Global Supply Chains: How Did All This Stuff Get Here?

Summary

本次春季系列直播活动由麻省理工学院（MIT）供应链管理MicroMasters项目的课程负责人Paulo Sousa Jr.和Miguel Rodriguez Garcia共同主持。特邀嘉宾Luiz Gosling，AlixPartners的高级副总裁，分享了他在资本密集型行业的供应链经验。Luiz以玩具行业为例，详细解析了从中国深圳到美国最终目的地的全球供应链流程，包括包装、海运、港口操作、铁路和公路运输、仓储管理以及最后一公里配送。他还讨论了影响供应链的宏观因素、技术进步以及管理复杂性所需的软硬技能，为听众提供了深入见解，并鼓励他们思考供应链管理中的成本效率与速度灵活性之间的权衡。

Takeaways

• 🌟 这是MITx供应链管理MicroMasters项目的首次春季直播系列。
• 👋 活动由SC3X课程负责人Paulo Sousa Jr.和SC1X课程负责人Miguel Rodriguez Garcia共同主持。
• 🤗 他们邀请了AlixPartners的高级副总裁Luiz Gosling作为嘉宾演讲，分享全球供应链的见解。
• 🌐 Luiz Gosling拥有超过10年的资本密集型行业项目推动经验，包括运输、物流、基础设施、制造和仓储。
• 🎓 Luiz拥有工业工程学士学位和物流科学硕士学位，以及来自MIT的供应链管理硕士学位。
• 🚢 演讲主题为“这些东西是怎么到这里的”，通过追踪一个产品从中国深圳到美国最终目的地的旅程来探讨全球供应链。
• 🧩 以玩具行业为例，介绍了供应链的复杂性，包括产品的多样性、市场需求的预测和供应链管理的不同策略。
• 📦 讨论了包装和装载的重要性，以及如何通过软件辅助优化集装箱空间和重量的利用。
• 🛳 强调了海运、港口运营、铁路和公路运输、仓储以及最后一公里配送在供应链中的作用。
• 📈 通过实际案例展示了如何通过不同的运输方式和策略来管理供应链，并强调了成本效率和速度敏捷性之间的权衡。
• 🔧 提出了未来供应链管理的挑战，包括技术进步、宏观经济因素、新兴企业的颠覆以及如何制定备选计划B。

Q & A

MITx MicroMasters供应链管理项目包含哪些课程？

MITx MicroMasters供应链管理项目包含至少两门课程，分别是SC1X（供应链基础）和SC3X（供应链动态），由Paulo Sousa Jr.和Miguel Rodriguez Garcia分别担任课程负责人。

如何参与MITx MicroMasters的现场活动？

参与者可以通过Zoom的Q&A功能提问，主持人会在整个演讲过程中整理这些问题。

Luiz Gosling在AlixPartners的职位是什么？

Luiz Gosling在AlixPartners担任高级副总裁。

Luiz Gosling的教育背景有哪些？

Luiz Gosling拥有工业工程学士学位和物流科学硕士学位，均来自里约热内卢的PUC。此外，他还拥有麻省理工学院的供应链管理硕士学位，并且也参加了MicroMasters课程。

如何优化装载效率以减少运输成本？

装载效率的优化可以通过软件辅助的装载方法来实现，这涉及到如何将产品装入盒子、箱子或集装箱，并考虑最大化空间和重量利用率。

海洋运输中有哪些关键因素影响成本？

海洋运输中影响成本的关键因素包括运输率、港口选择、航线的供需关系以及运输的时效性。

为什么说供应链管理既是一门科学也是一门艺术？

供应链管理既需要精确的数据分析和数学计算，也需要管理人员的直觉和经验，以及在面对复杂多变情况时的决策能力。

如何通过技术提高仓库和配送中心的效率？

可以通过自动化解决方案、优化的库存管理系统和先进的物流技术来提高仓库和配送中心的效率。

为什么说供应链是一个动态和不断变化的领域？

供应链是一个动态和不断变化的领域，因为它受到宏观经济因素、新技术、市场变化和新兴企业的不断影响。

供应链管理中的成本效率和速度敏捷性之间如何权衡？

在供应链管理中，需要根据产品特性、市场需求和战略目标来权衡成本效率和速度敏捷性，以找到最佳的运营模式。

供应链管理职业需要哪些关键的硬技能和软技能？

供应链管理职业需要的关键硬技能包括数学概念、库存优化、运输管理、成本会计和预测技能。软技能则包括人员管理、简化问题、常识判断和跨学科知识。

Outlines

00:00

🌟 开场介绍与活动日程

开场白中，Paulo Sousa Jr. 和 Miguel Rodriguez Garcia 作为 MITx MicroMasters 供应链管理课程的负责人，对参与首次春季直播系列的观众表示欢迎。Paulo 介绍了他们将要共同主持的活动流程，包括演讲者的演讲和观众提问环节。Miguel 提醒观众两个课程的验证仍在开放中，并鼓励支持该计划。接着，Paulo 介绍了嘉宾演讲者 Luiz Gosling，他在 AlixPartners 担任高级副总裁，拥有丰富的供应链管理经验。Luiz 开始了他的演讲，主题为全球供应链，并以一个产品为例，展示了其从中国深圳到美国最终目的地的全过程。

05:01

🚢 全球供应链案例分析

Luiz Gosling 通过 Megatron 玩具的例子，深入分析了玩具行业的全球供应链。他首先概述了玩具行业的基本情况，指出这个行业高度分散，由情感驱动消费决策。尽管面临成本压力和供应链复杂性，但行业基本面依然强劲。Luiz 展示了不同类型的玩具，从简单的塑料小雕像到复杂的 Xbox 游戏机，以及收藏家级别的变形金刚 Megatron 雕像，并强调了供应链管理中的定制化和策略多样性。

10:01

📦 装载与包装的重要性

Luiz 讨论了装载和包装在供应链中的重要性，强调了如何将产品装入盒子并进行堆叠以最大化运输效率。他提到了软件辅助的装载方法，并用实际数据展示了集装箱装载效率的实例，解释了空间和重量利用率的重要性。此外，他还提到了装载不当可能导致的风险，如货物损坏和供应链效率降低。

