The Logistics Tribe

Today we will take a look at what Google, in particular Google Cloud, is up to when it comes to Logistics and Supply Chain Management. Google Cloud has been active in this space for a couple of years now and it’s starting to become clear now why it may actually be a great match.

Our guest today is Hans Thalbauer who has a rich history in Supply Chain tech, and is now the Managing Director of Google Cloud’s Supply Chain and Manufacturing capabilities.

Together with our host Marco Prüglmeier, Hans covers the following topics:

• Hans’ path from Austria to Silicon Valley
• What prompted Google to enter the field of Supply Chain?
• Google's Supply Chain Twin
• The different data segments that can be leveraged for Supply Chain Management: Private segment (e.g. ERP data), community Segment (e.g. orders, tracking data), public data segment (e.g. weather, traffic, health data)
• Google's Supply Chain Pulse
• How Artificial Intelligence can be applied to SC data
• Why Google is not creating applications, but is partnering with SCM solution providers instead
• How to make it easier for companies to connect and exchange data: EDI, API, Google’s Data Warehouse (BigQuery), even GMail.
• Google’s flexible Data Model
• Last-Mile Solutions
• Google Cloud Fleet Routing
• An example of how weather and climate data can be combined with agricultural satellite data to predict impacts harvests
• Dynamic ETAs for truck transports leveraging real-time Google Maps data
• Sustainability KPIs and Scope 3 data
• How to measure the impacts of your sustainability efforts.
• On a 10-year time frame: What does the future of supply chain and logistics operations look like?
• Hans’ prediction of the “post outsourcing” world
• and much more

Our guest Penelope Register-Shaw is having an impressive career in logistics. She went from being an attorney in private practice to driving innovations in last-mile logistics at FedEx, Amazon and Walmart.

Our host Dana von der Heide is a successful founder in the logistics tech space. In this episode of The Logistics Tribe, these two role models talk about the importance of female empowerment in logistics and much more, including:

• Penny's path into logistics. From an attorney in private practice to being the chairman of the public transportation authority of Rhode Island, to various roles at FedEx for 20 years, to Amazon's last mile logistics and eventually onto Walmart
• The role an early mentor played for Penny's career in logistics
• Penny's start and her experiences at FedEx
• How Penny got into Amazon and how she helped them reorganize the delivery service partner (provider) network
• Things to consider when picking a last-mile provider
• Penny's view on innovative last-mile delivery startups and what to learn from them
• The importance of viewing your last-mile delivery personnel as your brand ambassadors
• The importance of building out your personal network
• How to make the field of logistics more attractive to females and how to keep females in the industry
• How Penny got into Walmart
• What Penny perceives to be the different philosophies of implementing innovations at FedEx vs. Amazon. vs. Walmart.
• The last-mile delivery innovations at Walmart. Micro-fulfillment, micro-last-mile.
• The criteria for picking a last mile delivery service provider at Walmart
• The importance of accurate data for last-mile delivery decisions
• A few tips and tricks for females entering the field of logistics
• and more

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To connect with Penny, visit: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peneloperegistershaw/

To connect with Dana von der Heide, host of the Logistics Tribe, visit: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danavonderheide/

To connect with Boris Felgendreher, host of the Logistics Tribe, visit: https://www.linkedin.com/in/borisfelgendreher/

To connect with Marco Prüglmeier, host of the Logistics Tribe, visit: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prueglmeier/

Today we are talking about supply chain challenges in the automotive industry. Our guest is Robert Cameron who heads up the production, logistics and aftermarket department at the VDA, the German Automotive Industry Association.

Our host, Marco Prüglmeier, sat down with Robert at the recent Trends in Automotive Logistics (TAL) Conference in Pilsen, Czech Republic and talked about the following topics:

• Biggest challenges that are facing the automotive industry and automotive supply chains
• Why electrification of vehicles will dramatically increase the need for semiconductors
• Why large node size semiconductors are critical for electric vehicles
• The relevance of the Fit for 55 EU-legislation
• The European Chips Act
• The development of Autonomous Driving
• Interoperability of AMRs and AGVs and the VDA 5050 as an open-source standard
• The vision and development of VDA 6000
• The importance of moving from relations management with direct suppliers only to holistically managing the entire supply chain end-to-end
• Geopolitical factors and the transitions to e-mobility. Selective global sourcing and selective local sourcing.
• Demographic and workforce developments and the impact on automotive manufacturing and supply chains
• AI and the impact on the future of automotive manufacturing and supply chains

Helpful Links:

The VDA: https://www.vda.de/en

Robert Cameron on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hugh-robert-cameron-61a37430/

Marco Prüglmeier on LinkedIn: https://de.linkedin.com/in/prueglmeier/en

In today's episode we explore the possibility to increase truck driver satisfaction and boost truck utilization with better planning tools and smarter algorithms.

Our guest today is Mark Farkas, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of AI Fleet, a vertically integrated technology enabled trucking company that was founded in Austin, TX in 2020.

Together with our host Jonah McIntire, Mark discusses the following topics:

• Mark's background and track record as a successful logistics tech founder
• What inspired Mark and his co-founder to build AI Fleet
• What's wrong with the business model of traditional trucking companies and why technology hasn't made more of an impact over the years
• What the levers to pull are to make trucking more profitable
• What Mark means when he says AI Fleet wants to "humanize trucking"
• The importance of truck utilization as a metric and how improving truck utilization benefits drivers
• How "real" the truck driver shortage actually is and whether it can be solved by better truck utilization
• How truck drivers could benefit financially from a better trucking business model and better technology
• The growth and growth plans of AI Fleet
• Comments on the current trucking market conditions in the US
• Why so many investments in technology and software haven't paid off
• Views on the truck brokerage space
• Why it's so hard to profitably scale trucking businesses
• The path to autonomous trucking
• and much more

Helpful Links:

AI Fleet: https://aifleet.com/

Mark on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-farkas-337a33127/

Jonah on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonahmcintire/

Countless attempts have been made in the last decade to leverage cutting edge technology to give companies the transportation and supply chain visibility that they need to anticipate disruptions, proactively manage risks and boost supply chain resilience.

Literally hundreds of millions of funding has been poured into tech stacks that promised to finally deliver the visibility and control that every globally operating company is craving for.

Yet, the end result of all these efforts has been quite sobering, to say the least.

So our host Boris Felgendreher invited a representative from one of the key players in the real-time-transportation visibility space onto the show to discuss what’s going on.

The guest is Anand Medepalli, the Chief Product Officer of Shippeo. Shippeo is based in Paris, France and is considered a global leader in real-time multimodal transportation visibility, helping major shippers and logistics service providers to operate more resilient, sustainable, and customer-centric supply chains.

The company just launched an ambitious new offering that it calls Transportation Process Automation. It’s already used by Renault, a long-time key customer of Shippeo’s and is supported by an interesting group of launch partners such as Google Cloud, E2Open and 4Flow.

Enough reason for us to take a close look under the hood to explore if what Shippeo is building here is indeed the Future of Transportation Visibility.

Enjoy!

Helpful Links:

Shippeo: https://www.shippeo.com/

Anand Medepalli on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amedepalli/

Boris Felgendreher on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/borisfelgendreher/