Making the Pivot to AI-enabled Global Sourcing W/ Anthony Sardain
Art of Supply
“There is a world where we can have a much more dynamic supply chain. Certainly, the current set of brands that are experiencing the squeeze from the tariffs would definitely benefit from being able to pivot their supply chain pretty quickly.” - Anthony Sardain, Founder and CEO of Cavela For all of the enthusiasm about AI, global sourcing is one of the processes that has remained predominantly human. Between the complexity of specifications and the relationship-based exchanges of information, it has been too ‘messy’ for straight automation - until now. Anthony Sardain is the founder...
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Remembering Fred Smith: FedEx Founder & Supply Chain Visionary
Art of Supply
“Life is short and it ends, the clock is ticking. Don’t get all wrapped up in your personal self, that’s a very unhealthy thing to do.” - Fred Smith, Founder of FedEx (1944 - 2025) On June 21, 2025, the business world - more specifically the supply chain world - lost a giant. FedEx Founder Fred Smith passed away at the age of 80. Frederick Wallace Smith was born in Marks, Mississippi in 1944. According to common anecdotes, he first imagined a company that could provide overnight delivery for an economics paper he wrote while studying at Yale in 1965 - and he got a C because the...
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How Transportation & Logistics Companies Are Tackling Network Security W/ Ken Rutsky
Art of Supply
“This is a long standing discussion within the networking and security industry: is there a perimeter? I think the reality is the perimeter still exists because it's a data and logical perimeter, but it doesn't exist anymore as a physical perimeter.” - Ken Rutsky, Chief Marketing Officer at Aryaka As the world becomes increasingly digital, ensuring network connectivity and security become parallel objectives that all companies must prioritize. Add in trying to do it as efficiently as possible, and the challenge only grows. Ken Rutsky is the Chief Marketing Officer at Aryaka. They...
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Down but Not Out: California’s Fight to Regulate Emissions
Art of Supply
There have been a number of efforts to regulate a transition to lower logistics-related emissions, and all of them involved the state of California and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). California always plays a unique role in these debates because they have the most air pollution in the country and also the toughest emissions regulations. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) predates the EPA. In the past, they have been able to make their own rules, only requiring waivers when newly proposed standards are tougher than Federal standards. On May 22, 2025, the Senate...
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A Procurement Crime at Intel: Loopholes and Lessons Learned
Art of Supply
While true crime has gained traction as a genre in the literary world, it's not often we see it applied to procurement. Yet, a fascinating and unsettling procurement fraud case has recently come to light within Intel Israel's operations. Every criminal investigation seeks to uncover means, motive, and opportunity, and this case checks all three boxes, with implications that go far beyond one company. Just a few weeks ago, a story broke that uncovered an alleged scheme in which a now-former employee, Natalia Avtsin, and a component supplier, Yefim Tsibolevsky from Energy Electronics 2000,...
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Prioritizing Dispute Prevention Over Problem Solving
Art of Supply
After spending years reviewing business books, Kelly Barner knows how to recognize authors who truly move the needle–and Kate Vitasek is one of them. Her latest work, Preventing the Dispute Before It Begins: Proven Mechanisms for Fostering Better Business Relationships, co-authored with James Groton, Ellen Waldman, and Allen Waxman, takes on a surprisingly neglected topic: dispute prevention. While this topic can be applied to procurement, it’s also very human, looking at business relationships from their most troubled moments and aspiring to lay out a plan as well as offering up resources...
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High Velocity Lessons on Lobbying and Trade W/ Samir Kapadia
Art of Supply
“In this climate of being a trade professional in Washington, expect to be in an Uber for about half of the day and then the other half of it sitting in rooms making cases of why people either should be not paying tariffs or how other people should be paying tariffs.” - Samir Kapadia, Managing Principal at Vogel Group and Founder and CEO at India Index Supply chain professionals have always had to keep a close eye on trade–both the policies and the geopolitical happenings that affect it. But with tariffs launching trade-related topics to the top of the news cycle repeatedly since...
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Tariffs as a Girder for Domestic Fabricated Steel W/ Stephen Capone and Hollie Noveletsky
Art of Supply
“We need to be able to tolerate this uncertainty and the fluctuations that we're undergoing right now and keep our eye on the long term goal of strengthening American manufacturing.” -Hollie Noveletsky, Owner and CEO of Novel Iron Works While many consumers and business owners feel uneasy about the Trump Administration’s use of tariffs, there is at least one group that views them as essential: steel fabricators. Hollie Noveletsky, Owner and CEO of Novel Iron Works, and Stephen Capone, President of Capone Iron, have personally felt the negative impact that foreign competition and a...
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Semiconductor CHIPS, Checks, and Challenges
Art of Supply
“Even though the world’s advanced economies are largely considered post-industrial, chipmaking is an area where domestic manufacturing is now being treated as a high priority for economic and national security reasons.” Jon Martin, Writing for the ‘More than Moore’ substack The CHIPS and Science Act, which took effect in August of 2022, is an ambitious Federal program that will inject $52.7 Billion into U.S. semiconductor manufacturing, research and development, and workforce training. As we look back nearly 3 years later, there has been more talk than action, but no one party or...
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How U.S. Tariffs Are Reshaping Global Freight W/ Judah Levine
Art of Supply
Global supply chain leaders and consumers alike have watched for months as the U.S. tariff rollercoaster starts and stops, impacting imported goods. While these policy changes are expected to directly impact supply chains, what about their impact on the cost and availability of freight? As companies hold their breath and wait to see if and/or when their imports will be subjected to tariffs, many have been doing their best to plan as far ahead as possible and get stock in well before seasonal demand hits. Even so, concerns still exist over tariff timelines and the availability and cost of...
info_outlineThe Department of Government Efficiency, better known as DOGE, was created by executive order on President Trump’s first day back in office. It immediately became one of the most controversial parts of the administration’s first couple of months.
Love it or hate it, if you work in procurement, you have to watch what DOGE is doing. And if you can’t bring yourself to review their objectives, strategies, and tactics, you at least have to watch the DOGE savings calculator.
Public-facing and deliberately bare-bones, the DOGE savings calculator provides information on savings, payments, spend, Federal workforce, and regulations.
In this episode of Art of Supply, Kelly Barner takes a step back and then a close look at the DOGE savings calculator from a procurement perspective:
- Describing the website in detail, both for the information it contains and for what it may reveal about DOGE’s approach to driving change
- Comparing DOGE’s approach to savings reporting to what is used in a typical corporate procurement setting
- Looking for lessons and ideas that can be pulled from the public sector to the private
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