The Last 100 Feet of Walmart's Supply Chain
By Kevin Meyer I've written a lot about Walmart, in particular their supposedly glorious supply chain. To be honest, they execute a traditional…
Piping One Piece at a Time
By Kevin Meyer I was thumbing through some old magazines that had built up in the mayhem of the past month and came across an interesting article in…
The Value of 0.07 Seconds
By Kevin Meyer What is a day or even a week of manufacturing disruption worth to you? How about 0.07 seconds? A split-second power disruption at a…
Costco vs. the Just-in-Time Consumer
By Kevin Meyer Behold! The financial crisis has helped the U.S. consumer understand the value of just-in-time! Nearly three years ago I told you ab…
The Perils of Batch Air Transport
By Kevin Meyer Over three years ago I wrote a short piece comparing the new Airbus A380 to the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner from a batch vs. one piece f…
The Bane of Complexity Part 2: The Rube Goldberg Supply Chain
By Kevin Meyer I've blathered at length about Rube Goldberg-esque supply chains at Boeing and other similarly outsourcing-entranced companies. S…
Outsourcing actually lowers (!) profits.
In news guaranteed to make Bill Waddell smile, new research from business school professors at Stanford and Wharton (yes, those pointy-headed academic…
Sorry Kids
By Kevin Meyer Once again we’re coming up on holiday season, and once again we have a bunch of retailers and toy manufacturers who tried to guess the…