can we learn from that so that it doesn't happen again?’” - Alex Jennings , CEO and co-founder of The Alchemie Network We all consume content for different reasons–education, entertainment, or otherwise. There are always lessons to be learned from one company or supply chain that can be applied in another...
Nov 28, 2024•1 hr 5 min
When we cover a news story on Art of Supply, we stick with it, even when it seems to have gone cold. In late August, we got an update on the case of the 53 migrants who lost their lives as a result of illegal attempted smuggling over the Mexico border back in 2022. On June 27th, 2022, an abandoned tractor trailer was found near Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. The truck had mechanical problems and it had been abandoned by its driver. A local worker heard cries of distress and opene...
Nov 23, 2024•5 min
When something goes wrong in the supply chain, it is never good news. It always leads to disruption, often costs a lot of money, and sometimes people get hurt - or worse. In July of 2024, the USDA suspended production at a Boar’s Head processing plant in Jarratt, Virginia. A listeria outbreak, the worst such outbreak in over a decade, had started in the plant. The facility has been closed indefinitely, leading to over 500 layoffs of union employees, but that wasn’t the worst of the fallout. Befo...
Nov 21, 2024•20 min
“Humans are so much more effective in processing something visually than, let's say, a table or two pieces of text next to each other. If you see it on a map, you can say, okay, this line goes like this, the other goes like this. I can make the connection in my head very easily that, okay, this is what changes. And it also makes it very easy to sort of have an opinion on it, because it clicks in your head quite easily.” - Ruud van Dijk , Commercial Director, Routescanner We routinely talk about ...
Nov 14, 2024•36 min
The United States Postal Service occupies a unique spot in the supply chain. On the one hand, it is a federal agency, tasked with delivering mail to every home, business, and P.O. box 6 (and sometimes 7) days per week. On the other hand, it does not “generally” receive taxpayer funding; it must meet its mission by selling postage and services. Thanks to this middle space between the worlds of public service and private industry, transformation is a massive challenge - even when successfully driv...
Nov 07, 2024•25 min
“Most fundamentally, strategy is about asking good questions, creating alternatives, and then making decisions about how to allocate scarce resources. [...] It's a place where you have a 360-degree view of a business.” - Ashley Hubka , Senior Vice President & General Manager, Walmart Business Corporate and consumer buying started and developed on separate tracks, and while there are some things that procurement has learned from and embedded in the B2B experience, others will always be beyond rea...
Oct 31, 2024•33 min
In the final part of this four-part special series, we compare and contrast the actual policy positions of Democratic Candidate Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican Candidate Former President Donald J. Trump. With less than two weeks until election day, procurement and supply chain professionals must have plans in place for the eventuality of either candidate being voted into office, focusing on the areas where they agree as much as where they differ. Listen in as Kelly Barner describes w...
Oct 24, 2024•14 min
In part three of this four-part special series, we will cover the policies and plans of Republican Candidate former President Donald Trump. Former President Donald Trump is 78 Years old, and a former businessman/real estate developer as well as the former host of The Apprentice. He became the nominee on July 18, 2024 when he accepted the nomination at the Republican National Convention Listen in as Kelly Barner explores his policy positions and platform: Detailed positions on global trade and Ch...
Oct 23, 2024•17 min
In part two of this four-part special series, we will cover the policies and plans of Democratic Candidate Vice President Kamala Harris. Vice President Kamala is 60 Years old and a former Senator and Attorney General from the State of California. She became the presumptive Democratic nominee on July 21, 2024 when President Biden suspended his campaign for re-election, and the official nominee on August 22 when she accepted the nomination at the Democratic National Convention. Listen in as Kelly ...
Oct 22, 2024•19 min
There are two weeks to go until the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election. Interest, speculation, and tension have been building all year. Most news coverage of the election is intended to sway voters, hyperbolic to a fault, and not tailored to the specific information needs of procurement and supply chain professionals. What we really need to know is what each major party candidate has said and what likely outcomes that would lead to. In this four-part special series, we will cover the policies and p...
Oct 21, 2024•15 min
‘Brave New World’ was published by Aldous Huxley in 1932, right between two World Wars and during a time of accelerated scientific discovery. It comes as no surprise, then, that this fictional dystopian society 600 years in the future had adopted Henry Ford as their spiritual leader. 92 years later, we find ourselves in another time of rapid technological advancement, innovation that often seems to be on a collision course with the most fundamental structures of society. What can re-reading ‘Bra...
Oct 17, 2024•26 min
“Let me be clear: we don’t want any form of semi-automation or full automation. We want our jobs—the jobs we have historically done for over 132 years.” - Harold Daggett , President of the International Longshoremen’s Association In April of 2024, most ‘experts’ felt that a strike of unionized workers at ports along the East and Gulf Coasts was unlikely. The International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) was firm about not working beyond September 30th without a signed agreement. After 6 months ...
Oct 10, 2024•24 min
“The vigor with which companies left to go to the Far East and pursue low cost country sourcing has certainly not been reversed. That's why it is largely emotional; it's largely talk.” - Thomas Goldsby , Dee and Jimmy Haslam Chair of Logistics at the Haslam College of Business at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville Business never allows us to stop learning. You might not take formal classes or participate in a training program, but real-world circumstances are a constant - and sometimes brutal...
Oct 03, 2024•50 min
“Digital empathy is the ability to humanize customer behaviors, preferences, and aspirations through the connection between human-centered data, insights, and the meaningful customer engagement powered by those insights.” - Brian Solis, Forbes Contributor Despite the fact that AI and automation seem to dominate business discussions, we haven’t stopped talking about relationships and soft skills. As the work environment and working conditions become increasingly digital, what sort of role does th...
Sep 26, 2024•24 min
“Folks from Dell to HP to Nike to Hasbro to Sony to Apple to Google to Goldman, they're all looking back at India and saying, let's go double down, triple down and build a presence here.” - Samir Kapadia , Managing Principal at Vogel Group and Founder and CEO at India Index Most companies are obsessed with moving their supply chains out of and away from China - whether it is for regulatory, risk, or human rights-related reasons. That obsession is so strong, that in some cases, they are willing t...
Sep 19, 2024•49 min
