It’s lazy to think that a manufacturing process is better just because it’s automated. While the effort going on right now at the Tesla factory in Fremont is anything but lazy, it brings into the spotlight one of the core problems with the simplistic “automation for automation’s sake” strategy: processes that aren’t stable to begin with cannot be made stable with robots.

One year ago this week, Amazon.com Inc. loudly declared its intention to become a grocery industry heavyweight by announcing its agreement to buy Whole Foods Market.

Three years into the Iraq war, facing a spike in casualties from roadside bombings, the Pentagon turned to a steel mill in Coatesville, Pennsylvania, to supply emergency armor for combat vehicles.

Supply chain management is focused on the material flow of physical goods from manufacturers to end consumers. Managing financial flows within the supply chain is extremely important as well.

The gold market could be using the technology behind cryptocurrencies to track an almost-$200bn supply chain as soon as next year.

Every company uses software, obviously. There isn’t a technology industry keynote that passes without a besuited evangelist telling us that “every business is a technology business” — and they may even pepper in the old “hey Uber has no cars, Amazon has no bookstores” chestnut if they really want to check all the boxes.

If you could measure the progress of a concept by how much it’s talked about, then blockchain would already be an everyday reality for business.