Advertise on podcast: Art of Supply

On Sunday, September 27, the most-tracked flight in the world wasn't carrying a single traditional passenger. FedEx flight FX9756 left Chengdu, China, with two giant pandas aboard, Ping Ping and Fu Shuang, bound for a 10-year stay at Zoo Atlanta. The pair was billed as an envoy of friendship between China and the U.S., but behind the photo op was a door-to-door logistics operation that started months before takeoff: a federal permit, a month of crate training, a dedicated Boeing 777 freighter, a police escort, and a team of people on both sides of the Pacific. In this episode of Art of Supply, Kelly Barner cover: - The federal paper trail required before two bears listed as endangered under U.S. law could legally make the trip  - How you move live cargo by truck, plane and truck again without stressing it out - The people who traveled with the pandas, and the ones who got to Atlanta first   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 you call it a pilot, we realized that it basically puts a label on it so that it's not on the critical path. It's not actually real work." - Çetin Meriçli, Ph.D., CEO and co-founder, Atlas Robotics Warehouses are not easy places to work - for people or for robots. Pallet labels end up on the wrong corner. Someone leaves an empty pallet in the middle of the floor. The plan changes 30 seconds after it's made. In a warehouse, exception is the rule, and that's why most warehouses are still unautomated despite decades of progress in robotics. In this episode, I speak with Çetin Meriçli, Ph.D., CEO and co-founder of Atlas Robotics, about what physical AI changes, and why the way companies test warehouse robots may be setting them up to fail before they start. LIsten in to hear Çetin and Kelly Barner discuss, - Why physical AI is more than a new name for traditional automation - The ordinary warehouse moments that people handle without thinking, and that robots find hardest - Why Atlas runs "probation" deployments instead of pilots, and how success is defined before day one Links: Çetin Meriçli on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cetinmericli/  Atlas Robotics: https://www.atlas-robotics.com/  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

"Decisions regarding specific authorizations will not be made publicly available." — U.S. Commerce Department, Connected Vehicle Rule Two cars come off the same assembly line in South Carolina. They have the same software stack, according to the company that builds one of them. Starting with model year 2027, the Volvo EX90 can keep being sold in the United States. The Polestar 3 can't. Both companies are owned by China's Geely. Commerce won't say why one passed and one failed, and under its own rule, it doesn't have to. In this episode of the Art of Supply podcast, Kelly Barner covers: - Why the auto supply chain's dependence on China is so hard to unwind, from the hardware all the way down to the source code - How two companies under the same Chinese parent got opposite answers from Washington - Why Ford's China-built Lincoln Nautilus suddenly didn't need permission, and what Congress wants to do next 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

"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

"AI will never replace that human judgment. And the number one reason for that is responsibility." — Elisar Nurmagambet, Co-Founder and CEO, Tesari AI When Meta acquired the Chinese AI agent startup Manus for roughly $2 Billion, the due diligence looked clean.   Four months later, China's government blocked the deal and ordered it unwound.  Elisar Nurmagambet, Co-Founder and CEO of Tesari AI, and Brian Andersen, their Vice President of National Security Applications, join Kelly Barner to explain why the compliance model most companies still run on wasn't built for this moment, and why some of the sharpest early-warning signals in global trade never show up in a standard database at all.  In this episode Elissar and Brian discuss: - Why "checkbox compliance" has become a board-level, CEO-level liability - What a government-licensed social media influencer in China revealed about the Meta-Manus deal, months before it collapsed - Why "substance over form" now determines whose jurisdiction your supply chain falls under, regardless of where an entity is legally registered - The investigative mindset that supply chain professionals have to develop to succeed in today's challenging conditions   Links: Elisar Nurmagambet on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elissarn/  Brian Andersen on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tbrianandersen/  Tesari AI: https://www.tesari.ai  National Security Starts in the Supply Chain (AOS, Ep 211): https://artofprocurement.com/blog/supply-national-security-starts-in-the-supply-chain  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

"Just-in-time inventory is great when it's working, but when it stops working, it's a huge disaster because you don't have material staged and you don't have strategic reserves." — Michael Murray, Senior Director of Global Supply Chain, DSV Inventory Management Solutions For most of the 2000s, the mandate in manufacturing was lean: hold less, order just-in-time, and keep working capital off the balance sheet. Then came a string of shocks: COVID, the Suez Canal blockage, and a global chip shortage.  All of a sudden, just-in-time started looking more like just-in-trouble. Companies swung hard toward just-in-case, stockpiling inventory as insurance against the next disruption. Michael Murray, Senior Director of Global Supply Chain at DSV Inventory Management Solutions, isn't ready to declare just-in-time dead.  In this episode of Art of Supply, Michael joins Kelly Barner to talk about the cost challenges that can result when inventory is managed reactively:  - Why the pendulum keeps swinging between just-in-time and just-in-case - Why trade policy is becoming a bigger driver of inventory strategy than COVID ever was - How a consolidated VMI model changes the math for OEMs, and why suppliers may be harder to convince than CFOs   Links: Michael Murray on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mp-murray/  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