The Bottleneck Three Tiers Down
The paint was ready. The factories were ready. Cars still could not leave the line: a glittering pigment had disappeared. A few cents of components, made in one country. Your biggest supply risk may hide…
Risk Management
Suez Reopens, Network Risk Remains
The strangest part of the Red Sea crisis is not that ships are returning to Suez. It is that some are returning while the security risk is still hanging over the route. The planning rule…
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,…
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…