Lab 039: Add to Cart
About This Lab
This week we talked to Christopher Mims, columnist at the Wall Street Journal, about shipping & delivery. Black Friday is right around the corner and Cyber Monday is right no its heels. The big box stores are pushing you to buy, buy, buy, but what exactly does that mean? What happens between clicking add to cart and packages showing up at your door? Christopher breaks it down for us!
Additional Reading
Globalization
If you hadn’t heard of Malcolm McLean before this episode, read “The Box That Changed Asia and the World” from Forbes. Once you understand modern day globalization, you get a better sense of just how connected we all are through everything we produce, consume, order, etc. Bonus Read: “Is It Time to Rethink Globalized Supply Chains?”
Supply Chain
Do you remember the Ever Given ship’s blockage of the Suez Canal back in Spring 2021? It’s a great illustration of the multiple interactions at play in our supply chain! Even without canal blockages, there are increasingly longer waits at ports, and the Biden administration pledged to keep the West coast ports open 24/7. While Walmart and big retailers have thanked the US government and even sought alternative options to relieve bottlenecks, we’re not completely in the clear. There are fewer containers waiting on docks, but we’re not back to pre-pandemic efficiency just yet.
COVID-19 also revealed many weaknesses in the supply chain, and while this lab focused no shipping and trucking, there’s much to be said about production as well!
Trucker Shortage
It turns out that the issue not so much of a shortage of trucker as a shortage of wages and desirable working conditions. We learned that there are over 10 million people with Commercial Driver’s Licenses but only around 1/3 of them are driving trucks. Learn more about the need for change in the trucking industry, and what’s been happening in the trucking industry lately.
Guest Expert
Christopher Mims is the technology columnist at the Wall Street Journal. Check out his new book, Arriving Today: From Factory to Front Door — Why Everything Has Changed About How and What We Buy.
Transcript
You can read the transcript here.