I had an interesting experience the other night that level me surprised and questioning some assumptions. I saw an article on LinkedIn that was written to support route optimization and highlight differences between different types of final mile (last mile) deliveries. As I went through it, I couldn't help but feel like it was a little off. Not that the information was wrong per se, more that the frame didn't quite capture all of the nuances I felt it should (I appreciate I am a touch opinionated - I prefer to call it passion). It dawned on me later that evening, a question that might explain why I was feeling off after reading the article. In an on demand world, that is based on dynamic orders and routing, is knowledge being lost that supported the previous "traditional" models. The major difference I am making between dynamic and traditional models is that traditional models are/were built on fixed and planned service schedules. This could be five deliveries per w...

This week seems to be starting off with a theme for me ... the idea and requirements of Express Delivery in last mile. Last mile is a challenging space. You are making direct deliveries to a customer. These are typically the least efficient deliveries that you can make, because an individual order size most likely will be challenge with respect to the operating costs to perform the activity. The discussions I have seen recently seem to be providing people with a bit of a false sense of security (in my opinion). We live in an age of data and technology, where the smallest operations can replicate what used to only be achievable by the biggest companies. This is a double edged sword however in the face of rising expectations. Everyone thinks about Amazon, and how they are 'easily' able to deliver on their service experience, but even Amazon has been careful and slowly approaching express / same day delivery. Walmart has been in the news recently as they launched their...

As the CoronaVirus runs across the world, everyone is suddenly being exposed to news story after news story that is talking about Supply Chains. For an industry that usually doesn't get this much attention, this is great and terrible at the same time. As someone who has spent 13 years of my life in the Supply Chain world, it is normal that your friends, family and other professionals don't really get what you do; or they understand your world in bits and pieces. This is completely normal, I don't profess to know all about financial markets, software development, sales or any other industry for that matter. As we grow and develop in our professional lives, we each develop greater levels of expertise and understanding within our field, and we all do our part to contribute to society. The challenge with this however, comes as we experience Black Swan type events ... suddenly there is all kinds of media coverage, conversation and opinions being shared and not...

  Maybe I think differently because I have read this? With everything going on with the CoronaVirus, it is incredible to see how people are behaving. Everyone and their cousin is talking about the Supply Chain, about being prepared, about not having enough capacity ... it's crazy. I honestly wonder if the people making all of these comments have ever actually ran any operations, if they ever had to responsibility to actually get things done. It's easy to say how prepared you can be, and what companies should have been doing, or pointing the finger saying "how could you be out of stock". The reality is, we have a lot of choice. The average grocery store for example can easily have 15,000 to 20, 000 skus that move through their stores ... think about that for a minute. That many skus, that are all cycling through the stores on some type of regular rate of sale.  Or let's take something that's more in people's face at the mo...

It's 3:00AM and you have been out all night with your friends, having a great time, and drinking WAY too much. As you are getting yourselves together to go face the world (at less than peak performance), your friend pulls his phone out of his pocket and hails the Uber. As you all stand outside, huddled together against the cold, inevitably frustration mounts and someone says "where is this guy already?" The phone once again makes an appearance to set everyone at ease, "relax, he's just around the corner." What we don't talk about anymore, was that exact same scenario played out years earlier, the only difference being that instead of the Uber, you were waiting for the cab after calling into dispatch. How frustrating and sometimes infuriating was it to be standing there shivering, dwelling in your uncertainty? The popularization of Uber is often linked to things like: ease of use, lower prices, mutual safety, a simple payment pr...