Intro/Outro (00:03):

Welcome to Supply Chain. Now the voice of global supply chain supply chain now focuses on the best in the business for our worldwide audience, the people, the technologies, the best practices, and today’s critical issues, the challenges and opportunities. Stay tuned to hear from Those Making Global Business happen right here on supply chain. Now.

Scott Luton (00:31):

Hey everybody. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you may be. Scott Luton here with you on Supply Chain. Now welcome to today’s show. Okay folks, we’ve got a short and sweet episode teed up here today. Now, each week, as you may know, I share industry news, data and factoids via my midweek market rundown, which publishes to LinkedIn and X each and every Wednesday morning. Now, I’m going to be snagging a few of those stories and those data points for today’s episode, and I also want to invite you to follow and connect with me on both of those platforms so you can comment and offer your perspective each and every week. Alright, so let’s dive into a variety of stories here. I’m going to start with the automotive manufacturing industry. Now, Toyota Motor Corporation, the world’s largest automaker by volume, recently announced that its global output in January, 2024, what rose by 7% year over year.

(01:33):

The 13th straight month of increases sales in China jumped 39% in January and rose by 23% in the us. And about 40% of all Toyota sales in January were gas electric hybrids. Now we’ll move over to retail. Walmart has been working hard to gain efficiencies in its growing E-commerce business. The company announced a couple of weeks ago that it has reduced the cost of making last mile deliveries from stores to customers by about 20%. In the last year, the explosive growth of Walmart e-commerce customers has been met with new order distribution infrastructure, such as adding parcel stations to store operations and plenty of automation, which has often led to more deliveries being made on each particular route. Now over to the housing market, which is a critical cog in any country’s economy here in the us, single family home builders are going to be really busy this year as permits for new single family homes are up close to 40% from this time last year, but for multi-family units rather, construction permits and housing starts have been on the downward slide since late 2022.

(02:56):

Now I want to move over to what I find to be an intriguing topic in technology. So interesting read here recently in the Wall Street Journal about the invisible $1.52 trillion problem. What is the problem you ask? Clunky old software, AKA technical debt. So according to a 2022 report to upgrade old tech found throughout US infrastructure, it cost about 1.52 trillion bucks, $1.52 trillion. But the data suggests that archaic tech costs the US $2.41 trillion a year in cyber breaches and other ops failures. Now remember, the Southwest Airlines debacle a few years back, right? The Wall Street Journal quoted Roger Williams with Gartner as saying technical debt is one of those invisible issues that people either know they have a problem with or they don’t know, and that’s worse. One sector that is particularly saddled with old tech, well that would be the American banking world. Yikes, powering the tech industry is the semiconductor sector.

(04:21):

So to say it the obvious, it’s a pretty good time to be in the semiconductor industry right now. India, did you know India is emerging as a rapidly growing player in the industry, as it has recently approved three new chip plants that represent some 15 billion in investment and is set to create over 80,000 jobs. Wow. All right, so as we start to wrap here on today’s episode, I want to share a very special announcement story and an invitation. So last week I was at King Plow Art Center in West Atlanta, meeting with several colleagues, big shout out to Tyler and Clay and the gang, and we were waiting on a shipment to arrive. So while there, it was really cool, a big team was setting up for a Cobra Kai shoot. You may have seen that series on Netflix. Really cool to sit back and watch.

(05:19):

There must have been at least a dozen trucks, 40, 50 people with a film crew setting up the shoot, bringing in palm trees, setting up temporary signs and stuff. Stuff was everywhere. So we got a knock on the door and it was our delivery driver named LA from Southeastern Freight Lines, which happens to be based in Lexington, South Carolina. We showed LA the loading dock because our stuff, our shipment was on a pallet and a few minutes later, LA had pulled his 28 foot trailer around to the dock. I got to tell you, in 30 seconds, like in a flash in the midst of plenty of traffic, other trucks, equipment, people, you name it, o la, whipped that trailer around and backed it up perfectly to roll our pallet off. It was a beautiful thing. While many of us drivers, well, we struggled to back up a compact car, much less a truck and trailer.

(06:14):

It really is amazing to see what professional truck drivers can do and what they have to put up with. LA still had four or five drops of Make, and it was about 2:00 PM Eastern time already on that Friday afternoon, and he was going to have to fight Atlanta traffic in order to get home and hopefully start his restful weekend. I’ll tell you, one of my favorite silver linings to the pandemic has been our heightened collective awareness of not just global supply chains everywhere that allow us consumers to enjoy all sorts of products and conveniences, but especially greater awareness of the people that make it all happen. There are great folks just like LA here that move our stuff. There are plenty of folks that make our stuff. There are armies of professionals around the world that plan, source, move, make, distribute, return, sell service, repair, and deliver all of our stuff.

(07:10):

And then some, no matter the complexities, old, new, these incredible humans make things happen. And a lot more often than not, it happens in such a beautifully orchestrated way, like a grand exquisite symphony. I’ve been very fortunate to serve in this industry in a variety of capacities for over 20 years, and without a doubt, the best part of my journey far and away has been meeting some of the most talented, generous, and extraordinary people that truly move mountains. Hey, just like la, to that end, I’m absolutely delighted to share that we are launching a reinvigorated celebration that is timely overdue and sorely needed. That’s National Supply Chain Day, which is April 29th each and every year. Now we’re thrilled to have had Mary Kate love join our supply chain now leadership team within the recent months. Mary Kate, as you may or may not know, is the founder of National Supply Chain Day and rolled it out a few years back.

(08:18):

Now, to be clear, national Supply Chain Day is a celebration and a spotlight on the industry professionals of global supply chain. The people that truly connect the world from the intricate logistics that power your morning coffee to the complex networks, ensuring critical medical supplies reach their destinations. Supply chain professionals are the backbone of our connected world. So join us every year on April 29th as we delve into the stories, the breakthroughs, the technologies of the global supply chain community. Anyone can join our efforts. Perhaps just a thought. Perhaps the easiest way is to show gratitude to the supply chain professionals that you encounter each and every day, many of which are listening perhaps to this podcast. However, if you’d like to get a lot more involved and be a more formal part of our programming, reach out to Mary Kate and our team for more information.

(09:15):

You can do so at NSCD. The acronym stands for National Supply Chain Day, nscd@supplychainnow.com, and we encourage you to do that. We encourage you to show some gratitude. We encourage you to lift up these incredible people that make things happen every single day and very rarely get enough or any recognition for that matter. Alright, folks, that does it for today’s episode. On behalf of the entire team here, we hope you have a wonderful week ahead. Hey, don’t forget that Linda hand, no matter how big or how small is someone in need if and when you can. And hey, we all know there’s more opportunities each and every day to do just that. But with that said, on behalf of the entire team here, Scott Luton challenging you to do good, to give forward and to be the change that’s needed. And on that note, we’ll see you next time, right back here on Supply Chain now. Thanks. Goodbye.

Intro/Outro (10:14):

Thanks for being a part of our supply chain now community. Check out all of our programming@supplychainnow.com and make sure you subscribe to Supply Chain now, anywhere you listen to podcasts. And follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. See you next time on Supply Chain. Now.