Category Archives: Logistics

The First Flight Around the World Began 90 Years Ago Today!

It’s hard to believe that it was only 90 years ago today that Seattle, the lead aircraft in the 4-aircraft squadron of the United States Army Air Service, took off from Sand Point, Washington for Alaska in the first leg of what would become the first successful circumnavigation of the world by flight in a journey that took 175 days and covered 44,342 km.

It’s especially hard since we can now fly halfway around the world in a day and a half and are used to getting expedited shipments to fuel our supply chain from halfway around the world in three days (or less). But back in 1924, even though some had tried, including Britain and France, no country had succeeded in flying around the world until the United States Army Air Service, led by Maj. Frederick Martin, managed to circle the globe with the squadron of specially modified DT-2s, with interchangeable wheeled and pontooned landing gear and a fuel capacity of 3,438 litres, made the voyage which involved landings in over 20 countries.

Although SI typically avoids two history lessons in the same week, this was a significant milestone in aviation. With the first air freight shipment having occurred a mere three and a half years before this iconic journey, it allowed some people to dream of a future where air cargo ruled the skies — and make that future happen!

The (Board) Gamer’s Guide to Supply Management Part III: Star Trek Catan


Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the interstellar supply fleet. Their interstellar mission: to find new sources of raw materials, to build new outposts and new star-bases, to build new supply routes where no supply routes existed before!

So, it’s been a while and you’ve progressed to the point where you’re now Master of Catan. Always the first to build outposts, transform them into cities, build new supply routes connecting them, and amass the largest armies to protect those supply routes, you think you’re a master of supply as you deftly conquer the ports to secure the trade advantage, always outsmart the pirate, and never allow your rivals to secure a longer route. Maybe you are the Master of the lonely isle of Catan, but are you ready to supply the final frontier?

In Star Trek Catan, you’re settling the final frontier – space. You are a merchant selected by the Federation to build supply outposts to supply the different federation members. Instead of building roads, you are building starships; instead of building settlements, you are building outposts; and instead of building up those settlements into cities, you are building those outposts up into star-bases. Just like roads, settlements, and cities required resources that could only be collected from regions that neighboured your existing settlements and cities, starships, outposts, and star-bases require resources that can only be collected from nearby planets. (Wood and brick are replaced by dilithium and tritanium, and sheep, wheat, and ore are replaced by food, water, and oxygen.) You still have development cards, but instead of soldiers that build your army, there are star-fleet interventions that augment your security, and the progress and “victory point” cards have been appropriately updated as well. But the biggest difference is the introduction of support cards. In regular Catan, all you could do was build, trade, or play a development card. In Star Trek Catan, you always have one support card which gives you a unique advantage and the choice of when to play it (which is important as any given support card can only be used twice).

The support cards, which are, of course, modelled after original Star Trek characters, give you special abilities on your turn or in certain circumstances. Eight of the abilities can only be activated on your turn:

  • Uhura:Forced Trade You have the upper hand and can force up to two players to give you a resource type you desire in exchange for a resource type you do not.
  • Scott:Starship Building Miracle When building a starship, you may replace 1 dilithium or 1 tritanium with any resource of your choice.
  • Sulu:New Heading You may move any starship on the board at the end of one of your supply routes to the end of another one of your supply routes.
  • McCoy:Development Specialist When buying a development card, one resource of your choice can be replaced with another resource of your choice.
  • Chekov:Klingon Decoy Move the Klingons to the asteroid field and take 1 resource of the type produced by the planet the Klingons left.
  • Rand:Free Trading Outpost Receive one resource of your choice and perform one or more border trades with that resource type at the 2:1 trading outpost for that resource type.
  • Chapel:Liberate a Resource On your turn, after the production roll, take one resource of your choice from a rival with more victory points than you.
  • Sarek:Swords to Plowshares You may discard one Starfleet Intervenes card to build an outpost for the same cost as a starship.

The final two abilities are activated on production rolls:

  • Spock:Resource Compensation On any non-“7” production roll where you receive no resources, you still get to take one resource of your choice.
  • Kirk:Protection from Klingons When a “7” is rolled, if you have more than 7 resources, you may use this ability to prevent resource loss or, if you have 7 or less resources, to take a resource of your choice.

