[00:00:00] A good morning Scott Luton here with you.

[00:00:11] This is Supply Chain Now Radio, welcome back to the show. It’s Make It Happen Monday. In today’s show, we’re kicking off a new series and a new format. The Supply chain Buzz, a brief weekly look at some of the top news and trends across the global in Supply chain community. All in 50 minutes or less. One quick programming note.

[00:00:32] Like all of our series on Supply Chain Now Radio, you can find our replays on a variety of channels Apple podcast, SoundCloud, Spotify, YouTube, wherever else you find your podcast. As always, we’d love to have you subscribe so you don’t miss anything. Supply Chain Now Radio is also brought to you by a variety of sponsors, including the Effective syndicate Vector Global Logistics A Picks Atlanta and several other leading organizations. Be sure to check out the show notes to learn more about our valuable sponsors. OK. Let’s dive right into the buzz. Up first, today is a report in Supply chain Dive leading global Logistics company DHL publishes a global trade barometer. The TB on a regular basis. The DTP has been on the decline globally since early 2017, indicating a slowdown in global trade. September 2019 shows yet another decline, this time of one point, which isn’t nearly as massive as the June 20 19 dip of 8 points. So, hey, there’s some good news, I guess. According to a DHL press release that accompanied the the TTP this month, the September decline was, quote, solely triggered by a drop in air trade, whereas global ocean trade remains unchanged in quote, interestingly enough, out of all the countries that make up the survey. Japan and the United Kingdom are the only ones with modestly positive outlooks from trade to retail projections.

[00:02:01] Our second story here on the Supply chain Buzz comes to us from Supply chain Digest and its popular weekly column, Supply chain by the numbers. According to the sharp analysts over at Deloitte, the expected increase in retail holiday sales is expected to be four to four and a half percent. If that holds, it’ll be a considerable jump from the three point one percent growth that we saw in 2018. Though it forecasts e-commerce sales, as you might imagine, to grow even more aggressively to 14 to 18 percent this year. Deloitte economic forecaster Daniel Bachman said that one of the big reasons for the growth was the strong labor market. So Supply chain professionals get ready for a big, strong season ahead. You might be listening to this podcast on your iPhone and topic number three. Let’s talk about the Apple iPhone Supply chain. According to The Wall Street Journal Logistics report, Apple has some big reasons to worry about its iPhone supply chain here as it rolls out. Of course, the latest model, Japan Display Inc. A manufacturer of liquid, liquid crystal displays and a critical supplier to Apple is in trouble. The manufacturer said that a Chinese investment fund has canceled an agreement to supply more than half of the seven hundred forty two million dollars needed to rescue the business.

[00:03:23] So, as you might imagine, Japan display is looking for new investors. And there aren’t a ton of companies that manufacture the screens that make the iPhone sparkle. Thus, Apple has already put one hundred million dollars into the company already. At what point, if any, will these troubles impact? The consumer market is yet to be seen other than perhaps perhaps the already large price tag on the new iPhone models. Speaking of large global supply chains and our fourth news item, we’re talking about Wal-Mart. Did you know that Wal-Mart operates the largest non-military supply chain operation in the U.S. and the world in a store from the Dallas Morning News. The retail behemoth opened its first training academy in a distribution center in Texas. Wal-Mart has shifted its training approach after training 1 million of its store employees in 200 regional academies. Hey, it’s going local. A group of 50 managers were set to graduate last Friday in Sanger, Texas, a city just north of Dallas. The main thrust on the training is to train supervisors. Steve Miller, vice president of Wal-Mart Supply chain, says, quote, We start with this concept of investing in our employees. About three years ago and we’ve seen success with it, the needs of our associates in Supply chain are evolving and we want them to set up well, we and we want to set them up for success.

[00:04:46] Skills needed today are different than 15 or 20 years ago. And as we recruit them, we want them to have fulfilling jobs in quote. Staying on the topic of distribution centers and our final item, number five today comes a recent development from Nike’s Supply chain, as reported by Supply chain Digital. Nike has launched a new distribution center in Harlem, Belgium, that runs on renewable energy and recycles 95 percent of its waste that is generated on site. The one point five million square foot facility is coming online to help improve Nike’s Logistics capabilities to meet increasing consumer demand, all while advancing sustainability at an impressive scale. In particular, Eric Sprott, Nike chief operating officer, states that the facility will help the company better serve millions of consumers across Europe, Africa and the Middle East. The facility is known as the court and its location. According to Nike, being located adjacent to a network of canals will allow ninety nine percent of inbound containers to arrive by water. Eliminating 14000 truck deliver deliveries per year. The court also runs on 100 percent clean energy from five sources wind, solar, geothermal, hydroelectric and biomass. Nike’s company objective is to be zero carbon by 2025, and part of the strategy focuses on eradicating waste from its supply chain over the next five years.

[00:06:18] One quick announcement as we wrap up here. Did you know that this coming Friday, October 4th, is manufacturing day? This yearly event celebrates the world of manufacturing established in 2012. Manufacturing Day is now produced and led by the National Association of Manufacturers, based in Washington, D.C. Its mission, according to the Web site at MF G Day dot com, is to address common misperceptions about manufacturing by giving manufacturers an opportunity to open their doors and show what manufacturing is. And equally as important, what manufacturing is not to get involved. Check them out at MF. G’day. MF G day dot com and also check out other groups that are highly supportive of the manufacturing industry to include the Georgia manufacturing alliance. Learn more at Georgia manufacturing alliance dot com and women in manufacturing. You can learn more about that group at Women in Manufacturing dot org. So there you have. There you have it. Several of the leading supply chain news stories and trends right here on the Supply chain buzz on Supply Chain Now Radio. You’ll find links to each of the stories on the show, notes for your convenience and be sure to check us out at Supply Chain Now Radio dot com for a wide variety of our interviews, webinars, event coverage and other content to our listeners.

[00:07:39] On behalf of the entire Supply Chain Now Radio team, this is Scott Luton. Thank you for joining us and we wish you a very successful and productive week ahead.