15:03

🛳 海运及其在供应链中的角色

海运部分的讨论涵盖了从集装箱装载到港口选择的多个方面。Luiz 强调了海运的可视性、运输成本以及如何通过选择合适的港口来优化供应链。他解释了港口和码头的区别，并详细描述了集装箱码头的运作方式，包括码头的不同区域和自动化技术如何提高效率。

20:05

🚆 铁路运输及其在供应链中的作用

Luiz 讨论了铁路运输的复杂性，包括主要运营商、调度、可见性和交货时间。他指出，尽管铁路运输是一个传统的行业，但它正在快速变化，并且对供应链管理至关重要。通过一张地图，Luiz 展示了从洛杉矶到芝加哥的铁路旅程，并强调了芝加哥作为铁路枢纽的重要性。

25:06

🚚 公路运输、仓储和最后一公里配送

Luiz 描述了公路运输的重要性，包括自运与外包的决策、路线规划、交货时间以及货物整合。他提到了仓库在存储和配送中的作用，强调了自动化、技术以及库存管理的重要性。Luiz 还讨论了包裹运输的挑战，包括不同的运输提供商和最后一公里配送的复杂性。

30:07

🌐 全球供应链的宏观视角

在这部分，Luiz 从宏观角度讨论了全球供应链，包括新技术、宏观经济因素和新进入者如何影响供应链操作。他强调了供应链是一个不断变化的领域，并提出了关于成本效率与速度敏捷性之间的权衡的问题，以及在面对不断变化的市场条件时如何制定备选计划。

35:08

🤔 应对供应链挑战的策略

Luiz 讨论了 COVID 之后港口拥堵问题，并提出了应对策略，如多元化进口渠道，利用东海岸港口或通过墨西哥和西海岸其他码头运输。他还提到了全球供应链的近岸化趋势，以及公司如何准备应对政治、宏观经济和供应链决策带来的中断。

40:10

🔧 技术在供应链中的应用

Luiz 探讨了技术在供应链中的应用，包括自动化、数字智能解决方案如区块链以及特定功能的软件解决方案。他强调了自动化在集装箱码头中的重要性，并讨论了技术如何帮助提高效率和应对挑战，同时指出了技术实施的复杂性。

45:13

💰 成本驱动因素与供应链管理技能

在这部分中，Luiz 讨论了供应链中的主要成本驱动因素，指出劳动力密集的部分通常是成本最高的。他还提到了无人机技术在最后一公里配送中的潜力，尽管目前还不是广泛适用的解决方案。最后，Luiz 和主持人讨论了追求供应链管理职业生涯所需的关键技能，包括硬技能如数学和工程概念，以及软技能如人员管理和常识。

Keywords

💡供应链管理

供应链管理是指对商品从原材料采购到成品销售的整个流程进行计划、组织、协调、控制和优化的管理过程。在视频中，供应链管理是核心主题，特别是在讨论如何将产品从中国运输到美国的过程中，涉及了供应链的多个环节，如物流、库存管理、成本控制等。

💡MITx MicroMasters

MITx MicroMasters是由麻省理工学院提供的在线专业教育项目，涵盖了供应链管理等多个领域。在视频中，Paulo Sousa Jr和Miguel Rodriguez Garcia分别作为SC3X和SC1X课程的负责人，介绍了这个项目，并讨论了供应链管理的相关知识。

💡全球供应链

全球供应链涉及跨越不同国家和地区的物料获取、生产制造、产品运输和销售的复杂网络。视频通过追踪一个玩具从中国深圳到美国最终目的地的旅程，展示了全球供应链的运作方式。

💡运输

运输是供应链中将货物从一个地点移动到另一个地点的过程，包括海运、陆运、空运等多种方式。视频中讨论了运输过程中的成本、时间、效率以及面临的挑战，如港口拥堵、运价波动等。

💡库存管理

库存管理是指对企业持有的货物进行有效控制和管理的过程，以确保库存水平与生产和销售需求相匹配。视频中提到了库存管理在供应链中的重要性，尤其是在仓库存储和最后一公里配送中的应用。

💡成本效率

成本效率是指在供应链管理中寻求成本最小化和效率最大化的平衡。视频提出了一个关键问题，即在供应链设计中，是应该追求成本效率，还是应该追求速度和灵活性。

💡计划B

计划B是指在供应链管理中为应对不确定性和风险而制定的备选方案。视频中提到了在面对海运成本上涨等风险时，企业需要考虑的备选策略，如寻找替代运输路线或生产地点。

💡技术与创新

技术与创新在供应链管理中扮演着越来越重要的角色，包括自动化、区块链、传感器和物流技术等。视频讨论了这些技术如何帮助提高供应链的效率、透明度和可持续性。

💡风险管理

风险管理是指识别、评估和控制供应链中潜在风险的过程，以减少不确定性和潜在损失。视频中提到了供应链中的复杂性和波动性，强调了风险管理在设计稳健供应链中的重要性。

💡可持续性

可持续性涉及在供应链管理中考虑环境、社会和经济的长期影响，以实现资源的有效利用和社会责任。虽然视频中没有直接提到可持续性，但这是现代供应链管理中一个日益重要的议题，与技术、成本和风险管理紧密相关。

Highlights

Paulo Sousa Jr. 和 Miguel Rodriguez Garcia 共同主持了首次春季直播系列，讨论了供应链管理课程和MITx MicroMasters项目。

