The American Civil War was a War on Supply Chains
I love to look at the Early Modern Period and the Modern Age through a capitalist lense. I see the significance of capitalism in almost every turn of historical events when I...
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supply chain
How the consulting world screwed up the ‘Lean’ Idea
The lean idea was started by Toyota in the war-torn Japan in the 1950s, almost by necessity. It turns to be very effective and helped Toyota grow and even dominate the world...
Platform or Specialization? Maybe it is both
I have been pondering with a “barbell effect” in the ongoing economy. Take Amazon as an example. It is obviously dominating the e-commerce world, and it is...
The US Economy is Changing in its structure
Photo: Business Formation in Numbers 2006-2023 Recently I have been reading some papers that claim that COVID-19 kick-started entrepreneurship, as more and more people changed...
Decarbonizing Last-mile Logistics: A quick summary
Recently I gave a short lecture over Zoom to a group of students at NYU on my thoughts of decarbonizing the last-mile in supply chains. The one-sentence summary? The...
How do sustainable supply chains improve the continuity of supply and protect the environment?
Photo: Woods in Sherborn, MA, Summer 2023. Recently I was asked by my School’s PR people to reflect on a few questions regarding the relationship between business...
Choosing the right fuel (II): Total cost
We have discussed the cost of using different types of fuel. Now let’s step back and talk about what are the total cost involved in marine shipping. For marine shipping,...
Steps to calculate the carbon footprint of a supply chain
The steps of calculating the carbon footprint of a supply chain is straightforward: 1- You need to map out your supply chain. This also defines the boundary of your...
How large is the supply chain economy? The answer may surprise you
Recently I have been working on a book about the “supplychainification” of economies around the world – If you have never heard about the word...
So Ford Wants to Do Away with its Dealers…
According to the Detroit Free Press, Jim Farley, the current Ford CEO, said that he wants to sell its EVs online rather than through its dealerships. Apparently, he was upset...