Global Trade This Week

Restructuring & Reimagining: Leading a Post-Pandemic Workplace with Wayne Cascio - Uptime Logistics

Today on Uptime Logistics, Doug looks at the human resources side of uptime - especially now in a post-pandemic workplace. There’s an interesting dichotomy right now of companies fighting to survive and others that can’t seem to grow fast enough. In either case there are some lessons to be learned, and Dr. Wayne Cascio is the perfect person to communicate the latest insights.

They explore the recent research of 4,000 companies that highlights 6 factors that senior leadership need assess with downsizing or growing workforce. They also discuss recruitment/retention/training, how things have changed during this pandemic crisis, and what the future may bring.

Dr. Wayne Cascio is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the Business School of the University of Colorado-Denver. He’s also an author and award winning researcher. Most recently, a 2020 recipient of the Ulrich Impact Award from HR Division of Academy Management for a career in research that ties theory to practical applications.

https://www.caplogistics.com/cap-logistics/2020/12/4/restructuring-reimagining-leading-a-post-pandemic-workplace-with-wayne-cascio-uptime-logistics

Wheeler Machinery on Keeping Heavy Equipment in Production - Uptime Logistics

Wheeler Machinery supports its customers with heavy equipment and parts. They are primarily an official Caterpillar dealer, though they also carry other complementary product lines to support production.

Chris Williams and Justin Semadeni with Wheeler Machinery discuss how they provide their customers uptime while helping balance their equipment inventory. What do you do when a part isn’t available? That’s where high levels of relationships and problem solving really come into play to keep or get the customers up and running.

Heavy machinery serves many different important roles in various industries including power generation, mining, and construction. The common thread is production. If those machines aren’t running, those projects aren’t producing and those people aren’t earning money. That’s why it’s important to put that piece of equipment back to work. Looking ahead, Chris also discusses the future of heavy equipment parts, advanced analytics, and even how technologies like 3D printing can take the supply chain to a next level in the next 5 to 10 years.

https://www.caplogistics.com/cap-logistics/2020/11/10/wheeler-machinery-uptime-logistics

FreeWave Precision Ag: Connecting Farm Operations

FreeWave Technologies’ Precision Ag solutions help connect farm operations in an intelligent way. John Stratton, Software Product Line Manager, joins Doug Draper to discuss these emerging technologies. FreeWave’s remote and rugged condition monitoring and communication tools use long range radio equipment, edge computing devices, and comprehensive data analytics to improve decision making cycles and operational success.

What is Precision Ag? John describes how data monitoring sensors implemented throughout farm operations can reduce expensive inputs while improving decision making and increasing yields and ROI. With much of the Industrial Internet of Things there is a cloud component, though with the remote locations of many areas of a farm’s operation and the lack of a reliable internet access there, it also makes sense to use edge computing where appropriate - analyzing data at the edge of the network.

Farm operations are diverse, and so are the applications of this technology. In terms of productivity and profits, precision ag solutions help with retrieving data that people never previously had access to, or making data much easier to gather - and update the data much more frequently. As a result, this helps with improving and shortening decision cycles.

Some examples might be in herd management, where each cow might have a collar with RFID or GPS to track their location, temperature, etc to improve feeding consistency and reducing stress on the animals. During growing season, monitoring soil moisture can help improve the effectiveness of center pivot irrigation and remote well pads. One study by Machine Design found that using automated equipment might be able to reduce agrochemical inputs by 90%. For harvested plant product storage, monitoring and maintaining targets temperatures and humidity levels is a crucial application, whether it’s for keeping hay from spontaneously combusting or keeping grains and potatoes in perfect condition for market.

“The great thing about remote monitoring is that you can tell yourself what you need, without having to tell everyone else.” Individuals can get custom information specifically relevant to what they are responsible for handling, increasing insights without drowning in irrelevant noise.

Farming is always evolving with technology, and the future holds more opportunity in connecting real world data with edge or cloud based services for analysis. Hybrid connectivity is possible for certain types of data and ranges in order to build more resiliency. Having this data available at your fingertips makes a difference by helping farmers make better decisions, and faster. Instead of weeks, decisions can be made within the same day an issue arises, supporting operational uptime and productivity, shortening the decision cycle or even making it automatic.