Luiz Gosling 作为嘉宾演讲者，分享了他在 AlixPartners 作为高级副总裁的丰富经验。

讨论了全球供应链的复杂性，特别是以玩具行业为例，展示了产品的全球旅程。

强调了包装和负载构建在供应链中的重要性，以及如何通过软件辅助优化空间和重量利用率。

解释了海洋运输的周期性，以及如何通过选择合适的港口来提高物流效率。

强调了集装箱的堆叠方式对货物安全和供应链效率的影响。

讨论了自动化在提高集装箱码头运营效率和减少事故风险方面的潜力。

分析了铁路运输的工作原理，包括主要运营商、调度、可见性和运输时间。

探讨了道路运输的决策过程，包括自行管理与外包以及如何提高资产利用率。

强调了仓库和分销中心在区域服务中的作用，以及存货管理和技术在提高效率中的重要性。

讨论了包裹运输的挑战，包括最后一公里交付的复杂性。

Luiz Gosling 分享了他对供应链管理中成本效率与速度和敏捷性之间权衡的看法。

提出了备选方案的重要性，并鼓励参与者思考不同的物流解决方案。

讨论了COVID-19之后，公司如何通过近岸和远岸策略应对供应链挑战。

强调了技术进步，如自动化和数字智能，对供应链管理的潜在影响。

Luiz Gosling 讨论了无人机技术在最后一公里交付中的潜力及其当前局限性。

强调了对于希望从事供应链管理职业的人来说，硬技能（如数学和工程学）和软技能（如人员管理和常识）的重要性。

Transcripts

(logo twinkles)

- Hi everyone.

Welcome to our first spring live series.

Thank you for joining us today.

I am Paulo Sousa Jr,

course lead for SC3X, Supply Chain Dynamics

which is part of the MITx MicroMasters

in Supply Chain Management program from MIT.

I am happy to be cohosting this live event today

with my co-lead Miguel Rodriguez Garcia,

course lead for SC1X, Supply Chain Fundamentals.

Hi Miguel.

- Hi Paulo and thank you so much for the introduction.

So I'm really happy to be here with you guys.

I'm excited to share some great insights

about supply chain with all our learners

and today we're gonna follow this agenda.

So first, our speaker will give us a presentation

that will last around 25 minutes and after that,

we'll have some time at the end,

around 50 minutes for you guys,

for the audience, to actually ask some questions to him.

And Paulo and I will be channeling those questions

throughout the presentation.

So please use the Q and A feature in Zoom

to ask the questions

and we'll be working on that throughout the presentation.

So before Paulo introduces our guest speaker,

just wanted to remind you guys

that this is a cross-course live event.

From SC1X to SC3X.

And verification is still open for both courses.

So remember that verification is the only way

that you can actually certificate from us, from MIT

and it's also the best way to support the program,

allowing us to keep doing this

and giving this content for free

to many learners around the world.

So if you like the content, as I said,

we'll be posting the verification links in the chat.

So please, if you like it, keep supporting us.

Now back to you Paulo so you can introduce Luiz.

- Thank you so much Miguel.

So today we are honored to have Luiz Gosling joining us.

Luiz is currently a Senior Vice President

at AlixPartners, a global management consulting firm.

He has over 10 years of experience driving projects

and diligences for clients in capital-intensive industries,

such as transportation, logistics, infrastructure,

manufacturing and warehousing.

Prior to AlixPartners,

Luiz covered the logistics, shipping

and infrastructure sectors at a logistics M&A advisory firm

for clients from Asia, Europe, Latine America

and also led diligences for over six billion dollars

in transacted assets.

He holds a Bachelor's degree in industrial engineering

and a Master of Science and Logistics from PUC

Rio de Janeiro.

He also holds a Master degree in Supply Chain Management

from MIT.

By the way he also took our MicroMasters courses

just like many of you are doing right now.

So welcome Luiz.

The floor is yours.

- Thank you Paulo, thank you Miguel, thanks everyone

and thanks for being here and having me today.

What I want to talk about today is global supply chains.

We titled this presentation,

"How Did All This Stuff Get Here"

and really what we want to talk about is,

we're gonna pick one product

and we're gonna follow that product throughout the world.

We're gonna go from Shenzhen China,

from the port of Yantian,

all the way to its final destination

somewhere in the United States

and you're gonna see more about that in a minute.

To begin with, Paulo gave a brief overview of my background

so I'm not gonna spend a lot of time talking about myself.

I've been doing logistics and supply chain,

touching a little bit of everything under the sun

for the last 12 years or so.

Focused on finance a lot in the early years of my career,

have done a lot of M and A,

and now I've been focusing on operations

and helping our clients better manage those assets,

better manage those operations.

So anything related to road freight or ocean freight

or air freight, that kind of asset for internal operations,

that's kind of in my wheelhouse.

So I'm gonna dive right in.

The first thing I'm gonna do is give you a quick overview

of this industry and we selected,

we decided to have some fun with it.

So we selected the toys industry as our example for today.

This is the panoramic 10,000-foot view

of what the toy industries look like.

I'm not gonna read this entire page to the audience

but I'll leave it up on the screen

so you can read it on your own time.

Basically toys are a subsegment of consumer products

and like a lot of different segments in consumer products,

it's very fragmented.

There's not one single company

that holds 50% of the market for example.

There's a lot of big conglomerates, they're very global.

And it's a very emotional industry

and I like talking about this.

It doesn't affect just toys but when you think about toys,

you're thinking about kids' toys, adult toys

and then pet toys.

Those are the three big kind of verticals of this space

and no one buys toys trying to save money.

You buy toys with some sort of emotional driver

to that consumption decision.

So it's an industry that benefits from that

in a number of ways.

At the same time, if you look at number two

and three columns on the page in front of you,

this industry has very strong fundamentals.

It's been growing for the last 10 years non stop.

COVID actually helped the toys industry,

even though retailers were pretty disrupted

between 2020 and 2022,

you have an industry that's been booming, if I may say so,

with even further growth in recent years

because playtime and physical toys and physical goods

have seen a boost in demand.

At the same time you have cost pressure

coming very hard, very strongly for these companies.

Not only supply chain costs like ocean freight

which skyrocketed,

the cost of ocean freight skyrocketed between 2021 and 2022

and now it has recently seen a certain depression in rates

but also raw materials.

You have toys, or really products if we want to call that.

That are getting increasingly complex

and the existing materials are getting more expensive.

You have wage inflation and raw materials,

in some cases.

