DC Velocity - October 2010

workin’ on the railroad …
for a long, long time

Does working in freight transportation contribute to longevity? There’s no scientific evidence to support that, but we wonder if working on the railroad had something to do with making Walter Breuning the world’s oldest man. The 113-year-old Great Falls, Mont., resident is a retired career rail worker, according to the Transportation Communications Union (TCU).

Breuning, who was a clerk for the BNSF, became a TCU member in 1919. In a video posted on TCU’s website, he said his early years on the railroad were tough because of a drought that killed livestock and caused a shortage of feed. Breuning recalled that hundreds of workers were laid off as a result of declining cargo volumes.

Today, Breuning lives in a retirement home, where he keeps his mind sharp through constant learning. “If you don’t learn something new, you’ve lost a day,” he said in a television interview.

The title of world’s oldest living man was bestowed last month by the Guinness Book of World Records. Breuning intends to keep that crown for a while. “The way I feel, I’ll be here a long time yet,” he said. ;

If you want to get students excited about supply chain management, take them out of the classroom and into the field. Not only will it rev up their interest in the subject, but they’ll develop a deeper understanding of the processes involved.

That’s exactly what happened to students at University of Texas-Austin’s McCombs School of Business, said Prof. Michael G. Hasler in a presentation at the recent SCOPE West supply chain conference in Las Vegas. With help from supply chain executives at Target Stores, students in Hasler’s Introduction to Operations Management class traced the progress of three items—a calculator, a patio furniture set, and a doll—from Target’s store shelves back through the supply chain to their origins in Asia.

After observing and analyzing retail, transportation, and distribution operations in the United States, the class spent nearly a month at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. While there, they got an in-depth introduction to design, manufacturing, vendor-managed inventory, logistics, and order fulfillment.

The students’ reaction to their experience was remarkable,
according to Hasler. “They are on fire about supply chain manage-
ment,” he reported. “They know that a decision about stocking
shelves in Austin will have implications back to the quantity of
plastic pellets a manufacturer buys back in Guangzhou.”
Based on the program’s success, the school has decided to make
it a permanent offering. It may also offer the course for practition-
ers through its executive education arm. ;

students see supply chain up close
and personal

stretched to the limit

If you have children, you’ve probably already encountered (perhaps on the floor, in the car, or scattered across your kitchen table) silly bands, the brightly colored plastic bracelets that come in a variety of fanciful shapes. They’re the latest craze among school-aged children, who collect, wear, and trade them by the dozen.

Exploding demand for the bracelets has been a bonanza for suppliers, of course. But it has also created some headaches for the back end of the operations—like orders that are rolling in faster than suppliers can fill them.

That was the situation Stretchy Shapes was in. In less than six months, the Birmingham, Ala.-based startup’s shipments went from zero to 3.6 million ani-mal-shaped bracelets a week. With demand from customers like Nordstrom soaring, Stretchy Shapes realized it had to step up the pace of deliveries. Under the distribution process it was using at the time (which involved a traditional forwarding agent with multiple hand-offs), the journey from factories in Xiamen, China, to the company’s Birmingham DC was averaging 8 to 12 days. And that was no longer cutting it.

To expedite orders, Stretchy Shapes turned to DHL Express for help. Now, DHL picks up the shipments at the factories, brings them to its hub in Hong Kong, clears U.S. Customs at its Cincinnati hub, and delivers the cartons to Stretchy Shapes in Birmingham—all in just two to three days.

Toy fads quickly come and go, but DHL undoubtedly is hoping this one has staying power. It’s a nice piece of business: DHL is Stretchy Shapes’ exclusive international carrier, and it’s now helping the startup expand into international markets. ;