Art of Supply

"Am I just making worse decisions way more quickly than I ever would before, and they're compounding and driving me down the wrong path?" – Russell Halper, Founder & Managing Director, Insight Kitchen

Supply chain should be AI's ideal proving ground. It has plenty of data, plenty of decisions, and plenty of problems no one has solved. So why did a recent AI conference with 11,000 attendees have only three talks about supply chain?

In this episode of Art of Supply, Kelly talks with Russell Halper, Founder & Managing Director of Insight Kitchen, about the gap between AI's highlight reel and what it takes to get results inside a physical network. Russell has spent his career at the intersection of data science and supply chain.

Listen to this episode to hear:

- Why a forecast has to beat a human planner, while an agent only has to come close

- What makes supply chain harder for AI than writing code or email

- How to build an AI roadmap around mile markers rather than a destination

Links:

Russell Halper on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/russellhalper/

Insight Kitchen: https://insightkitchen.ai/

Kelly Barner on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-barner-6884443/

Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/art-of-supply-6895142546301960193

Art of Supply on AOP: http://www.artofsupply.com

Subscribe to the Art of Procurement Newsletter: https://resources.artofprocurement.com/art-of-procurement-podcast-subscribe

"We are working this case, but no trucks were stolen. Just the cargo." — Montclair, California Police Department

On August 17th, someone with fake paperwork walked into an Anheuser-Busch distribution center in Montclair, California, and was handed a load of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Nobody broke in. Nobody stole a truck.

One hour later, they did it again - same process, same warehouse.

Within weeks, Pabst had a countdown clock, their CEO on TikTok, a $20,000 reward, and a sympathetic comment from KitKat. It's a great story. It's also an example of the logistics-based crime that cost shippers in the U.S. and Canada nearly $725 Million last year.

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

- Why almost nothing in the Montclair pickup belonged to Pabst: not the building, not the truck, not the handoff

- How strategic cargo theft works, and why Pabst is in increasingly crowded company

- Whether a viral campaign should turn cargo theft into a punchline

Links:

Inside the Rise of Cargo Theft (AOS, September 2026): https://artofprocurement.com/blog/supply-inside-the-rise-of-cargo-theft

Tracking the Logistics of a $400K Lobster Heist (AOS, January 2026): https://artofprocurement.com/blog/supply-tracking-the-logistics-of-a-400k-lobster-heist

Kelly Barner on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-barner-6884443/

Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/art-of-supply-6895142546301960193

Art of Supply on AOP: http://www.artofsupply.com

Subscribe to the Art of Procurement Newsletter: https://resources.artofprocurement.com/art-of-procurement-podcast-subscribe

"IEEPA, in many ways, I called it the sledgehammer. It was like everything, everywhere, all at once." - Jeff Rittener, International Trade and Compliance Advisor, Rittener Trade Services

For more than 30 years, Jeff Rittener, International Trade and Compliance Advisor at Rittener Trade Services, built and led Intel's global trade organization.

Now he has his own consulting practice and podcast, Rittener Reflections, and is a Member of the Tesari AI National Security Council.

In this episode, Jeff walks Kelly Barner through the legal tools behind the current wave of tariffs, and what happens when one of them gets struck down by the Supreme Court.

LIsten in to hear Jeff and Kelly explore:

- Why the Supreme Court ruled the administration's IEEPA tariffs illegal, and what replaced them within hours

- Why Section 301 and Section 232 tariffs are built to last while others aren't

- The 1930s law now being used to hit Canada with a 50 percent tariff, and why one company is already relocating production because of it

- Why the IEEPA refund process favors large companies like Apple and Amazon over small importers

Links:

Jeff Rittener on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffrittener/

Rittener Reflections Podcast: https://rittenerreflections.com/

No Trade Is Free, Robert Lighthizer: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0063282135?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback

Kelly Barner on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-barner-6884443/

Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/art-of-supply-6895142546301960193

Art of Supply on AOP: http://www.artofsupply.com

Subscribe to the Art of Procurement Newsletter: https://resources.artofprocurement.com/art-of-procurement-podcast-subscribe

"I want your phone numbers, I want your internet domain, I want everything, your PO box, everything. Now I've become you." - Keith Lewis, Vice President of Operations at Verisk CargoNet

A purchased MC (motor carrier) number, sometimes bought for as little as $5,000, can turn a stranger into a fully credentialed trucking company overnight. It can make them look trustworthy enough that you hand them a truckload full of valuable inventory.