Lastly, you don't buy toys

directly from the toy manufacturers.

You need to go through a retail channel

and retail channels as you all know

from other modules in this program

have been undergoing some disruptions.

Omnichannel is a big one.

It basically changes everything we've been doing

in retail for a number of years and also consumers

have been gaining a lot of power recently

which kind of undermines what used to be called

the retail art in the late 90s, early 2000s.

So a lot to come there.

Toys are obviously subject to all of that

and this is just a very high level overview

of what we're talking about

when we think about the industry.

I don't want to dive into the operations

without letting you,

giving you this lead on hey,

this is the space we're looking at.

Moving on.

So this is a toy.

And sorry for the spoiler on the next page.

This is a toy and I want to give you a couple of examples

of what a toy is.

This is a very simple toy.

It's a single-body plastic figurine.

You've probably seen it in a couple of board games.

This is a very simple product.

Easy to make, cheap to make.

Cheap to handle and ship around the world

and you can make it in bulk and it's cheap to purchase.

Right, this is also a toy.

This is a sexier toy, it's more complex.

It's way more expensive to make.

Way more expensive and complex to manage.

There's so many components and they are so different.

When you think about an Xbox gaming machine

and it's way more expensive to purchase.

This goes for at least $500 in retail

and it has a few different options

when you're thinking about buying one.

But there's really limited customization.

This is also a toy and this falls somewhere in between.

This is a collector's figure and it's very complex.

It's somewhat cheap to make

because most of the parts are plastic or simple metals

but it's very complex to assemble.

It's very manual and pretty hard to manage.

It's hard to forecast the demand for something like this.

It's very expensive to purchase

which means it caters to a certain niche

of the toy industry.

It's people that are willing to spend 300 to $500

for a mint condition figurine

just to put it on the shelf right?

We didn't pick this one example by chance.

This is a Megatron, a Transformers character.

He's the villain of the Transformers franchise

and we're gonna follow him throughout the world.

So he's gonna accompany us on our journey.

Before we jump into that journey,

I just wanted to highlight that these toys

from a simple plastic figurine

to a video game that's super complex,

they're managed by mega-conglomerates around the world.

They all have different strategies

from forecasting to how they execute their operations

and how they design the supply chain and they all work.

There's no single right answer

when it comes to supply chain

and I'm sure you've heard this over and over again

and these companies are good examples of that.

They have very distinct approaches

to how they manage the supply chains

and they're all successful in doing so.

So this is a quick overview

of what the Megatron supply chain looks like.

It's very complex

because you have so many different parts

going into this product.

And then finally, you have a single point of assembly

that takes us all the way to the customers

and this is our international logistics piece.

That's what we're gonna focus on today.

We're gonna look at how do we go from finished product,

all the way to product received?

In the hands of our happy customer.

So let's jump right in.

This is a quick roadmap of our journey.

Before we jump into the specifics

and I'm gonna take you in a quick deep dive

on each one of those seven echelons.

I'm gonna talk about packaging and load building.

We're gonna talk about ocean shipping.

We're gonna talk about port terminal operations.

Once you get inland,

we're gonna talk about rail and road freight.

Finally, we're gonna talk about warehousing

and obviously DC operations

and inventory management which is extremely important.

What to buy, when to buy it, how to replenish

and then lastly, the last mile delivery, pun intended.

Which is how we get our products

from that last point of consolidation,

all the way to the end customer.

Of course Megatron is gonna follow us throughout the pages.

Keep an eye out for him.

So the first piece of our supply chain is load building

and I cannot stress enough how important this is.

Load building is basically,

how do you put your products in a box?

It can be a box, a corrugated box,

a different type of packaging.

Sometimes there's a plastic cover with some branding.

Packaging is really important because packaging,

some of it, will be customer facing.

Not all packaging is a boring, brown,

corrugated cardboard box.

Some of your packaging will have the company logo

and some art in it.

That's also part of the customer experience.

So packaging is important, stacking is also important.

It can maximize or not,

or impact the way you ship your goods

and how much you can ship and how efficient

your supply chain can be.

Third, we have load building.

This is usually software-assisted these days.

Unless you're talking about a very local,

very manual operation.

This will be more mathematical and quote unquote,

scientific really.

But oftentimes, you know,

reality doesn't follow math

and as supply chain practitioners,

I'm sure you all know this.

Then lastly, our pallet, carrying a bunch of boxes,

including Megatron is gonna be put in a container

and that container is gonna travel around the world.

One thing I wanted to highlight

and I'm gonna try to bring some real life examples

in a couple of these pages.

I think that illustrates well

the concept we're discussing here.

If you're not familiar with this diagram,

this is a utilization scatter plot.

Every container has space and it also has

a certain amount of weight it can carry.

So when you put boxes or pallets,

when you load a container with products,

you need to think about maximizing the usage of that space.

But also maximizing the usage of the weight capacity.

So some products will cube out before they weigh out

and some products will weigh out before you cube out

because they're very dense

and that's what this chart is representing.

This is an example of 10,000 containers,

plotted on the one chart and as you can see,

the top right corner of your screen is really, really good.

This means, these points, these containers

had a lot of weight and the volume of the box

was really well utilized.

You really filled that container.

This is the supply chain dream right?

As you move to the bottom left of the chart,

you start having containers that are empty

or very light.

And there's a number of reasons why that can happen.

Maybe you had an urgent shipment

and you didn't have time to wait for consolidation.

You just had to leave with a container half empty.

Maybe you have just not that much volume this week

and the container had to set sail

and not wait for more shipment.

When you think about ocean shipping for example,

if we're talking about global logistics here.

Ocean shipping works in weekly cadences, weekly schedules.

So if you have something that's arriving on Thursday,

you can't wait one day,

it's gonna be put in a box next week.

That's just how it works.

And if you look at,

I brought two examples here on the next page.

Points A and B are so dramatically different

when you look at what they really mean.

Point A, picture A sorry

shows us a container that has 50% of the volume occupied

which means it's half empty, said another way.

And only 8% of the weight utilized

which means it's very light.

