All Columns Entries

Thursday, December 01, 2011

Driven by the boom in shale oil production from the Bakken formation that straddles the Montana/North Dakota border, U.S. oil production has climbed steadily since 2008 after declining for 22 of the previous 23 years. This fact alone might lead logistics professionals to the conclusion that price relief is just around the corner. Well, it isn’t.

Tuesday, November 01, 2011

it’s a safe bet that few of you can name a famous demographer alive today. I certainly can’t, and I studied the subject as a graduate and post-graduate student. Yet demography—the statistical study of the size, structure, and distribution of population over time—provides an essential foundation for those wishing to understand oil economics and the development of oil and fuel markets.

i’m pleased to announce that the National Industrial Transportation League (NITL) and Logistics Management (LM) magazine are presenting U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood with the 2011 McCullough/NITL Executive of the Year Award.

Since I acquired a second home in Vermont this year, my car has new tires and adjustments have been made to my brakes. Once again, I have become an active traveler on America’s busy interstate system; and what I have observed on these highways reminds me not only about the challenges that logistics professionals have in qualifying and selecting safe carriers, but the direct and indirect breadth of your safety responsibilities and oversight.

The use of dedicated and private truck fleets seams to wax and wane with the economy. I’m referring, of course, to those who are trying to optimize transportation cost through use of dedicated equipment and not those who justify a private fleet primarily as a marketing tool.

In the future, companies’ physical end-to-end supply chains will work in concert with equally comprehensive and far reaching “digital supply networks”—from systems that support initial design and development work, all the way to those that help manage delivery and post-sale service.

Saturday, October 01, 2011

Many believe that high or rapidly rising oil prices cause recessions; but in turn, during a recession, industrial production and demand for transportation decline. Consequently, the price for oil and fuel falls, and as it declines, the economy is stimulated.