Mitch Mac Donald has more than 30 years of experience in both the newspaper and magazine businesses. He has covered the logistics and supply chain fields since 1988. Twice named one of the Top 10 Business Journalists in the U.S., he has served in a multitude of editorial and publishing roles. The leading force behind the launch of Supply Chain Management Review, he was that brand's founding publisher and editorial director from 1997 to 2000. Additionally, he has served as news editor, chief editor, publisher and editorial director of Logistics Management, as well as publisher of Modern Materials Handling. Mitch is also the president and CEO of Agile Business Media, LLC, the parent company of DC VELOCITY and CSCMP's Supply Chain Quarterly.
As a college student, Craig Weiss was attracted to logistics because of the problem-solving opportunities it offered. By that measure, the profession has clearly delivered on its promise. In the 20 years since Weiss entered the field, the logistics world has been rocked by a technology revolution, regulatory upheaval, and an epic trucking capacity crunch, to name just a few of the challenges.
Weiss has had a front-row view of the turmoil. For the past 16 years, he has held supply chain leadership positions with the Chicago-based packaged-foods giant Conagra Brands, whose portfolio includes such household names as Hunt's, Healthy Choice, Duncan Hines, Birds Eye, and Bertolli. Today, he is the company's senior vice president, supply chain, responsible for the full gamut of supply chain planning functions as well as transportation and warehousing.
Prior to joining Conagra Brands, Weiss held managerial roles at third-party logistics service providers ODW Logistics and Total Logistic Control (now part of Ryder), and served as a consultant at Ernst & Young. He spoke recently with DC Velocity Group Editorial Director Mitch Mac Donald about the shifting tech landscape, the supply chain of the future, and what keeps him up at night.
Q: Let's start with your career migration. How did you end up in the supply chain profession?
A: Actually, I got a degree in logistics in college. A professor of mine [at Central Michigan University], Dr. Robert Cook, convinced me that logistics was a great field to go into, and that if you like a fast-paced environment with opportunities to resolve operational challenges and work with people, logistics would be a great career choice. That is ultimately what helped guide me into a career in logistics.
Q: Could you tell us a little about the operations you oversee?
A: My current role at Conagra is leading the back end of our supply chain, meaning I oversee our supply chain planning functions, which includes demand planning as well as supply and inventory replenishment planning. I also lead Conagra's logistics team, which is transportation and warehousing, and our customer supply chain team, which is our strategic interface with our customers. I'm involved in several other initiatives as well, including our corporate enterprisewide productivity program and our DC network optimization program.
Q: What are some of the biggest challenges you face in today's market? That is, what keeps you up at night?
A: There are a couple of things that keep me up at night. Number one is the speed at which the supply chain and our customer's expectations are evolving and the challenges of staying relevant and competing in that fast-changing world.
Another, more tactical, challenge is how to enhance the efficiency of our freight-handling operations. The trucking capacity challenges of the past few years have really forced us to look at our distribution centers and examine our traditional notions about how long it should take to turn a truck around. We're now looking at ways to speed up the loading/unloading process and move trucks through our yards faster—including the possible use of some sort of advance reservation system.
We've set some pretty aggressive goals for improving the speed at which trucks can get in and out of our facilities.
Q: Turning to your distribution and fulfillment centers, are they internally staffed, outsourced to a third-party service provider (3PL), or a combination of the two?
A: It's a combination. We operate a number of our own distribution centers, and we also partner with some of the industry's leading 3PLs.
Q: One of the questions that often come up with 3PLs is how to maintain oversight of their operations and ensure that you're working toward the same objectives. How do you handle that?
A: I think it starts with having good strategic alignment of the two organizations, in finding ways to ensure that what's good for Conagra is also good for our third parties and vice versa. We want to be seen as a strategic customer with our third parties, so we go out of our way to ensure that they understand not only what we're doing in distribution but also what we're doing as a company.
We regularly bring our third parties in to discuss our growth plans, our customers' expectations, and our cost pressures. We include them as part of our staff meetings and truly operate as though they were an extension of our organization.
Q: Turning to your own DCs, are you having difficulty finding the labor and talent you need, and if so, how are you addressing that?
A: It can be challenging to find good, qualified people, especially for the more technical roles in some of our rural locations. We are constantly in search of the next great way to attract, retain, and develop talented people.
We have found that our teams are most effective when we create the right work environment for them and provide the right tools to succeed. This includes giving teams the freedom to own their work and results by promoting independent decision-making and eliminating bureaucracy, as well as ensuring that they are both accountable for their results and recognized for their contributions.
