Professor Misty Blessley, at Temple U., shares her insights with readers monthly. Last year, Walgreens introduced an innovative strategy to transform its stores into dual-purpose retail outlets and hubs for home deliveries. This shift was driven by a change in consumer behavior towards ordering non-pharmaceutical products for delivery and Walgreens’ belief that store fulfillment is ..read more

“Boeing has a parking problem,” writes The Wall Street Journal (July 22, 2024).  Parts shortages and other issues have left the jet maker with about 200 fully or mostly finished airplanes sitting in airfields, outside plants and in an employee parking lot.  Some of the planes are awaiting interiors; others need engines. Dozens more are awaiting delivery to China. Unable to fly, the planes aren’t delivering much-needed cash as Boeing burns through more than $1 billion a month. Unable to fly, the planes present a host of logistical challenges. Planes sitting around too long may need ..read more

The U.S. and Europe would love to cut their dependence on China for rare earths, reports The Wall Street Journal (July 16, 2024). Standing in the way of that ambition are low prices and Beijing’s willingness to throw its weight around to keep the market down. Rare earths are a set of 17 metallic elements that are an essential part of many high-tech devices. Rare-earth prices have plummeted this year and are now hovering at 3-year lows. The price of neodymium, a silver-gray alloy, has fallen by almost 20% this year to $50,000 a metric ton. Other rare earths are down even more. Today, th ..read more

Prof. Howard Weiss shares his insights with us monthly. Disney, sports arenas, hotels and airlines have been using dynamic pricing (see Chapter 13) to increase revenue for years. Now it has come to supermarkets and is being implemented using Electronic Shelf Labels (ESLs). ESLs allow retailers to use a computer or other electronic device to change the displayed price of an item rather than having to go to the shelf, remove the old price display and put up the new display. They have been widely used in Europe and now are being installed and experimented with in U.S stores including Kroger, Schn ..read more

GE Appliances, one of the largest home-appliances manufacturers in the U.S., says a $2 billion effort to remake its supply chain has helped it double revenue since 2017. The Louisville-based company, now a subsidiary of China’s Haier Smart Home, has added manufacturing capacity, opened seven new distribution centers and implemented digital tools to knit together operations from production through to delivery. It is an example of how companies are resetting their supply chains to be more flexible, moves that come after retailers and household goods companies navigated disruptions ..read more

Google just released its environmental report. It doesn’t make for comforting reading. Despite the tech giant’s best efforts to operate its business sustainably, GHG emissions rose 13% from a year earlier and are up almost 50% compared to a 2019 baseline. The reason? Artificial Intelligence. Or rather the expansion of data centers required to service the needs of its insatiable appetite.  But as The Wall Street Journal (July 8, 2024) writes, Google isn’t alone in this. The sustainability reports of other tech firms tell similar stories.  Of course, it is not just the power demands of ..read more

Last week, all across the U.S. people enjoyed the dazzling displays of Independence Day. Fireworks are pyrotechnic marvels: the heart-stopping booms, the cascade of dazzling colors, the incredible finales. Supply Chain Management Now (July 7, 2024) examines the supply chain needed to create these events: Manufacturing fireworks is quite labor-intensive. Production requires a delicate mix of sulfur, charcoal and potassium nitrate, packed into various components including shells, fuses and aerial effects. Skilled technicians must meticulously assemble each firework to ensure a visuall ..read more

Witchita-based Spirit AeroSystems builds the fuselages for Boeing planes Spirit AeroSystems is going full circle, from part of Boeing to independent supplier and now back to part of Boeing, reports The Wall Street Journal (July 3, 2024). It is the perfect example of a realization dawning on corporate America: Outsourcing isn’t all it was once cracked up to be. The deal’s logic of vertical reintegration makes sense in light of recent history, with air-travel safety likely benefiting from centralized supervision and a simpler workflow between plants. Yet it is also an indictment of what execut ..read more

Professor Howard Weiss shares his thoughts about a variety of unusual OM topics with us monthly. People with food allergies typically check the ingredients of a food product very carefully to ensure that the product does not contain an ingredient to which they are allergic. The top 8 allergens in food production are soy, wheat, milk, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, and shellfish. Bimbo Bakeries, headquartered in Mexico with bakeries in 35 countries including the U.S., has taken a unique approach to listing allergens on some of its products. U.S. inspectors reported that Bimbo Bakeries USA — which in ..read more

  To the makers of smartphones, power grids and electric vehicles, lithium—the lightest metal—allows batteries to become supercharged, underpinning hopes for a greener economy and longer-lasting devices. But the very traits that make lithium game-changing for energy storage can pose overpowering challenges should the batteries ever catch fire, reports The Wall Street Journal (June 28, 2024). Incidents involving lithium-battery fires are becoming more common around the world, raising safety concerns. A Tesla lithium-ion battery catches fire in Washington state The world recently s ..read more