 

See the video podcast at https://www.caplogistics.com/cap-logistics/2020/10/15/precision-ag-connecting-intelligent-farm-operations

What's the Deal with Water? Water Management, Rights, and Conservation

Jim Whitt with Purpose Unlimited comes onto the Uptime Logistics Podcast to discuss water rights and water conservation. Coming from an agricultural background working with cattle and oil businesses, he consults with clients both on purpose driven leadership and water rights, water conservation, and water management.

Water management is about stewarding our most important natural resources. “Without water, we do not survive.” It plays into the economy and our daily lives through many pathways. One example they explore is the 174,000 square-mile Ogallala aquifer that rests below seven states: South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas. That aquifer irrigates a large percentage of our crops for food production here in the US and around the world. This region produces $20 billion worth of food annually. Despite the current challenges of droughts, Jim discusses several water conservation strategies that have been showing exciting potential for the future.

They also discuss the 50 year water vision put forward in the state of Kansas. They created water conservation areas where people with water rights were given the choice to accept more freedom in moving water around as long as they agreed to pump less water overall. They also created water technology farms as a a demonstration to test and showcase new opportunities to increase or maintain yields while reducing water consumption. People are realizing that farms are worth much if they don’t have access to water, so there’s increasing willingness to join in creative and cooperative policies, behaviors, and technologies.

As for technology, Jim describes one tested solution called Dragon Lines from Teeter Irrigation as a major improvement to pivot irrigation. With traditional pivots, a lot of water is lost to evaporation. Adding in advanced drip line techniques can improve pivot performance dramatically, saving at 20-50% of water use among other benefits. “It’s one of the biggest things technology wise I’ve seen in my lifetime.”

After watching or listening to the show, check out more about the Kansas Water Vision and Jim’s documentary film here: https://kwo.ks.gov/water-vision-water-plan/water-vision

Watch the episode here: https://www.caplogistics.com/cap-logistics/2020/10/1/water-management-water-rights-and-conservation

CDOT Oversize and Overweight Permitting – Lessons Beyond the Pilot Car

What is involved with oversize and overweight shipments? Craig Hurst is the Manager of the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) Freight Office. He and Doug Draper dive in to the impacts and considerations that go into permitting oversize and overweight transportation. They also discuss the analytics, including why oversize loads are not only useful for those directly involved in the shipment, but also the wider economy for the whole state of Colorado. This supports a case for repairs and investments in proper structure designs that can support the large and heavy freight loads.

As a commodity overview, the top 5 single trip oversize/overweight permits last year were: 1.) Construction equipment, 2.) Oil field equipment, 3.) Construction Materials, 4.) Wind Energy, and 5.) Farm Equipment.

They also explore the geographical regions that see the most oversize and overweight traffic - watch or listen to find out this and much more insightful information from Craig Hurst and Doug Draper on the Uptime Logistics Podcast!

Watch the podcast here.

John Deere on Ag Tech Innovations – Uptime Logistics

From satellites to sensors and AI powered analytics and visualizations, new technologies are positively impacting Agriculture.  

Brian Orwig with John Deere shares all sorts of Ag Tech trends, insights, and innovations. As Manager of John Deere's Connected Support™, Brian is on the front line of taking productivity-enhancing technologies from R&D and bringing them to the actual customers with support for implementation and maximizing uptime. These new technologies can benefit the users economically and also help provide more sustainable agricultural products for the world at large.

From field prep, planting, resource applications, to harvesting, John Deere's Precision Ag is helping farmers to farm even better. Watch or listen to today's episode of Uptime Logistics to learn more!

LINKS:
https://www.caplogistics.com/cap-logistics/2020/9/22/john-deere-on-ag-tech-innovations-uptime-logistics
https://www.deere.com/en/parts-and-service/connected-support/
https://www.deere.com/en/technology-products/precision-ag-technology/

Notice: This podcast contains copyrighted footage and photography from John Deere used with permission. All rights reserved.

Managing Aircraft on Ground (AOG) – Uptime Logistics

Today on Uptime Logistics, Doug Draper of the Denver Transportation Club interviews “Chip”, an anonymous AOG Manager with a major US airline. After learning a bit about Chip’s background, they discuss all things Aircraft on Ground (AOG) – from what the term means, to overcoming challenges in the supply chain, and why it’s so important to get it right.

Downtime is expensive for businesses generally and in the case of passenger airplanes, each individual flight is important to the people needing to travel. Parts naturally break down and replacements are needed. Other times Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) services are required. Either way, it’s critical to keep a cool head during an AOG crisis, and it definitely helps to have great suppliers and transportation partners on board to help keep flight operations running smoothly – or return to uptime as soon as possible.