We also put a lot of emphasis on modernizing our processes, including investing in the right technology to help bring it all together.
Q: You provided a nice segue into another topic I wanted to touch on with you, which is technology. What are some of the technologies you're using to manage your DC and fulfillment operations?
A: I think we have a great track record at Conagra of leveraging technology to stay competitive in today's world. We use a suite of best-of-breed technology solutions to manage our supply chain operations. And we are constantly looking for new opportunities we can take advantage of, whether it is cloud computing, artificial intelligence, or predictive analytics solutions.
Q: Are there some technologies on the horizon that you think hold a lot of promise for your operations?
A: Yes, one example would be technologies like sensors that have the potential to provide true end-to-end visibility across the supply chain—visibility that in the past was sometimes hard to get.
Another area is automation—distribution center automation not just for e-commerce operations but also for facilities that are still shipping a combination of traditional truckloads, full pallet loads, and e-commerce orders. We are looking to take advantage of that both internally and with our third parties.
Q: Let's talk about the future. If you were to come to work tomorrow and it was Q4 2029 rather than 2019, what would look different to you?
A: The future of how food will be purchased and delivered will be very different, and as a result, I think that the forward-thinking nature of our operations will be very different. We will be focused on more predictive analytics of events that will occur months in the future—largely because we'll have access to cross-functional operations data that will enable us to foresee potential constraints and obstacles, and then respond to them.
The folks doing that will work across a broader swath of the supply chain. As the lines between transportation planning, inventory planning, and warehouse planning begin to blur, I think we will have fewer people in functional roles and more in cross-functional roles who will have a better understanding of the implications of their decisions.
Q: What should supply chain organizations be doing now to prepare for the future you just described?
A: Get the right people, with the right skills, and with the right structure, and then make the right investments in processes and technology to meet the goals of the company and its customers. Structurally, work to merge supply chain disciplines with analytic disciplines. Recruit people who not only have good operations skills and want to work with the products but also bring that analytical skill set. When you bring the operational and the analytic together, I think that is where you have your future supply chain.
Nearly one-third of American consumers have increased their secondhand purchases in the past year, revealing a jump in “recommerce” according to a buyer survey from ShipStation, a provider of web-based shipping and order fulfillment solutions.
The number comes from a survey of 500 U.S. consumers showing that nearly one in four (23%) Americans lack confidence in making purchases over $200 in the next six months. Due to economic uncertainty, savvy shoppers are looking for ways to save money without sacrificing quality or style, the research found.
Younger shoppers are leading the charge in that trend, with 59% of Gen Z and 48% of Millennials buying pre-owned items weekly or monthly. That rate makes Gen Z nearly twice as likely to buy second hand compared to older generations.
The primary reason that shoppers say they have increased their recommerce habits is lower prices (74%), followed by the thrill of finding unique or rare items (38%) and getting higher quality for a lower price (28%). Only 14% of Americans cite environmental concerns as a primary reason they shop second-hand.
Despite the challenge of adjusting to the new pattern, recommerce represents a strategic opportunity for businesses to capture today’s budget-minded shoppers and foster long-term loyalty, Austin, Texas-based ShipStation said.
For example, retailers don’t have to sell used goods to capitalize on the secondhand boom. Instead, they can offer trade-in programs swapping discounts or store credit for shoppers’ old items. And they can improve product discoverability to help customers—particularly older generations—find what they’re looking for.
Other ways for retailers to connect with recommerce shoppers are to improve shipping practices. According to ShipStation:
70% of shoppers won’t return to a brand if shipping is too expensive.
51% of consumers are turned off by late deliveries
40% of shoppers won’t return to a retailer again if the packaging is bad.
The “CMA CGM Startup Awards”—created in collaboration with BFM Business and La Tribune—will identify the best innovations to accelerate its transformation, the French company said.
Specifically, the company will select the best startup among the applicants, with clear industry transformation objectives focused on environmental performance, competitiveness, and quality of life at work in each of the three areas:
Shipping: Enabling safer, more efficient, and sustainable navigation through innovative technological solutions.
Logistics: Reinventing the global supply chain with smart and sustainable logistics solutions.
Media: Transform content creation, and customer engagement with innovative media technologies and strategies.
Three winners will be selected during a final event organized on November 15 at the Orange Vélodrome Stadium in Marseille, during the 2nd Artificial Intelligence Marseille (AIM) forum organized by La Tribune and BFM Business. The selection will be made by a jury chaired by Rodolphe Saadé, Chairman and CEO of the Group, and including members of the executive committee representing the various sectors of CMA CGM.
