The supply chain faces a lot of challenges right now: geopolitical unpredictability, tariff uncertainty, the end of de minimis exemptions, and constantly changing regulations worldwide.

It doesn’t need one more problem - but it has one anyway. And that’s cargo theft.

According to Senator Deb Fischer (R-Neb), since 2021, there has been a 1,500% increase in cargo theft incidents in the U.S., costing $35 Billion annually. The Transportation Intermediaries Association (TIA) has reported that cargo theft grew by over 600% between November 2022 and March 2023 alone, less than 6 months. 

Recent estimates say that 2,500 truckloads are stolen every year, an average of 200 truckloads per month, or 7 per day. 

And who pays for all of that theft? Companies shipping goods, companies transporting goods, and you. The consumer.

In this episode of the Art of Supply podcast, Kelly Barner looks into this massive and growing problem:

• The different types of theft associated with the cargo crime epidemic
• How technology is making it easier for criminals to seize loads and making it easier for shippers to safeguard their cargo
• A case example involving one of the worst and fastest growing areas of cargo theft: copper

Links:

• Kelly Barner on LinkedIn
• Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter 
• Art of Supply on AOP
• Subscribe to This Week in Procurement

“Today, the U.S. ranks 19th in the world in commercial shipbuilding, and we build less than 5 ships each year, while the PRC is building more than 1,700 ships. In 1975, the United States ranked number one, and we were building more than 70 ships a year.” - Katherine Tai, U.S. Trade Representative (2021-2025)

The Trump Administration is on a mission to make shipbuilding great again… a bipartisan effort that started during the Biden Administration.

In the spring of 2024, the U.S. Trade Representative released the findings and recommendations of a Section 301 investigation into whether or not China is engaged in anti-competitive shipbuilding practices. This release led to the “Ships for America Act,” introduced by Senator Mark Kelly, among others.

When both sides of the aisle agree, the problem must be huge… and in the case of U.S. shipbuilding capabilities, it is gargantuan.

There are currently about 80 U.S.-flagged ships involved in international commerce compared to over 5,500 China-flagged vessels, and the connection between military shipbuilding and commercial shipbuilding is too strong to ignore.

In this episode of the Art of Supply podcast, Kelly Barner:

• Tracks the downfall of U.S. shipbuilding from its peak in the 70s to today
• Examines China’s strategy for combining military and commercial shipbuilding capabilities and how that has helped them build a dominant global position 
• Considers the many moving pieces that will have to fall into place to put the U.S. on a better path

Links:

• Kelly Barner on LinkedIn
• Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter 
• Art of Supply on AOP
• Subscribe to This Week in Procurement

“If you’re as good as you say you are, you should be able to keep your cost structure down, deliver the mission and the outcome, and still make a margin.” - Josh Gruenbaum, Commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service at the GSA

The General Services Administration (GSA), responsible for Federal contracting, has been making DOGE-style headlines of their own this year.

In late June, they sent a letter to a number of large consulting firms under contract, looking for opportunities to reduce spending and better understand the work that is underway. Josh Gruenbaum, who is overseeing the review, specifically requested “No consultant gobbledygook” in the responses. The GSA has signaled a mindset shift from time-and-materials to outcome based contracts, a dynamic that is likely to impact private sector consulting contracts and spending as well.

In this episode of the Art of Supply podcast, Kelly Barner looks into this shift and what it will require from all involved parties:

• How the government defines consulting services
• The multi-round outreach process being led by the Federal government and how firms are responding
• How to shift to outcome based agreements and the pressure of AI is likely to change the future of consulting

Links:

• Kelly Barner on LinkedIn
• Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter 
• Art of Supply on AOP
• Art of Supply on YouTube
• Subscribe to This Week in Procurement

“We've had this whole period of trying to manage supply chains for lowest cost, whereas I think now we're managing for resilience at a managed cost and at an acceptable cost.” - Tim Richardson, Founder and CEO, Iter Consulting

Supply chains aren't really chains anymore. They're complex, interconnected networks. 

Supply networks are anything but predictable. What used to be straightforward relationships between suppliers and customers have become webs of interconnected partnerships, each with its own risks and opportunities. The leaders and teams who succeed in this environment understand that optimizing for resilience at a managed cost has fundamentally replaced the old paradigm of chasing the lowest cost… at any price. In this episode of Art of Supply, Kelly Barner welcomes Tim Richardson back to the podcast. Tim is the Founder and CEO of Iter Consulting, a global team of experts with supply chain and manufacturing experience that are helping companies navigate the new world order of distributed manufacturing and supply network complexity

In this episode of the Art of Supply podcast, Tim and Kelly discuss: 

• Why we've moved past peak globalization and what "local for local" manufacturing means for supply network design
• How to balance the challenge of mapping supply network complexity against the need to understand cost and risk exposure
• The talent gap in supply chain leadership and why strategic thinking capabilities haven't kept pace with operational demands

Links:

• Tim Richardson on LinkedIn
• Supply Chain Forecast: Volatile with Tim Richardson
• Kelly Barner on LinkedIn
• Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter 
• Art of Supply on AOP
• Subscribe to This Week in Procurement

“The way you do one thing is the way you do everything, and we found, over and over, that precision in the smallest of details translated to precision in the bigger ones.” - Will Guidara, Unreasonable Hospitality

There are a lot of opportunities for crossover learning between running a restaurant and working in procurement or supply chain. Both fields are highly operational and process driven, not to mention measured by known, benchmarkable performance metrics. 

