John Janson

At Supply Chain Now, we talk a lot about innovation, resilience, and what’s next for our industry. But behind every great conversation, great idea, and great community is something even more fundamental: curiosity. We read because we’re curious. We read to learn. We read to grow. And sometimes, we read simply because it’s fun! That’s why we created Between the Lines by Supply Chain Now, a space for our community to share what we’re reading, what’s making us think, and what we’re excited to recommend to others. This isn’t a traditional book club where everyone follows the same reading list. Instead, it’s a shared shelf, built by the Supply Chain Now team and our broader community. You’ll find business books and personal development reads alongside novels, memoirs, histories, and unexpected favorites. No required genres. No assigned chapters. Just real people sharing real recommendations. Because great books shape us in different ways. Some help us sharpen our skills. Some challenge how we see the world. Some help us slow down, escape, or recharge. And often, the most meaningful growth comes from reading something we never would have picked up on our own. With Between the Lines, our goal is to create…

Prospects of supply chain automation have the industry abuzz. It’s even become a major sticking point in the International Longshoremen’s Association contract negotiations with the United States Maritime Alliance. The dockworkers do not want ports to automate processes out of fear they will lose their jobs to machines. Today, there are seemingly endless possibilities for optimization. Terms like generative artificial intelligence and machine learning have become commonplace in discussions about ways to gain efficiencies and reduce costs. Can man and machine work together as businesses leverage automation for optimization? Beyond the Buzz: Understanding the Automation Imperative Machine learning, a subset of artificial intelligence (AI), is described by Business News Daily as a later-stage development in which machines take in data on their own and then analyze it. Automation, on the other hand, is fixed on repetitive tasks; after a job is performed, an automation system “thinks no further.” The Business News Daily article explained that “automation involves an entire category of technologies that provide activity or work without human involvement,” while AI involves “a machine exhibiting and practicing something similar to what we describe as human thinking – that is, the ability to interact in thousands of ways with the…