They're carrying very low density products

while point B, it's not perfect obviously by all means.

But it's way better.

We're looking at a container

that has 55% of the weight capacity utilized

and 60% of the volume.

This is by no means a perfect load utilization

but it's much better than the left picture.

The last thing I want to talk about

when it comes to load is the stacking.

And stacking is important

because of reasons that defy math.

People can do all kinds of things

and if you've been in the industry for long enough,

I'm sure you have pictures like this.

This is absolutely what you don't want to happen

with your pallets.

You have loads, if you look at the left side of the screen,

you have loads that are almost falling from the pallet

because this pallet was breaking,

was broken from the bottom which is an absolutely no no.

You should, when you're building your loads,

you need to think about,

"How I am going to use those loads in the future?"

If you have a box that you need first,

that box should be on top.

This is just common sense but also,

you have physical constraints to your pallets.

For example, if you look at the top right,

this pallet is very high.

This is very tall which means it's hard to handle

and you risk tilting your loads

and letting some box fall

during your supply chain execution.

Inside the warehouse, during transportation, you name it.

Finally at the bottom,

you see there is a box here that got crushed by the weight.

This is not good.

Because you risk damaging your product inside that box

and this is what causes claims, returns and so on.

This is a good example of what not to do.

So let's move on to ocean shipping.

We put all those boxes and pallets inside a container

and we set it out to the ocean.

First thing first, there's something called drayage

which is the act of taking a container,

putting it on a truck and taking it to the port

and throughout that entire piece of our supply chain

and really from here, all the way to the United States

on the water, we want visibility

of where that load is.

We want to know who's holding it,

where it is physically on the map if possible

and when, what's our ETA

or the expected time of arrival at the next piece

or next part of our supply chain.

Finally the third column here,

the third thing, the third element of ocean shipping

is the shipping itself.

And this works very similarly to road freight.

You have carriers that handle your loads

and this is a commoditized service.

A commodity service basically works in cycles

of supply and demand.

Right now, and the barometer or the escape valve

of that relationship between supply and demand is rates.

So when you look at ocean shipping rates,

they have gone up dramatically during COVID

because demand was just so high

and supply was constrained around the world.

Recently, for the past, maybe seven months,

starting in the second half of 2022,

we saw rates declining very dramatically on some lines.

Even going to pre-COVID levels.

There's a number of nuances around that

and we can spend hours talking about it in the Q and A

but reality is, this is a commodity service.

It has cycles and that's it at this level.

Finally, port selection is important

because you want to go to a port

that is as close as you can to your final destination.

You don't want to go to a different country

and then get on a rail if you don't have to.

You also want to go to a port

that gives you access to the logistic infrastructure

that you need.

If you want to put your container on the rail track,

on a train, then take that

to the next point of your supply chain,

then you want to go to a terminal that has that capability.

If you go a terminal that doesn't offer rail access,

that means you're gonna have to put that box on a truck,

take the truck to another terminal to do trans shipment,

then put it on the rail and then move on.

This can get really expensive

and it's another touch on that box

which means it's harder and more complex to manage at scale.

Finally, once we get to the United States

and this took us maybe two to three weeks on the water,

we land at a port.

And I want to quickly call out that a port

and a terminal are different things.

A port is a region on the map, to put it very simply.

It's a region on the map,

usually owned by the municipality

and they can subdivide that area into different mandates.

Some of which are terminals

which are the rectangular spaces, sometimes not rectangular

that actually handle the loads.

A terminal is usually divided into four parts.

You have the marine which is what touches the water,

touches the vessels.

You have the yard which is where you store containers

or handle containers for inward or outward handling.

Finally you have your gateways

which is essentially the paths that a container will take

to leave or enter the terminal which is rail or trucks.

Which said another way, railyard or gates.

- Luiz? - And I have a few,

a few examples here.

That's why I didn't want to talk too much about that

on the previous page.

This is what a terminal looks like

and this is a picture of the Long Beach Container Terminal,

in Long Beach, California.

You can see here the marine area with all the SCS cranes,

they're touching the water which means

that's where the vessels will stop and berth

for the containers to be loaded or unloaded

by these cranes.

Finally you have a pre-automated R and G yard here

on the bottom of your screen,

covering the entire bottom section of the picture.

And then gates and the rail yard are not on this frame.

- Luiz sorry to interrupt Megatron's journey,

I just want to remind some learners

that they can use the Q and A feature from Zoom

because some learners join us later.

So if you have questions,

we will be addressing them at the end of the session.

So please use the Q and A feature, not the chatbox,

and let's continue now.

Thank you so much.

- Absolutely, no good callout.

So a couple of more shots

and information about how a container terminal operates.

This is what the marine operation looks like.

You have the gantry cranes loading

and unloading containers from the vessel.

Sometimes a vessel will require one, two, three cranes.

Sometimes more, it depends on the size.

It depends on the schedule for the you know,

how you're manning that ship that day or that morning.

Finally, the cranes take the container from the vessel

and they put her on the ground.

Which is essentially putting it on a truck

and in this case I have a picture here, also from L.A.,

with a pretty automated part of that terminal.

That container is being put on an automated platform,

a flat bed and that flat bed knows exactly

where it's taking the container.

It's either fully automatic

or moved by joysticks with an operator

in a room somewhere close by.

So this is a really good example

of where automation can really drive efficiency

and reduce the risk of accidents for example.

Finally, this is the rail yard.

Those boxes are gonna sit on a yard,

either the main yard or the rail yard for outgoing trains.

And they might be stored there for a couple of days,

maybe a few days.

You don't want to store your boxes, your containers,

at the terminal for too long

because you have to pay for it if that happens.

You usually have a window of three days and after that,

you have to pay the merge and you don't want to do that

because it can really stack up

and it gets increasingly expensive.

Then that box is gonna be on a track,

on a cart, sorry a train cart

which is gonna flow anywhere in the country

and rail is probably the most efficient way

to handle container loads, to handle intermodal loads.

It's not perfect,

you're still limited to the train schedules.

You're still limited to the rail capacity and capability.

