“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 sor…

Monique Mulligan chats about the pressures of productivity versus creativity, and art versus craft. And how all that relates to writing, painting and sewing.由hello@artsupplyposse.com (Art Supply Posse)

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. Than…

“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 se…

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 o…

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…

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 campa…

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 wh…

‘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 techno…

“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 unlik…

“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 …

“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 stop…

“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 …

Nicki Traikos chats about painting portraits with watercolours. How is painting portraits different to portrait photography? How do you use watercolours for portraits when the paints are so difficult to control? Nicki's courses can be found on her website: https://www.lifeidesign.com由Art Supply Posse

“The way we were running distribution, the processes we were using, it wasn’t a matter of, ‘Well, just incrementally improve what you’ve got.’ “We needed to rethink, take a step back and say, ‘Are we really set up the way we need to be set up?’” - Marcia Brey, VP of Logistics for GE Appliances (via the WSJ) GE Appliances recently made news for a se…

Procurement and supply chain professionals rely upon competitive market dynamics. After all, competition drives innovation, cost savings, efficiency, and - profit. Anything that changes the dynamics around the benefits associated with disclosed innovation has the potential to alter how companies invest, how much of that information they make public…

“The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.” - Norman Vincent Peale The Art of Supply podcast regularly covers topics that come with a bit of discomfort: allegations of child labor and greenwashing, the role of government regulations in bringing about change, and China, and absolutely anything t…

There are a lot of preconceived notions about the barriers preventing electrified road freight from becoming mainstream. It is seen as too difficult, expensive, complicated, inefficient, and more. Most of those perceptions are based on the approaches to electrified trucking that have been tried so far. Perhaps by taking a different approach we can …

Mia Amphlett chats about the charms of instant photography. You can find Mia's photos on Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/mia_amphlett由Art Supply Posse

Companies and consumers regularly rely on product descriptions to decide whether or not to make a purchase and to determine the right price for that product. In the case of seafood, those descriptions and tiers create choices for consumers, but they also provide a built in incentive for fraud at scale. Any time someone is willing to pay a higher ma…

“Every time I don't have a delivery truck stop in front of your house, 800 grams of CO2 is never created.” - Mike Robinson, Head of Retail Solutions and a Founding Member at The Eighth Notch (T8N) The ecommerce boom of the last few years has led to new business models and consumer experiences, but it has also added to the number of packages being d…

On June 26th, The Wall Street Journal reported that FedEx plans to spin off their freight division - and the most interesting part is why. FedEx Freight is the less-than-truckload (LTL) division of the company. It is the most profitable division, with a recent operating margin over 20 percent, compared to 11.8 percent for FedEx Ground and 2 percent…

Car Rose joins Kim to chat about art journalling, as well as writing, quilting, and other creative endeavours. Car’s Blog: https://carorose.typepad.com IG: carrosecreative Ministry of Crafty Shenanigans podcast http://ministryofcraftyshenanigans.com由Art Supply Posse

According to reporting in the New York Times, about 20 million containers travel through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach California annually. Those containers are full of goods that need to travel to warehouses, stores, and consumer homes by truck and rail. Unfortunately, a growing percentage of those goods never arrive, thanks to a sharp u…

Section 321 of the U.S. Tariff Act of 1930 contains a small provision known as ‘de minimis.’ From a Latin phrase meaning “the law does not concern itself with trifles,” this provision has become a major concern for retailers, shippers, and regulators. De minimis is supposed to simplify shipping so that packages under $800 can be sent to U.S. consum…

Gina-Marie Cincinnati returns to talk about exhibiting your art. https://ginamariecincinnati.com由Art Supply Posse

“You can't just come with ideas. You’ve got to show that you're going to be on the journey with them.” - Adrian Ristow, Executive Director of Project Last Mile “Coca-Cola Project Last Mile is held within the practitioners of my craft to be the flagship model of what good looks like in terms of public-private partnerships.” - David Canarutto, Privat…

About 15 years ago, someone noticed that while you could buy a cold Coca-Cola in the most remote corners of Africa, lifesaving medicines that require cold chain logistics were nowhere to be found. A group approached the company and asked, will you teach us how you manage your supply chain in rural Africa so we can apply those learnings to healthcar…

Kim chats with three other artists about art journalling. Previous guests are Kylie O'Grady, Uncle Frogface, and first time guest Car Rose.由Art Supply Posse

Red Lobster, the largest seafood chain in the United States, declared bankruptcy on May 19, 2024. As of the filing, they had 551 locations operating in 44 states, but underperforming locations have already started to close. What brought about the bankruptcy of the restaurant chain that rapper Flavor Flav describes as “one of America's greatest dini…

On May 25, the Federal Trade Commission announced their consent for the planned acquisition of Pioneer Natural Resources by ExxonMobil. It was the largest shale oil and gas merger ever planned. The consent may not have been a surprise, but one of the conditions was: that former Pioneer Natural Resources CEO Scott Sheffield was prohibited from takin…

The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, or UFLPA, took effect in June of 2022 to protect an ethnically Turkish, predominantly Muslim minority that lives in the Xinjiang autonomous region of China. The Uyghurs have been the subject of forced labor claims and investigations - truly the stuff of supply chain nightmares. If companies try to import anyt…

On April 30th, 2024, the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services, Subcommittee on Personnel, held a hearing about the Department Of Defense’s efforts to ensure service members would have access to safe, high-quality pharmaceuticals. One of the panelists invited to testify was Victor Suarez, a retired Colonel from the United States Army. He worked f…

The Incognito Art Show is a unique annual art show that is open to all artists. Incognito means that artists names are kept secret until after their artwork has been sold. This means that the majority of people purchase art based on what they like rather than the name and reputation of the artist. All profits are donated to organisations helping ar…

Pharmaceutical supply chains are never far from news headlines. Regular drug shortages affect our families, friends, and neighbors when they can’t access their chemotherapy treatments, ADHD medication, and pain medication - just to name a few. In 2023, Americans spent over $600 Billion on prescription drugs. That’s more than ever before — and more …

Some corporations have chosen to wade into socially sensitive waters over the last few years and others have been pushed in from behind. The adoption of a social mission or set of causes at the company level does not guarantee ‘trickle down’ benefits to individual employees. The right to free speech is one of the most valued privileges granted in t…

Kim continues her series on how to art journal. This time looking at art supplies and what to put in the journal. http://artsupplyposse.com由Art Supply Posse

On April 9th, Rene Haas, CEO of Arm Holdings, a British semiconductor and software design company came out and made a statement about data center energy consumption that most people would find shocking. He said, “by the end of the decade, AI data centers could consume as much as 20% to 25% of U.S. power requirements. Today that’s probably 4% or les…

Samantha Gehrmann chats about spinning, weaving, and photography. https://www.samanthagehrmann.com.au由hello@artsupplyposse.com (Art Supply Posse)

“We know what matters to our employees, and we know what matters to our customers, and we know where the leadership view is. That alignment means that you make progress more easily because you’re focused on stuff that matters and that people care about.” - Gareth Hughes is the Business Services and ESG Director for Whistl If the road to hell is pav…

Heavy-duty trucks include tractor-trailers, ambulances, garbage trucks, and school buses. All of these are now on an official timeline for reduced emissions, in alignment with a new Federal mandate. Manufacturers of heavy-duty vehicles must reduce their overall emissions by mandated percentages according to model year, starting with their 2028 mode…