These abilities, which encapsulate some of the different skills deft supply managers may possess, can completely change the game dynamics. Think you’ve done a good job acquiring a monopoly on water or air? Think again. An opponent with the Spock or Uhura support card can still acquire those resources from you or the main supply. Or use Scott or McCoy to substitute another resource for that resource. And it changes the dynamic for you too! Once you’ve deftly placed those star-bases and are acquiring resources faster than you can build, if you can secure it, you can use Kirk’s special ability to keep those Klingons away and achieve victory even faster.

And if you play your cards right, you’ll always score two (of the needed 10) victory points for the Longest Supply Route.

Could there be a better game for a budding Supply Manager to cut his teeth on as he takes up the art of strategic board-gaming to refine his supply mastery skills? the doctor, who believes we should all be preparing for Extra-Planetary Supply Management, thinks not!

 

The original Board Gamer’s Guide series:
Part    I: Ticket to Ride
Part   II: The Settlers of Catan
Part  III: Munchkin
Part  IV: Castle Panic
Part   V: Small World
Part  VI: Zombie Dice, Tsuro, and Get Bit!

… and the new Board Gamer’s Guide series:
Part  VII: Upon a Salty Ocean
Part VIII: Agricola
Part    IX: Small World Part 2
Part     X: All Creatures Big and Small
Part    XI: Agricola Part II-A
Part   XII: Agricola Part II-B

Time Critical Transport – Is it Still Needed?

A recent article over on Inbound Logistics on Time-Critical Transport: Devising a Master Plan makes it sound like expedited or time-critical transport is still difficult or even needed regularly. The reality is that, for any Procurement and Logistics organization that is with the times and using the right technology, it’s easy and rarely needed.

Traditionally, time critical transport was needed when something went awry in the supply chain and a shipment had to be expedited to prevent a disruption or stock-out that could be disastrous to a company’s bottom line. Otherwise, unless you were talking about perishable deliveries on a non-refridgerated truck, proper planning mitigated the need for expedited shipment. This situation, of course, worsened with the introduction of JIT (Just in Time) Manufacturing and delivery in the supply chain, especially considering that not only have natural and financial disasters been on the rise since this paradigm became popular, but, as expected, so did disruptions as there were no longer weeks worth of buffer inventory to absorb a minor supply chain shock.

But if you have good visibility, proper planning, and the right tools at your disposal, whether or not you are JIT makes no difference — the odds of a disruption being so significant as to require expedited shipping are low.

Specifically, if you have:

  • multi-tier supply chain visibility,
    like the kind Resilinc gives you, and know about a disruption the minute it happens three levels down in your supply chain, and not the day after a product was supposed to reach your warehouse
  • access to modern platforms to find and secure transport in real time,
    like BuyTruckload.com and FreightOS, then you can quickly get a truck when you need a truck and
  • license to global trade document platforms,
    like Integration Point or Amber Road that handle import and export compliance, including advance notification, that help you to insure there are no delays at the border

then you will be notified of potential disruptions well in advance and in time to take appropriate actions, and in the situation where it was an unpredictable disaster (such as a fire, earthquake, or flood) at your supplier’s DC just as product was about to ship, and a new shipment has to be made immediately from another location, your immediate ability to secure a new truck almost always alleviates the need for an expedited shipment — a need which is further alleviated by your ability to get your import, export, and compliance documents in order before the product ships, preventing unnecessary delays at the border.

Basically, about the only time you would have to do an expedited shipment is if you were a medical organ transport company and a new doner heart, needed halfway across the country, just became available. Other than that, with all of the options available to you to prevent the need for unanticipated shipments, or to get them under control as soon as the need arises, there just isn’t that much of a need for time-critical transport anymore. (Unless you’re still living in the eighties and using paper and fax to manage your logistics.)

Your thoughts?

Pre-Package vs. Post-Package? Or How About No Package?

Amazon wants to pre-package goods and ship them to a location near you in anticipation of your upcoming order (as per our recent post on how anticipatory demand planning is good, but anticipatory shipping?) It’s an interesting idea, but the shipping companies are going to have to upgrade their systems to make it work (as per our recent post).

