The Black Sea’s Quiet Stranglehold
The narrowest point of the Bosphorus is 700 metres wide. Seven football pitches, end to end. Every ship that enters or leaves the Black Sea must pass through that gap, past the skyline of Istanbul,…
Risk Management
The Drone on DHL’s Runway
At Leipzig/Halle Airport, the drone was not supposed to be there. It was found on the runway area, carrying explosives, at one of Europe’s busiest cargo airports. This is not a battlefield. This is the…
From the Rhine to the Arctic: The New Geography of Supply Chain Risk
A container ship just sailed from South Korea to Rotterdam through the Arctic. On the same day, barge traffic on the Rhine River, Europe’s busiest inland waterway, ground to a near halt because there was…
AI Is Optimizing Your Supply Chain While Starving It of Chips
Last month, Nissin Foods announced something quietly remarkable. The company behind Cup Noodles expects significantly higher fill rates this year, not because it built new factories or hired more planners. It credited an AI-powered demand…
The Battery Bust: What Varta’s Collapse Means for Europe’s Energy Supply Chain
If you have ever changed the battery in a child’s toy, a TV remote, or a hearing aid in Europe, there is a strong chance you were holding a Varta. In 2022 alone, the company…
Red Sea, Canal Droughts, and Sanctions: The Triple Squeeze on Global Shipping
In early July, a senior logistics manager at a Rotterdam-based freight forwarder opened her morning dashboard and found three red alerts. A Saudi tanker had been struck by a Houthi drone in the Red Sea….
The Multifront Storm
When a Canadian logistics director wakes up to find that 25 percent of his trucking fleet is suddenly stuck at the Ambassador Bridge because of a retaliatory tariff hold, he does not have time to…
The Judgment Gap in Supply Chain Resilience
Supply chain leaders have spent over ten billion dollars on AI platforms, digital twins, and control towers in the past three years alone. Yet when a container ship blocks the Suez Canal, a pandemic shuts…
Experience Matters Even In AI Age : Ford Use Case
ord Motor Company recently hired 350 veteran engineers (some former employees, others drawn from suppliers) after artificial intelligence and automated quality systems failed to deliver the expected results. The company calls them “gray beard” engineers,…