Strategic Capacity Management

Logistics at the Panama Canal During Drought

Restrictions on daily transit as well as cargo weight will continue throughout 2024, as the Panama Canal deals with drought that has lowered water levels.

Shippers as well as recipients of goods are feeling the impact.

(For an earlier post explaining restricted load sizes through the Panama Canal, see this June 2023 post.)

Video Spotlight:

Drought hampering Panama Canal could have major economic repercussions (Aug 23, 2023, CBS Evening News)
Drought causing backups […]

By Lisa M. Spencer|2023-09-24T06:48:14+00:00September 24, 2023|Tags: bottlenecks, capacity planning, inventory management, lean operations, logistics, nearshoring, reshoring, risk management, supply chain risk, transportation|

Demand for AI Chips Leads to Unbalanced Supply Chain

Demand for chips and memory for high-performance computing in AI applications has led to South Korean manufacturer SK hynix’s role as the main memory chip supplier for companies such as NVIDIA and Meta.

NVIDIA’s demand for HBM (High Bandwidth Memory) chips and Meta’s demand for DDR5 (Double Data Rate 5) memory have caused an order backlog for SK hynix, creating an “unbalanced” supply chain.

Video Spotlight:

Nvidia, Meta talk up capital expenditures towards A.I. in earnings calls (July […]

By Anita Lee-Post, Ph.D.|2023-09-15T04:07:42+00:00September 15, 2023|Tags: artificial intelligence, automation, bottleneck, capacity planning, shortage, supply and demand, technology|

Pickle Wars: Grillo’s Pickles Deals with Stolen Recipe

Grillo’s Pickles traces it recipe origins back over a hundred years to Travis Grillo’s grandfather. The family recipe calls for fresh food using simple, real ingredients.

In 2008, Travis began selling pickles from the trunk of his car—a 1984 Cutlass Supreme—in and around Connecticut and Massachusetts. That same year, he moved to a hand-made cart in Boston.

In 2009, Whole Foods discovered Grillo’s Pickles and added them to a local store. Grillo’s continued to expand, and by 2019, was the number 2 […]

By Ross L. Fink, Ph.D.|2023-08-13T07:03:57+00:00August 13, 2023|Tags: intellectual property, legal issues, outsourcing, risks, sourcing, subcontracting|

US Coal Fields Potential Sources of Rare Earth Minerals

The US Department of Energy is offering $32 million in funding for the production of rare earth and critical minerals, mainly cobalt and lithium, from coal-based sources to reduce dependency on China and other countries.

The funds come from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which aims to build mineral processing sites across the US, enabling more control of supply and pricing. Money from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law may be used for engineering analyses, design studies, development of facilities for domestic production and refining […]

By James Kirby Easterling|2023-08-08T04:36:26+00:00August 9, 2023|Tags: capacity, energy, facility layout, location, process selection, project management, renewable resources|