However, if you’re talking about the Food & Beverage Industry, as per this recent article over on Inbound Logistics on Packaging Postponement: A Game Changer for F&B Companies, by positioning product packaging further downstream in the supply chain and closer to the consumer, food manufacturers can take advantage of different selling opportunities. If the product is selling better in a certain retail location, major restaurant chain, or even through a set of strategically-deployed vending machines, you want to get it where it’s selling best in the quantity that can sell. This will generally require the right packaging, since a vending machine portion will generally be smaller than a store portion which will be smaller than a restaurant portion as the restaurant will order in bulk to prepare in bulk.

Packaging is a conundrum. But do you even need packaging at all? (At least at the individual product level.)

Let’s consider the Amazon situation. Do they even have to package the products they are shipping in bulk at all? While it’s true that they are not a traditional store where you can walk in and pick up the item, this doesn’t mean that you can’t walk in to a “store” and pick up the item. Nor does it mean that you need packaging to affix a shipping label.

Consider Amazon’s expanding Locker service. If a good is placed in a locker, it doesn’t need a package. Neither does any good placed in any neighbouring locker. All of the goods going to the lockers can be shipped in a single “package”, and then put in the appropriate lockers. But the “package” doesn’t have to be a package — it can be a reusable shipping container. Then there’s no packaging, no waste, and shipping is on its way to becoming a sustainable business.

Basically, Amazon can re-invent the mail-order model developed by Sears, Roebuck & Co. where “mail-order” is replaced by “e-mail order” and “counter pickup” is replaced by “locker pickup” and bring back the “reusable crate”, only this time it’s probably a “eco-friendly heavy-duty plastic crate” that will last much longer.

And while you might think that this concept cannot be translated to Food & Beverage, challenge that notion. The Bulk Barn‘s entire business model is built on bulk, package-free, purchases. And all of the food and beverage products they sell can be shipped in reusable containers. (Now, I know it doesn’t work for liquids in the current business model*, but it works fine for most dry goods.)

What’s the point? You can package when, where, and how you want, but first think about whether you even have to package at all, and, if you do, if you can use re-usable shipping containers. Environmentally friendly and cost-effective, it will save you money and image points on an ongoing basis.

* But even then, we can bring back the classic milk delivery model where you return the reusable models, but update it such that you pay a high deposit each time you buy a reusable bottle, which is waived each time you return a reusable bottle, just like the eco-conscious micro-breweries are doing.

Ocean Freight Capacity is On the Rise … But the Consequences Are Unclear

South Korean shipyards are busy churning out Maersk’s “Triple-E” class, which at 400 meters in length are the world’s biggest Super Post-Panamax ULCV (ultra-large container vessel) container ships; new Super Post-Panamax ship-to-share cranes that can lift up to 65 tons (or more) are being installed at ports around the world; the Panama Canal Capacity is doubling its capacity in 2015 (and the average vessel calling on the US East Coast is expected to double in capacity from 4,500 TEUs to 9,000 TEUs); and North American Eastern ports are expanding up and down the coast.

This means that the capacity to do more global trade, both across the Atlantic and the Pacific, will soon be here. If trade doesn’t increase as fast as the big ocean carriers are predicting, even though fuel costs are rising, it’s likely that costs will remain stable, or even decrease slightly, despite inflation, as carriers compete to keep their holds full. If trade increases at the predicted rate, it is likely that costs will continue to rise at a steady rate. And if trade increases faster than expected, it will only be a few years until the major ports are again congested and growth potential flat (unless you take advantage of ports like Halifax).

What will come to pass, it’s hard to say, but not being aware of the potential for anything to happen where ocean freight is concerned is a risk. But it’s not the only risk to the viability, and cost, of your supply chain in 2014. It’s just one in dozens. There are a number of other significant risks that your supply chain could be facing in 2014, each with its own cost impact. If you would like some insight into what 13 other risks are, and what you can do about them, download SI’s latest white paper on the Top Ten Transitions To Tackle in 2014 to Tame the Tolls, sponsored by BravoSolution. (Registration Required) The follow up to last year’s Top Ten Things to Do in 2013 to Control Costs, this white paper looks at the state of the market one year later and provides you the foundations you need to attack the forthcoming challenges of 2014 head-on.