Keith Lewis, Vice President of Operations at Verisk CargoNet, spent 26 years in law enforcement before joining CargoNet's crime analyst unit, and in this episode he walks Kelly Barner through how cargo theft has evolved from truck-stop break-ins into an organized, border-spanning business chasing the highest-value freight in the network.

In this episode of the Art of Supply podcast, Keith and Kelly explore:

- Why a single load bound for an AI data center can be worth $20 to $30 million — and how that's changed what thieves target

- How purchased MC numbers and misdirected loads let criminals become "legitimate" carriers in a matter of days

- Why a $400,000 lobster theft and a $400,000 copper theft have completely different endings

- Why most stolen freight is never recovered, and the one document that determines whether it can be

Links:

Keith Lewis on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keith-lewis-08b55817/

Kelly Barner on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-barner-6884443/

Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/art-of-supply-6895142546301960193

Art of Supply on AOP: http://www.artofsupply.com

Subscribe to the Art of Procurement Newsletter: https://resources.artofprocurement.com/art-of-procurement-podcast-subscribe

"We are on borrowed time." - Army Major General John Ferrari

On July 20th, President Trump signed an executive order making it dramatically harder for defense contractors to buy critical materials from China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Seven days later, the U.S. Army handed Ford and GM prototype contracts to build a new heavy infantry squad vehicle on the theory that Detroit can build trucks faster and cheaper than the traditional defense industrial base.

Nobody has explained how the new restrictions and speed expectations are supposed to work at the same time.

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

- What the U.S. Army asked Ford and GM for and what the new sourcing rules now forbid them from buying to build it

- Why a bomber plant outside Ypsilanti is the most useful data point in this story, and why the lesson everyone takes from it is backwards

- The second rulebook already two years into the same experiment that might give us an early look at what to expect here

Links:

Kelly Barner on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-barner-6884443/

Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/art-of-supply-6895142546301960193

Art of Supply on AOP: http://www.artofsupply.com

Subscribe to the Art of Procurement Newsletter: https://resources.artofprocurement.com/art-of-procurement-podcast-subscribe

"When the government starts collecting money as a tax, they don't normally give it back." — Curtis Spencer, CEO, IMS Worldwide

For most of the last sixty years, the average U.S. tariff rate was two and a half percent. Duty was a rounding error, and import networks got designed accordingly.

Curtis Spencer, CEO of IMS Worldwide, says the floor is now 20 percent, and plenty of importers are still treating that like weather that will pass.

He has spent more than four decades in foreign-trade zones. When he started, the United States had twelve of them. Customs is about to issue number 302.

In this episode of Art of Supply, Kelly Barner and Curtis Spencer discuss:

- Why the business case for an FTZ went from 2- or 3-to-1 to 10-to-1 without the paperwork getting any harder

- What "substantial transformation" means now that customs is chasing country of origin into second- and third-tier suppliers

- The 1 percent of cases where a bonded warehouse beats a zone, and how to tell whether you are in it

Links:

Curtis Spencer on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/curtis-spencer-0a553010/

Kelly Barner on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-barner-6884443/

Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/art-of-supply-6895142546301960193

Art of Supply on AOP: http://www.artofsupply.com

Subscribe to the Art of Procurement Newsletter: https://resources.artofprocurement.com/art-of-procurement-podcast-subscribe

"C.H. Robinson does not employ drivers." - C.H. Robinson Chief Legal Officer Dorothy Capers

This May, two courts drew a new line for freight brokerage liability. The U.S. Supreme Court stripped brokers of a federal defense they had leaned on for years. The Texas Supreme Court turned around and told Home Depot it wasn't liable for a fatal crash involving a carrier hauling its freight.

Two companies, both a step removed from the truck. Opposite outcomes. The difference came down to control.

And then, in July, a separate jury found that C.H. Robinson might be responsible for the actions of a driver that did not work for them, but a carrier they hired.

