OceanGate and the Limits of Supply Base Innovation
Art of Supply
On June 18, 2023, the OceanGate TITAN, a submersible on its way to the Titanic wreck site, imploded, killing all five passengers, including OceanGate CEO, Stockton Rush. There were a number of factors leading to this tragic event, including a horrible disregard of basic safety measures, a deliberate effort to work outside of regulatory and inspection protocols, and a toxic company culture. While many of these issues were internal, OceanGate did not make the TITAN or its predecessors in-house. This means that they had suppliers, and those companies had a front row seat to what was...
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Asset Optimization Isn’t a Destination – It’s a Discipline
Art of Supply
“No trucking company in the history of trucking companies has ever made money if their wheels aren't moving basically all the time.” - Sean Devine, Founder and CEO, XBE When costs are high and competition is tight, how companies think about opportunities and challenges determines how successful they will be. They must deal with the never-ending push and pull between procurement and sales, the role of operational planning, and demand that alternates between peaks and troughs, but the big question is always the same: Is your core business as profitable as it could be? Sean Devine is...
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Inside the 2025 Nobel Prize in Economics: Harnessing Creative Destruction
Art of Supply
“Capitalism, then, is by nature a form or method of economic change and not only never is but never can be stationary.” - Austrian Economist Joseph Schumpeter (1950) The 2025 Nobel Prize in Economics was recently awarded to Joel Mokyr, an economic historian at Northwestern University, Philippe Aghion, who is affiliated with universities in France and the U.K., and Peter Howitt, a professor of economics at Brown University. Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt worked together for decades to develop and publish a model that makes it possible to better understand business growth - but not just...
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Intermodal by Design: How Coordination Drives Efficiency W/ Anne Reinke
Art of Supply
When it comes to moving freight long distances, you can go from ship to drayage to rail to over-the-road trucking… or you can go intermodal. Intermodal freight transportation combines the advantages of sea, air, and land transport to facilitate a preplanned end-to-end journey. Understanding the relative cost, security, and emissions benefits of intermodal transportation is key for companies looking for the most efficient way to move their goods. In this episode of Art of Supply, Kelly Barner is joined by Anne Reinke, the CEO and President of the Intermodal Association of North America...
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The Soybean Economy: What’s at Stake in the U.S.–China Trade Talks
Art of Supply
Global trading of steel, lumber, and rare earth minerals makes our companies and industries and economies work. And yet, right up there with those examples is an agricultural commodity many people don’t like and won’t eat: soybeans. Soybeans are a huge focus of the trade talks between the U.S. and China, and there is a lot at stake between now and the end of the year, especially for U.S. soybean farmers. China has been actively diversifying their sources of soybeans away from the United States, and they have developed at least two viable alternatives: Brazil and Argentina. The U.S. has...
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Kodiak’s Road to IPO: AI, Defense Contracts, and the Future of Autonomous Trucking
Art of Supply
On September 25, 2025, Kodiak, an autonomous truck software company founded in 2018, went public with a $2.5 Billion valuation. Unlike other companies that make the whole truck autonomous, Kodiak retrofits existing equipment with their sensors and software. Also, unlike other companies in their space… they have revenue, something that is a challenge in any emerging industry. In 2024, Kodiak became the first company to announce the delivery of a driverless semi-truck to a paying customer, but I think everyone has the same question: will it work? That goes for both Kodiak’s solution and...
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Reimagining Reshoring With the Help of 3D Printing
Art of Supply
In conversations about reshoring, people usually assume that it means building or retrofitting facilities for U.S. manufacturing, bringing in equipment, and hiring people to operate it. But what if that isn’t what it is going to look like at all? The costs and uncertainty associated with tariffs may be changing attitudes about global trade enough that 3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, will get its long-speculated opportunity in the spotlight. 3D printing has advantages and disadvantages, and requires a completely different supply management mindset than...
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Truck Drivers, Trade Deals, and Denials: Sorting Fact from Fiction in Nebraska
Art of Supply
“Werner Enterprises wishes to clarify that we are not involved in any agreements of discussions regarding the recruitment of Kenyan truck drivers to the United States. Any claims suggesting otherwise are just false.” - Werner Enterprises on X, September 9, 2025 In early September, rumors started to swirl that Werner Enterprises, a $3 Billion transportation and logistics company based in Omaha, Nebraska, was bringing people from Kenya to drive for them in the United States. The rumors aren’t completely based on speculation. Delegations from Kenya and the Nebraska Secretary of...
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Target Steps Back from ‘Stores as Hubs’ Digital Fulfillment
Art of Supply
“It's also important to note that while our stores are fulfilling more digital orders it's not coming at the cost of in-store sales…our stores as hubs strategy isn't putting our core business at risk. It's simply helping us grow faster.” - Brian Cornell, Target CEO, in 2019 In August, Target announced that they would be backing away from their ‘stores as hubs’ program. The program started in 2017 and used dedicated spaces in the backrooms of regular Target stores to fulfill the company’s digital orders. The ‘stores as hubs’ program was rolled out with huge fanfare… and a...
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Honk If You’re Qualified: Understanding CDL Safety
Art of Supply
If you want to operate a truck over 26,000 pounds, earn money for doing it, and cross state lines… then you need to have a Commercial Driver’s License (CDL). Truck drivers are essential to the economy, and so having a CDL is a real asset. It offers job security and flexibility, as well as solid earnings and great benefits. In fact, CDLs are so valuable that even people who haven’t earned one are willing to break the rules to get one. But having unqualified commercial drivers on the road is a danger to everyone. In this episode of the Art of Supply podcast, Kelly Barner covers the right...
info_outlineAfter 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 to help teams and individuals stay away from the trouble.
In this episode of the Art of Supply podcast, Kelly Barner takes on her first audio book review and covers:
- The difference between handling conflict and proactively preventing issues in the first place
- How certain language, particularly within contracts, can lay the foundation for disputes even before they happen
- Who peacekeepers are and the role they have in strategically averting crises
Links:
- Kate Vitasek on LinkedIn
- Preventing the Dispute Before It Begins: Proven Mechanisms for Fostering Better Business Relationships
- Kelly Barner on LinkedIn
- Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter
- Art of Supply on AOP
- Subscribe to This Week in Procurement