If you have loads that are not perfectly fit

for a container box,

that can be a little tough to handle

or you have to pay a lot more money.

Also, you don't have the flexibility

that you have on a truck

of just picking it up whenever you want

and going anywhere you want right?

On the rail, you're subject to the network of terminals

which is pretty abundant, it's pretty rich,

but it doesn't go anywhere and everywhere

throughout the country.

So moving on, let's talk about rail.

Rail works a little bit like ocean freight.

You have major operators, not a lot of them.

In the U.S. we have seven class one rail operators

and they are operating all the way from Canada,

all the way to Mexico.

So you really look at North America when you talk about rail

and schedule, visibility, lead times.

All the things that we touch on for ocean carriers

is also very important for rail.

Rail sourcing is a complex activity

and there's a number of things involved in that.

We're not gonna dive into that right now

but it's complex and it's as complex

as any other type of freight sourcing.

To give you a picture of where a journey is going,

I wanted to show you this map.

If we're going from L.A. to Chicago

which is the journey we drew for this example,

we're gonna take a path that's pretty long

and it crosses pretty much half of the united states

or even a little bit more than that.

Chicago is a great hub for rail.

It handles over half of the entire intermodal freight

in the U.S. and it's serviced

by six out of the seven major rail operators

in North America which is great.

No other city in the U.S. can do that,

can say they do that which is really good.

And just a quick,

if you look at the right side of the page,

these are the seven major operators in North America.

Two of them are merging, KCS and CP might become

a single company in the future.

So we'll see what happens there.

I think the commentary here is that this is,

it seems like an old school industry because it's rail

and it's old infrastructure

and it's pretty brown-fueled but when you think about it,

this is also very fast-moving and it changes

and it's a commodity service.

So you can't just not pay attention to it.

Finally, after you land in Chicago in the rail,

that container is gonna be picked up by a truck

who is gonna take it all the way to a storage facility

or a distribution center, a warehouse, you name it.

In Everett, Massachusetts,

and we're going to Massachusetts

because we're taking Megatron all the way to MIT,

in Cambridge.

So we're gonna go to the closest possible Amazon DC

to E40 in Cambridge, that's in Everett.

And freight sourcing is a science and an art

at the same time.

You have one big decision when it comes to road freight

which is, do you do it yourself

or do you hire someone to do it for you?

You make or you buy?

And purchasing freight can be complex.

It can be as simple as one.

Routing is very important.

Especially if you're the one managing that operation

and executing that freight.

Because you can make multiple stops,

you have multiple schedules,

you need to better utilize your assets

to the best of your abilities.

Lead times and SLAs are super important.

If you have an outsourced freight carrier,

that's how you make sure

that you're getting what you're paying for.

I cannot stress that enough.

And then finally, the last piece

that I think is really important here

when it comes to road freight is load consolidation

or deconsolidation.

To better utilize your assets,

you gotta go back to what I mentioned earlier.

You gotta increase and drive utilization.

You'll want to have,

as a transportation professional,

we often joke that you want to do less transportation

and that's absolutely true when it comes to road freight.

Moving on.

After our truck takes our loads to our storage facility,

now it's time to you know,

sit in a warehouse for a few days, maybe a few weeks,

until it's time to go to the final customer,

get on a little sprinter van and go to the final customer.

When you think about a warehouse

or a distribution center really,

at the scale we're talking about here, an Amazon DC,

it services an entire region.

Inbound and outbound logistics

is extremely important for these guys.

So dark doors.

Managing how fast or how well you can manage your shifts

and load and unload loads so you don't have that bottleneck

in your facility, same thing for the yard

outside the warehouse, that's extremely important.

Also, how you manage your storage

and your DC operations.

That's very important.

You can automate it,

you can put a number of automation solutions

inside the four walls,

and that changes how efficient you're gonna be,

how many people you're gonna need.

And that goes hand in hand with technology

which is a third element I put here on the page.

Technology is really good and it's really sexy

when we say it like this.

But it can also be very challenging

because it's expensive

and because the more you deploy technology

within the four walls,

the more you have to train your workforce

and make sure that they're executing it perfectly

and that you're troubleshooting

and then you're prepared to deal with technology

when it doesn't work right?

And that's not easy, it's just more complexity

to your supply chain

and you have to pay attention to that as well.

And then finally, another extremely important part

of any storage operation is inventory management.

You want to make sure,

and I'm sure you guys are gonna learn

all about inventory management during the MicroMasters

but to put it very simply,

you've gotta know what to buy, when to buy

and how much to hold and for how long.

Some products deserve to sit on a shelf for weeks.

Some products don't deserve to sit on a shelf

for even a day.

You want to move it very, very fast.

That's it for storage.

We're gonna take Megatron out

and we're gonna put him in a box

and take it to the end customer.

That's called parcel freight

and you can do it yourself if you're managing your own,

I guess, limited scale operation.

But usually companies, at this level,

these conglomerates,

they're using third party freight providers

and in the United States,

we have three major carriers or should I say four,

if you count the USPS mail.

But it's basically FedEx, UPS and DHL.

They are really good at different things.

There's no single solution

for the practitioners in the room.

You know that you're gonna end up using all of them

for different you know, aspects of your operation.

But parcel sourcing, parcel freight

really works similar to road freight.

You need to worry about utilization.

One of these vans can make roughly 30 stops,

that's not a lot.

If you think about a container,

an entire container has hundreds

and hundreds of boxes.

So this is very quote unquote, expensive

and if you're looking at an urban environment,

routing through the streets is very challenging.

Because you have a lot of restrictions.

You cannot enter every street and alley.

You have hours of the day that you just cannot operate.

So there's all these challenges.

Then finally, tracking and systems.

These are things that have been evolving a lot

in the supply chain space, we'll call it logtech.

Logistics technology, solutions have been really out there

for the last 10 years or so.

Really evolving and growing with the space,

so we're gonna highlight this.

At the same time, you have facilities up to this date

in the United States that are extremely manual,

and you will see people manually typing

or scanning barcodes

which is obviously opportunity for improvement.

