Think Tank

Three lawmakers made a lot of noise last month with the introduction of a bill that promises to spur investment in the national network for the movement of goods. Christened with the clunky acronym of the FREIGHT Act of 2010, which stands for Focusing Resources, Economic Investment, and Guidance to Help Transportation, the measure is being touted by a...

What if we end up creating a slump in consumer spending this holiday season simply by assuming there will be one? That’s the scenario envisioned by Paul Martyn, vice president of BravoSolution, a provider of software and services for supply management. If Martyn is right, a good number of consumer products companies are spinning a self-fulfilling...

Early in the morning of August 2, the MV Suez, a Panamanian-flag vessel with a crew of 24, was boarded by pirates off the coast of Somalia. Using only a motorized skiff and small arms, the attackers took over the ship in five minutes. One week later, a helicopter from the Navy frigate USS Kauffman was just able to prevent a similar attack on the MV Ice...

For better or worse, the screening for explosives of all air cargo moving on passenger aircraft is now a reality. Carriers complained loudly when the Transportation Security Administration rule was announced, saying it was hugely burdensome and impractical to implement. On August 1, it went into effect anyway. Now the debate has shifted to a law mandating...

Amazing, how fast a year goes by. In the summer of 2009, the Transportation Security Administration was warning air-cargo shippers, carriers and freight forwarders that they needed to prepare for the 100-percent screening for explosives of cargo moving on passenger aircraft. But the deadline of August 1, 2010 seemed so distant, and the industry had more...

Last week’s strike at the Omron auto parts plant in Guangzhou was the latest in a series of labor disputes to rock China’s industrial sector over the past two months. It’s an amazing change we’re seeing, as the western world’s favorite source of cheap manufacturing labor begins to transform itself into something quite different: a country with a rising...

Consumer electronics supply chains can be long and brutally complex. The precise origin of each component or raw material within a given product isn’t always known to the manufacturer, let alone the consumer. So we might be shocked to learn that a large percentage of smartphones, computers, game systems and other high-tech gadgetry contains materials...

Decorated war hero and stalwart American military supporter Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has stepped up to take another whack at the Jones Act, the law that bans foreign-owned vessels from serving in the U.S. domestic waterborne trades. McCain’s bill, S. 3525, also seeks to repeal the requirement that ships plying those waters be built in the U.S.McCain makes a...

China’s near-monopoly on the rare earth minerals that are essential to so many high-tech products is about to be broken, if Molycorp Minerals LLC has its way. The Denver.-based concern is preparing to reopen a huge rare-earth mine at Mountain Pass, Calif., in the Upper Mojave Desert.All it needs is $515m, according to chief executive officer Mark A....

We’re all familiar with the supply-chain risks posed by this country’s heavy dependence on imported oil. We’ve seen what happens when big producers like Saudi Arabia temporarily turn off the spigot that feeds our insatiable appetite for petroleum-based products. But there’s another looming crisis of supply for manufacturers, one that is just beginning to...