In the book “Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More than They Expect” by Will Guidara, we hear the story of one high-end restaurant’s rise to become the best in the world, but it wasn’t just about the food. They had to master and refine their systems, their approach to the guest experience, and serve amazing food all at the same time.

In this episode of the Art of Supply podcast, Kelly Barner shares key lessons from the book and connects them to the challenges and opportunities that procurement and supply chain leaders face today:

• The critical need to pair vision with operational systems that work at scale
• Crafting an exceptional customer experience and training a large team to preserve it
• How successful leaders handle difficult times and even failure

Links:

• Unreasonable Hospitality on Amazon
• Kelly Barner on LinkedIn
• Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter 
• Art of Supply on AOP
• Subscribe to This Week in Procurement

“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 and CEO of Cavela, a company focused on automating the end-to-end sourcing process. For three generations, his family has been heavily involved in trade. It probably comes as no surprise then that during his graduate studies at McGill University, he focused on developing machine learning and AI models to predict global trade.

In this episode of the Art of Supply podcast, Kelly Barner speaks with Anthony about the opportunities associated with (finally) automating global sourcing:

• Building a business model that delivers the value traditionally associated with a service as a product instead
• Why increasing competition from smaller players will increase all companies’ reliance on brand
• How suppliers feel about this new advancement in the manufacturing space

Links:

• Anthony Sardain on LinkedIn
• Kelly Barner on LinkedIn
• Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter 
• Art of Supply on AOP
• Subscribe to This Week in Procurement

“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 professor thought the idea was implausible.

In this episode of Art of Supply, Kelly Barner looks at Fred Smith’s many contributions from five decades in business:

• The risk he had to be willing to take on in pursuit of his vision
• The many innovations that were introduced by FedEx during his tenure
• Why Smith’s perspective on what kind of business FedEx was in was so critical to its success

Links:

• FedEx Ground’s Contractor Woes
• Case Dismissed: Spencer Patton Prevails Over FedEx
• Reading FedEx Ground the RICO Act
• Will FedEx Freight hit the open road?
• Kelly Barner on LinkedIn
• Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter 
• Art of Supply on AOP
• Subscribe to This Week in Procurement

“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 recently released their first Network Security Trends in Transportation and Logistics report, part of a series of research efforts looking at network security trends for different industries. 

In this episode of the Art of Supply podcast, Ken joins Kelly Barner to discuss:

• The unique combination of physical and digital security needs that transportation and logistics companies have to satisfy 
• How the cost, complexity, and relative risk associated with network security are being addressed
• Balancing systems integration and also network perimeters to ensure connectivity on the move without taking on undue risk

Links:

• Ken Rutsky on LinkedIn
• 2025 State of Network Security in Transportation & Logistics
• Kelly Barner on LinkedIn
• Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter 
• Art of Supply on AOP
• Subscribe to This Week in Procurement

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 voted to strip California of its ability to impose tougher standards on heavy duty trucks and ban the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035.

California may be down, but they are certainly not out. They are using other creative ways to regulate the emissions associated with logistics.

In this episode of Art of Supply, Kelly Barner looks at this alternate approach to regulation:

• The Warehouse Actions and Investments to Reduce Emissions Program (known as WAIRE) and the Warehouse Indirect Source Rule (ISR)
• How these rules are are intended to work and how they are being enforced
• Whether this alternative approach will be effective in achieving its objectives

Links:

• Examining the Practicality of the EV Truck Mandate
• Nebraska v. California: The EV Trucking Transition
• Who will decide the future of EV trucking?
• Kelly Barner on LinkedIn
• Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter 
• Art of Supply on AOP
• Subscribe to This Week in Procurement

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, teamed up to steal roughly 3 million Israeli shekels (NIS), or about $842,000 USD. 

Although the case is still ongoing and has yet to see its day in court, it poses a lot of questions for procurement teams across the globe.

In this episode of the Art of Supply podcast, Kelly Barner covers:

• How Avtsin and Tsibolevsky pulled off this alleged fraud
• The process loopholes and absent oversight that allowed them to get away with it for so long
• The many lessons procurement can take from this case regarding checks and balances, pattern detection, and technology use

Links:

• Kelly Barner on LinkedIn
• Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter 
• Art of Supply on AOP
• Subscribe to This Week in Procurement