The last thing I wanted to highlight on this page

is that the trucks,

the little van on the left that looks very futuristic,

that's actually one of the newest FedEx electric vans.

They're deploying throughout the United States.

So we expect to see a lot more of those cool looking cars

in the next months or years

versus the traditional sprinter vans.

And then a quick shoutout to the rest of the world.

We don't only have the United States

when we talk about parcel.

We also have a lot of other very large players.

They are very, very good at what they do

across Europe and Asia, South America,

but really, in this example, for Megatron,

we're really talking about FedEx, UPS and DHL

which hold combined around 80% of the entire market share

of the United States.

They're really good at different things.

You wouldn't use one provider for all your needs.

But having a relationship with all of them

can be challenging.

Because it's more things to touch

and more players to manage.

Then this is the end of our journey.

The parcel was delivered to MIT at E40

in Cambridge, Massachusetts

and this is a quick highlight of where we went

across the world.

We went all the way from the port of Yantian, China,

all the way to the east coast of the United States.

This would take you roughly a month,

or maybe three weeks if you're being really fast.

And the one thing I wanted to highlight

before jumping to questions and Q and A

is that this is an ever-changing space.

This is a very dynamic industry

and not only new technologies are coming online

but also macroeconomic factors

are always affecting the way we operate

and what a good solution looks like.

And also new players, newcomers

are always trying to disrupt things

on every point of the supply chain

and if this complexity feels overwhelming

it's because it really can be

and I think we don't know what the future holds

but what we do know is that the big winners

of all of this are us.

The customers and companies that use all of these services

and that's it for the Megatron journey.

Megatron's probably happy now,

sitting on someone's shelf in Cambridge Massachusetts

and I am going to close here.

And before we jump into the Q and As,

I want to leave you with three questions.

We talked about this whole supply chain,

that was a very descriptive story.

But if you had to really manage this,

you would have to make decisions

that we didn't really dive into

because that was not our focus here.

But basically, supply chains often come down to

do you want to drive cost efficiency,

or do you want to drive speed and agility?

So I'm not gonna answer this right now

because this will take more than a minute

but as you think about it on your own time,

I want you to reflect on, for this figurine,

or for any other toys that you can think of,

should you be driving cost efficiency

and trying to be as cheap as you can

on the supply chain and gain scale

or should you try to be fast and agile

and drive speed right?

Then the last question on the page

is really about alternatives.

It's really important to have plan Bs

and so I propose here,

it's a little tease to think about,

what could a plan B be?

Pun intended, when it comes to ocean shipping.

Rates went down recently,

but what if they kept going up?

It would be increasingly expensive to ship things

from China to the U.S., what could you do about it?

Right, there's a number of solutions out there.

A number of approaches that are not only possible,

but very realistic and we see them every day

with different companies.

And I would love for you to think about it on your own time

and you know, see where you can find examples

of these things.

Thank you very much.

- Thank you Luiz.

I mean, this has been pretty amazing.

I'm pretty sure that Paulo shares my feeling

and also our learners.

From my perspective, as the SC1X course head,

I think this has been an amazing overview

and introduction for the learners to,

mainly transportation.

Because you're gonna see a lot of that

at the end of the course.

So this has been just brilliant.

Thank you so much for everything.

And now yeah,

I think we can jump right into the Q and A.

I have selected here a couple questions to start with.

So, the first one is related to what we saw.

Mainly, right after COVID, in many ports around the world.

In terms of congestion.

We saw the port of L.A. with more than 150,

I think it was over 100 boats just standing still basically

for a long time.

So Anise.

Sorry if I pronounce it wrong,

was actually asking us what would be the best way

to manage this kind of operation.

So in order,

and for this not to happen again, looking forward.

I'm pretty sure that also, this is relevant.

Not only for us but for many carriers out there

because at the end of the day, it was a lot of money lost

for all that congestion.

So I don't know, Luiz, what are your thoughts on that?

- Absolutely, and that's a great topic

and it feels like we planted that question

but we did not, I promise.

But I do have a backup page that I'm gonna use

in a second to illustrate

a little bit of what that congestion looked like.

They did have hundreds of vessels waiting to berth

and some of them were not even accounted for

because they started waiting outside of the port waters.

They went to open waters to wait in the ocean

and that doesn't even get into the count.

So it was really disruptive.

For the port of LA,

and also for different parts

of the supply chain inland right?

Because you're basically waiting for all of that,

it became a big bottleneck.

So there's a couple of things that I heard in the question.

One of them was, how do you manage that?

And I am hearing this from the perspective

of a practitioner.

So you are the shipper or the BCO.

You have your loads waiting on a vessel

and then there's another nuance there

which is how do you prevent that

from happening in the future

if you are effectively managing the terminal?

You are the port of L.A. right?

The simple answer and there's a few different things

you can do or that we've seen companies do

very successfully in the last few years.

When that happens,

what you can do is immediately diversify.

If you're exposing your entire supply chain to one gateway,

maybe that's a risk that you're holding.

Trying to enter the United States and that's what we saw.

Immediately companies shifted their volumes

to the east coast, that was a little easier.

It takes a little bit longer to go through the Panama Canal

and then navigate all the way to the East Coast,

but using the ports of Miami, Savannah, Norfolk, Newark,

New York, New Jersey, those were good solutions at the time.

It doesn't mean they're better than L.A.,

but they were not as affected by

that congestion specifically on the transpacific routes.

Secondly, you can go to Mexico.

You can go to Seattle,

you can go to other terminals on the West Coast

and then put your box on the rail

and then ship it to the United States.

That's a very mature solution.

It's not like you're gonna be trying something new

that no one has ever done before.

So we've seen companies do that as well.

Short answer is,

if you're exposed to L.A., you've gotta wait in line.

If you have alternatives, then you can explore it.

I just wanted to show you real quick,

I have my cheat sheet pages here

to help me answer the question

but this is the global schedule reliability index

and what this means you have two tracks on the page.

And this is tracked every month by sea intelligence.