Listen today to learn and gain a new level of appreciation for those behind the scenes that keep the aircraft we know and love up and running! https://www.caplogistics.com/cap-logistics/2020/9/10/managing-aircraft-on-ground-aog-uptime-logistics

316 Aviation on Supporting Aircraft Uptime – Uptime Logistics

Today on Uptime Logistics, Doug Draper interviews Steven & Denice Marin, the founding team behind 316 Aviation based in in Pembroke Pines, Florida. 316 Aviation is a full-service aviation support company. They provide technical support in locating part numbers, freight quotes, order consolidation and service after the sale, helping from start to finish.

Since an aircraft on ground (AOG) situation represents significant cost, there are challenges in finding, sourcing, and delivering these critical parts in a timely fashion. They describe AOG and the importance of having ongoing relationships with quality vendors in order to become a reliable source for clients. One thing that makes them so uniquely helpful is through leveraging volume and relationships in order to stock, source, and ultimately deliver aircraft parts and repair services at the best prices and in the quickest time periods.

They also discuss the business strategies they applied in planning for the supply chain disruptions of COVID-19 to keep the business going, support employees, and help customers as much as possible. If you help your customers get through the hard times, they’ll be around when things return to prosperity, and they’ll remember how you were able to support them.

Watch the episode or learn more here: https://www.caplogistics.com/cap-logistics/2020/9/4/316-aviation-uptime-logistics

Iliff Aircraft, #1 in the #2 Business – Uptime Logistics

Today on the Uptime Logistics podcast, Doug Draper interviews Brent Wells - president of Iliff Aircraft Repair & Services. They talk about uptime and logistics in the aircraft industry with a special emphasis on Iliff’s expertise in airplane lavatory repair and services. They are #1 in the #2 business!

Watch or listen to learn more about what Iliff Aircraft does for its clients, why they love aircraft lavatories so much, and the importance of aircraft uptime.

https://www.caplogistics.com/cap-logistics/2020/9/2/iliff-aircraft-1-in-the-2-business-uptime-logistics

USMCA Takes Effect. What Does It Mean? – Uptime Logistics

Today - July 1st, 2020 - marks the beginning of the USMCA taking effect. Sometimes referred to as NAFTA 2.0, this free trade agreement updates, modernizes, and extends trade rules between the United States, Mexico, and Canada. Many are celebrating the news – as designing and negotiating international trade agreements can be challenging, though expanding quality trade relationships can provide a lot of extra value and benefits.

To dive into this topic, Doug Draper is joined by Stéphane Lessard, Consul General of Canada in Denver. Stéphane has been in this position for the last four years helping, representing, facilitating, and developing relationships between Canada, Colorado, and other US States in the region including Montana, Utah, Kansas, and Wyoming.

Doug and Stéphane start off the USMCA discussion with adopting a longer time frame perspective – looking at the origins and benefits of NAFTA and even earlier trading. As Stéphane notes, “Our people, our countries have always traded. We’ve traded for centuries.” Then with NAFTA in particular, the three countries changed the way they trade and began actually making things together by integrating the other countries more deeply into their supply chains. In this collaborative way, North America as a whole has become more competitive with other trading regions around the world. As one example statistic of this prosperity, in 2019 US-Canada trade was roughly $2 billion each day!

Doug then asks the broader questions about what will change for businesses and citizens as the new USMCA agreement takes effect. As it is a continuation of free trade, it appears that not too much will change between NAFTA and the USMCA – or CUSMA as it’s known in Canada. In the early process of negotiating and renegotiating, there was a lot of uncertainty which introduced risk and costs for everyone involved. So broadly speaking, the main benefit of this new agreement resides in reintroducing certainty, predictability, and stability – allowing businesses and investors to do what they do best, while more fully connecting the the countries citizens and companies.

Watch or listen to the full show to learn more about the big picture of the USMCA, as well as some of the specific new changes impacting labeling requirements for auto manufacturing, increased market access for grain & dairy producers, and new rules encompassing digital trade. Additionally, there are some new features on dispute settlements as well as higher labor & environmental standards

More information about the Consulate General of Canada in Denver, United States can be found at their website here:
https://www.international.gc.ca/country-pays/us-eu/denver.aspx?lang=eng