The global air cargo market’s hot summer of double-digit demand growth continued in August with average spot rates showing their largest year-on-year jump with a 24% increase, according to the latest weekly analysis by Xeneta.
Xeneta cited two reasons to explain the increase. First, Global average air cargo spot rates reached $2.68 per kg in August due to continuing supply and demand imbalance. That came as August's global cargo supply grew at its slowest ratio in 2024 to-date at 2% year-on-year, while global cargo demand continued its double-digit growth, rising +11%.
The second reason for higher rates was an ocean-to-air shift in freight volumes due to Red Sea disruptions and e-commerce demand.
Those factors could soon be amplified as e-commerce shows continued strong growth approaching the hotly anticipated winter peak season. E-commerce and low-value goods exports from China in the first seven months of 2024 increased 30% year-on-year, including shipments to Europe and the US rising 38% and 30% growth respectively, Xeneta said.
“Typically, air cargo market performance in August tends to follow the July trend. But another month of double-digit demand growth and the strongest rate growths of the year means there was definitely no summer slack season in 2024,” Niall van de Wouw, Xeneta’s chief airfreight officer, said in a release.
“Rates we saw bottoming out in late July started picking up again in mid-August. This is too short a period to call a season. This has been a busy summer, and now we’re at the threshold of Q4, it will be interesting to see what will happen and if all the anticipation of a red-hot peak season materializes,” van de Wouw said.
The report cites data showing that there are approximately 1.7 million workers missing from the post-pandemic workforce and that 38% of small firms are unable to fill open positions. At the same time, the “skills gap” in the workforce is accelerating as automation and AI create significant shifts in how work is performed.
That information comes from the “2024 Labor Day Report” released by Littler’s Workplace Policy Institute (WPI), the firm’s government relations and public policy arm.
“We continue to see a labor shortage and an urgent need to upskill the current workforce to adapt to the new world of work,” said Michael Lotito, Littler shareholder and co-chair of WPI. “As corporate executives and business leaders look to the future, they are focused on realizing the many benefits of AI to streamline operations and guide strategic decision-making, while cultivating a talent pipeline that can support this growth.”
But while the need is clear, solutions may be complicated by public policy changes such as the upcoming U.S. general election and the proliferation of employment-related legislation at the state and local levels amid Congressional gridlock.
“We are heading into a contentious election that has already proven to be unpredictable and is poised to create even more uncertainty for employers, no matter the outcome,” Shannon Meade, WPI’s executive director, said in a release. “At the same time, the growing patchwork of state and local requirements across the U.S. is exacerbating compliance challenges for companies. That, coupled with looming changes following several Supreme Court decisions that have the potential to upend rulemaking, gives C-suite executives much to contend with in planning their workforce-related strategies.”
Stax Engineering, the venture-backed startup that provides smokestack emissions reduction services for maritime ships, will service all vessels from Toyota Motor North America Inc. visiting the Toyota Berth at the Port of Long Beach, according to a new five-year deal announced today.
Beginning in 2025 to coincide with new California Air Resources Board (CARB) standards, STAX will become the first and only emissions control provider to service roll-on/roll-off (ro-ros) vessels in the state of California, the company said.
Stax has rapidly grown since its launch in the first quarter of this year, supported in part by a $40 million funding round from investors, announced in July. It now holds exclusive service agreements at California ports including Los Angeles, Long Beach, Hueneme, Benicia, Richmond, and Oakland. The firm has also partnered with individual companies like NYK Line, Hyundai GLOVIS, Equilon Enterprises LLC d/b/a Shell Oil Products US (Shell), and now Toyota.
Stax says it offers an alternative to shore power with land- and barge-based, mobile emissions capture and control technology for shipping terminal and fleet operators without the need for retrofits.
In the case of this latest deal, the Toyota Long Beach Vehicle Distribution Center imports about 200,000 vehicles each year on ro-ro vessels. Stax will keep those ships green with its flexible exhaust capture system, which attaches to all vessel classes without modification to remove 99% of emitted particulate matter (PM) and 95% of emitted oxides of nitrogen (NOx). Over the lifetime of this new agreement with Toyota, Stax estimated the service will account for approximately 3,700 hours and more than 47 tons of emissions controlled.
“We set out to provide an emissions capture and control solution that was reliable, easily accessible, and cost-effective. As we begin to service Toyota, we’re confident that we can meet the needs of the full breadth of the maritime industry, furthering our impact on the local air quality, public health, and environment,” Mike Walker, CEO of Stax, said in a release. “Continuing to establish strong partnerships will help build momentum for and trust in our technology as we expand beyond the state of California.”