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

- Why a jury decided the driver was C.H. Robinson's "borrowed employee," and how that turned 23% of the blame into 68% of the bill

- What protected Home Depot, and how fast that protection disappears

- Why the industry's response could pull carriers out of the market you buy from, concentrating volume and raising prices

Links:

Kelly Barner on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-barner-6884443/

Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/art-of-supply-6895142546301960193

Art of Supply on AOP: http://www.artofsupply.com

Subscribe to the Art of Procurement Newsletter: https://resources.artofprocurement.com/art-of-procurement-podcast-subscribe

"You know, Robert, I have no expectation to ever be happy at work. I just hope to be a little less miserable."

That's the line from a restaurant server that Robert Martichenko, board chair of TrailPath Workplace Solutions and founder of the lean consultancy LeanCore, can't shake.

Operational supply chain roles aren't easy, but that doesn't mean it isn't possible for people to find dignity in their work. Hoping to be less miserable one day at a time does little for individual frontline workers, and it does even less for the company that employs them and the customers they serve.

In this episode of the Art of Supply podcast, Robert and Kelly Barner dig into what dignity means in the workplace, and why it is not the same thing as respect:

- Why "respect for people" is the wrong frame, and what dignity actually requires

- The four states TrailPath's research finds people in at work — and why nearly half of most workforces are declining or surviving, not growing or thriving

- What the second law of thermodynamics has to do with your supply chain, and why chasing unit cost quietly cost procurement its relationships

Links:

Robert Martichenko on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertmartichenko/

Kelly Barner on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-barner-6884443/

Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/art-of-supply-6895142546301960193

Art of Supply on AOP: http://www.artofsupply.com

Subscribe to the Art of Procurement Newsletter: https://resources.artofprocurement.com/art-of-procurement-podcast-subscribe

In December of 2025, a $285,000 Windrose Technology electric semi-truck went missing. It still has not been found.

Reportedly, two mechanics who kept it running, Travis Waite and Harold Keller, left Windrose Technology owed a combined $91,000 in back wages, and (according to the company) are holding the truck until they are paid.

That's not the strangest thing about Windrose Technology. It's just the most dramatic.

Windrose is a Chinese-founded, Belgium-headquartered electric truck startup. It was founded in 2022 by Wen Han, a 36-year-old Stanford MBA and all-around colorful character.

By most independent accounts, the truck itself is good, but that does little to explain the public disputes with former employees.

Is this a well-engineered truck buried under a chaotic company with an eccentric founder or a company whose chaos is a preview of what may happen when production has to scale?

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

- Why a $285,000 electric truck is currently sitting somewhere nobody at Windrose can find, and why the two guys who allegedly know where it is aren't telling

- How a truck built in China ended up with a VIN that says it was made in Georgia, and what that suggests about trucking safety compliance's dependence on the honor system

- Why Nikola's pardoned, convicted founder made a lowball offer for the company, and why that story gets a lot more complicated once you see the actual trucks Windrose has on the road in Texas and Chile

Links:

Troubling Times for Electric Trucking: https://artofprocurement.com/blog/supply-troubling-times-for-electric-trucking

Why is nobody talking about China's new supply chain regulations?: https://artofprocurement.com/blog/supply-why-is-nobody-talking-about-chinas-new-supply-chain-regulations

Kelly Barner on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-barner-6884443/

Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/art-of-supply-6895142546301960193

Art of Supply on AOP: http://www.artofsupply.com

Subscribe to the Art of Procurement Newsletter: https://resources.artofprocurement.com/art-of-procurement-podcast-subscribe

"FedEx is not simply selling an asset, it is trading a warehousing unit for a deeper transportation relationship with one of the world's largest container lines, which is a smarter reallocation than a straight divestiture." — Bruno Digital

FedEx just sold its Supply Chain unit to CMA CGM for $1.4 billion. It sold for the same price FedEx paid for the same business, under a different name, back in 2015.

But FedEx didn't just sell an operating unit. They also entered into a larger agreement for ocean and air cargo that highlights some interesting trends in global logistics.

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

- What the $1.4 Billion deal includes, and the multi-year ocean and air cargo agreements worth an estimated $3.5 Billion that are riding along with it

- Why U.S. law would make it impossible for CMA CGM to ever buy FedEx outright

- Whether CMA CGM's growing air cargo fleet is competition for FedEx, or something else entirely

Links:

Kelly Barner on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-barner-6884443/

Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/art-of-supply-6895142546301960193

Art of Supply on AOP: http://www.artofsupply.com

Subscribe to the Art of Procurement Newsletter: https://resources.artofprocurement.com/art-of-procurement-podcast-subscribe