The Supply Chainer

The latest episode of the Resilient Supply Chain Podcast, hosted by Tom Raftery, features Leo Rodriguez, Vice President at River Plate Inc., a Southern California-based third-party logistics provider

Supply chain leaders have invested heavily in warehouse automation, transportation management systems and control towers over the past decade. Yet many organizations continue to struggle with costly disruptions that originate outside the traditional warehouse environment. According to the MHI annual industry report, visibility and real-time operational data remain among the top priorities for supply chain executives despite years of technology investment. The findings suggest

For freight brokers, the operational risk is no longer limited to finding capacity at the right price. Increasingly, the challenge is proving that the carrier moving the load was properly vetted before the freight ever left the dock. That pressure has intensified following recent legal and regulatory developments in the U.S. trucking market. The Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II ruling, combined with heightened scrutiny of commercial driver licensing and carrier compliance, h

Procurement teams at large multinational manufacturers and retailers continue to hit operational friction when deploying intake-to-pay platforms. A common scenario involves a sourcing requisition that clears the new intake layer but stalls during approval because supplier data fails to sync correctly with the existing SAP ERP or Ariba environment. Manual workarounds multiply, exception queues grow, and compliance flags trigger additional reviews. Early payment discounts slip

Warehouse and transportation operators generate more data than ever. Yet many still struggle to turn visibility into consistent execution at enterprise scale. The core dilemma is the persistent gap between knowing what is happening and acting effectively in real time on labor shifts, exceptions, inventory issues, and operational disruptions. Visibility Falls Short Amy Dean of SC Codeworks replied in writing to The Supply Chainer. SC Codeworks delivers warehouse management sys

Logistics operators electrifying heavy commercial fleets in 2026 face a widening gap between vehicle acquisition timelines and the infrastructure needed to charge them. The friction is not technological. Charging hardware exists, vehicle pl...

When a fresh produce truck misses its scheduled departure window, the cost stacks up within hours. Perishable inventory ages in staging. Store replenishment slips. Shelves at receiving outlets sit short on high-velocity SKUs by morning. For operators running automated picking systems across hundreds of stores, the warehouse control system carries most of that weight. Pressure is sharpest during peak periods, when seasonal demand compresses inbound scheduling and outbound disp

The modern distribution yard has improved meaningfully over the last couple of decades, as more customers have recognized the value of dropped trailer programs and the efficiency they can bring to the broader supply chain. Dedicated yard operations, trailer pools and better coordination between transportation and warehouse teams have helped many sites increase throughput and reduce unnecessary friction. Even with that progress, however, the yard still represents one of the be

When retailers operate across marketplaces, dropship networks, and direct-to-consumer channels simultaneously, inventory accuracy becomes a distributed coordination problem. Stock levels fragment across enterprise resource planning systems,...

Episode 128 of the Resilient Supply Chain Podcast examines the hidden governance risks behind critical mineral supply chains. Host Tom Raftery is joined by Johan Oosthuizen, Associate Director and Responsible Sourcing Lead for Africa at SLR Consulting, for a discussion on responsible sourcing, audit data, verification, and the practical limits of self-reporting. The conversation focuses on why mineral supply chains cannot be assessed through policy statements alone, particula

Operational pressure is mounting for agrifood and manufacturing leaders. Disruptions in key chokepoints like the Strait of Hormuz drive sharp increases in costs for fertilizer, feed, fuel, freight, and food. Legacy systems struggle with rapid modeling of interconnected decisions across procurement, inventory, and logistics. Operators face fragmented data, sequential optimization failures, and mounting execution gaps that expose thin margins. According to the FAO, 20-45% of ke

For fleets, uptime is everything. And so is ease of doing business. A truck can get serviced on time, the parts can be in stock and the repair can be completed correctly, but the experience still breaks down if the invoice doesn’t match negotiated pricing, payment terms vary by location or the fleet’s A/P team spends hours reconciling paperwork across multiple service points. Those issues may seem administrative, but they shape how fleets evaluate suppliers. Across the commer