“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 State’s office have been going back and forth for over a year.

Werner and their CEO have publicly denied the rumors, and the Governor of Nebraska has clarified the limitations of the Secretary of State’s office, but only digging into the details can separate fact from fiction. 

In this episode of the Art of Supply podcast, Kelly Barner pulls together the facts as she found them:

• Reviewing the timeline - a critical piece of this story
• Pictures that seem to have been worth more than a thousand words
• Who said what when, including representatives of the Federal government
• The lessons we can all learn from what happened

Links:

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

“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 massive $7 Billion investment… so why has Target changed their mind?

Their explanation for the change is that they need to focus more on the in-store shopping experience, but it could also be that true omnichannel retail fulfillment is harder to deliver against than they thought.

In this episode of the Art of Supply podcast, Kelly Barner considers the roll out and then roll back of Target’s ‘stores as hubs’ program:

• How the program worked, and what the incentives were to keep it going
• The challenges Target ran into as well as the successes they had under their omnichannel strategy
• What we know about how they plan to handle digital order fulfillment moving forward

Links:

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

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 way and the wrong way to get a CDL:

• Safety statistics associated with large trucks and their drivers
• How to get a CDL and what the pass/fail rate is
• Recent news stories that illustrate what can go wrong when the administration of CDLs is not handled properly or when licensed drivers aren’t qualified

Links:

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

“We’re committed to supporting U.S. suppliers involved in every key stage of the chip-making process — from the earliest stages of research and development, to final fabrication and packaging.” - Sabih Khan, COO at Apple

In April, President Trump said that he wants the Apple iPhone to be manufactured in the United States. 

The iPhone’s 2,700 components currently come from 187 suppliers in 28 countries, according to an article from the Financial Times, and less than 5 percent of the total components are manufactured domestically. 

Apple ships 438 iPhones every minute, and 85 percent of them are assembled by Foxconn, with its dozens of locations in China.

Can Apple reshore the iPhone? We’re all watching to find out.

In this episode of the Art of Supply podcast, Kelly Barner looks into whether this lofty goal could become a reality:

• What incentives does Apple have to make this work, and what are the disincentives to tolerate failure?
• How are they investing domestically in terms of capacity, partnerships, and talent?
• Are they thinking big enough to address the raw materials required in their silicon and battery supply chains?  Links:
• Kelly Barner on LinkedIn
• Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter 
• Art of Supply on AOP
• Subscribe to This Week in Procurement

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