Editor Barry Hochfelder’s blog covers current trends and economic developments covering all aspects of the supply chain including procurement, sourcing, software and technology developments, risk management, operations planning and industry event coverage.
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Logistics and the Tide of War
By Barry Hochfelder - Wednesday February 6, 2013As someone who covers the supply chain and an armchair historian, I’m naturally intrigued by wartime logistics. It was Napoleon who said, “Armies march on their stomachs.” In the Oxford Companion to World War II, Charles Messenger wrote, “Before the coming of the railway and invention of the internal combustion engine, armies subsisted largely by foraging, both for food and fuel, the latter, of course, being horse feed.” Things have changed. On my seemingly endless list of books to read is a new one that delves deeply into military logistics: Engineers of Victory: The Problem Solvers Who Turned the Tide in the Second World War by Paul Kennedy (Random House). A review in the History Book Club says, “Perhaps above all... -
My Hat Goes Off to ASU Sustainability Dean Sander van der Leeuw
- Tuesday October 9, 2012When the alumni magazine from Arizona State University (ASU) arrives, I usually flip through the pages quickly, looking for something that might catch my eye. In the most recent issue I made it all the way to page four when I saw the words, “UN names ASU sustainability dean a ‘Champion of the Earth.’” Since sustainability and green play an important role in supply chain (our December issue focuses on the topic, including our annual Green Supply Chain Awards) I read on. Prof. Sander van der Leeuw, an archaeologist and historian by training, was one of six Champions of the Earth honored in June at a ceremony in Rio de Janeiro. His work began with a series of regional archaeological research projects in Syria, Holland and France to... -
A Time for Change
By Barry Hochfelder - Monday June 25, 2012There have been lots of songs about change: coming quickly to mind (and perhaps giving away my age) are Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come” and completely different songs called “Changes” by David Bowie, Phil Ochs and Tupac. Attending the 10 th Annual North American 3PL Summit and Chief Supply Chain Officer Forum in Chicago, it was impossible to miss one of the summit’s key themes: the need for change. In fact, Kate Vitasek stressed in her opening presentation that in these difficult and rapidly changing times, business and supply chains must also change to survive. In a PowerPoint presentation called “Right Here and Right Now”—accompanied by Van Halen’s “Right Now”—she showed how business changes. Here are...