What you're seeing here on the left is

how often are sales on time?

And being very high is really good.

Traditionally, historically,

we've seen vessels being on time, 70, 80% of the time.

Sometimes almost teasing a 90% result.

In 2020, if you look at the green line on the page,

on the left side, it really went down.

It took a dive.

Vessels were always late.

Not only they were always late,

but if you look at the right side of the page,

they were getting late increasingly more.

They were late by more days.

In recent years,

and the pink line you see on both charts, 2022,

in recent years, they have been steadily improving

that schedule reliability

which means they are more often on time

and when they are delayed,

they're delayed by less days.

So instead of eight days delayed,

they're now delayed by five days or so.

So we track this very closely and this is really important.

- Awesome, awesome, awesome.

This brings a lot of clarity I think

and thank you so much for the detailed answer

to our learner's question.

Paulo, did you want to go with another question?

- Yeah, sure.

Thank you so much Luiz.

You addressed some key points from SC3X,

Supply Chain Dynamics.

You mentioned about complexity,

the drivers of complexity, global supply chains

and we have a couple questions here.

So I want to combine two questions.

One is from Paloma

and the other one is from Mohammed.

So the question is Luiz,

we see a lot of companies trying to have

a more low cost supply chain

after the COVID challenges and impacts.

How do you see this changing the way supply chains work?

And the other question combined with this is in an era

of increasing nationalist and protectionist,

what are the implications for global supply chains

and how can companies navigate these challenges?

- Yeah, that's a great question.

So we had a different lecture, I think on fall.

That touched a little bit

on exshoring and nearshoring right.

What we're seeing is a little bit of a mixed basket

of solutions when it comes to that.

There has been, for the last 10 years I would say,

this movement of nearshoring supply chains

for all kinds of reasons.

Some of which are technically very savvy

when you think about supply chain risk mitigation

or diversifying your supplier base

and not being exposed to one manufacturer in Thailand

or Singapore or China

and rather having plan Bs or alternatives

that can supply your goods or raw materials

or make the assembly perhaps.

In Mexico or eastern Europe, or northern Africa,

we're seeing Tunisia grow in that space as well

in recent years.

More recently,

there's been a couple of very tough macroeconomic sanctions

and conflicts and I'm gonna say, for the last,

maybe four years.

Nearshoring is a reality, it's here to stay.

I don't think this is gonna basically, look.

For the Asian countries in southeast Asia

to become what they are today, that took decades okay?

That's not gonna be undone in a couple of years.

That's not a big risk.

I'm not concerned about that.

What we see happening

and that's the trend I was trying to illustrate

is some of that volume

shifting to neighboring countries or plan B solutions

and even more than that,

companies and supply chain leaders,

really starting to think about

what the plan B should look like.

So that when the problem happens,

when any disruption happens,

be it political, be it macroeconomic,

be it COVID or any sort of supply chain decision.

They're not caught offguard.

That's kind of what

the feeling is in the industry right now.

- That's. - Thank you so much.

Yeah, go ahead Miguel.

Take the next one. - Yeah no.

I was about to say before,

going into the next question,

because we have a lot of questions

we are not gonna be able to answer them all.

I can tell you that guys,

but thank you so much for posting them.

But what you just mentioned Luiz is super interesting

because we have a researcher here at MIT,

Juan Faro Caliz working exactly on that

and looking at some companies actually, overreacting.

Because of reshoring and sometimes,

it's also a matter of economies of scale

and as you mentioned,

southeast Asia and lots of China of course,

they have been doing an amazing job for many years

in terms of like manufacturing

many of the electronics products and all the things.

So changing all that and moving all of that knowledge

all the way here is not an easy task

and we are seeing companies sometimes overreacting

and losing a lot of money sometimes

because of those decisions.

So it's a tradeoff,

and really interesting topic for sure.

So now I'm gonna jump to another question from Muhammad.

And I'm gonna combine it with a question from Norman too

because learners are also interested

in learning about technology

and how technology affects supply chain

and you mentioned a lot of the automation is coming.

Things that are already there

as you said in the port

of L.A. with the automated platforms.

So straddle carriers, that's how they call them

I think in the port of L.A., and that's amazing.

So I don't know, we want to hear your thoughts maybe

on what you know is more promising.

Also from the perspective of maybe,

of digital intelligence, blockchain or automation

and the other thing is that one of our learners

is asking us where the program addresses these automation

and technology advancements.

And I would say SC4X, the last course of the MicroMasters

is the one that focuses more

on these state of the art topics.

While other courses are more the basic stuff supply chain,

even if we of course renew the content every year.

But it's still,

SC4X is the one that focuses more on technology.

But Luiz,

what are your thoughts on these emerging technologies

and things happening in the supply chain?

- Well there's a lot of stuff to unpack there.

Technology is always interesting

and I usually look at technology when it comes to logistics,

operations and supply chain decisions in three buckets.

The first one is you know, big cap X,

automation, that kind of stuff.

And in the second one is more softer oriented,

it's more logical.

It's an SAP module or a particular solution

that was designed for routing or for pick my light.

That kind of you know, pick my route.

These very targeted niche solutions

that are really, really good.

But it's not like you're automating an entire STS crane.

And then third, you have the other stuff.

For example I've seen sensors and telematics.

We're seeing that taking a bit of a bump in recent years

which is really good.

I saw the other day this presentation from,

it was a startup.

I don't know if I can call them a startup at this point

but it's a company that,

they put sensors on the whole of a vessel

which can track how dirty the hull is

and when it's too dirty,

it creates a lot of drag under the water.

So the ship gets less efficient

from a fuel consumption standpoint

and then they can track that and do whatever

they have to do to clean it or scrap,

or sand it and make sure the fuel efficiency is there.

So these solutions are so niche and so interesting,

it's hard to predict what's gonna come next.

How I see these things, I think it's great

and automation is probably the hot topic

when it comes to container terminals right now.

It's a big part of my work.

Container terminals, not automation per se.

But one thing that will,

always important to remember

is that you have unions in the United States and Canada

that pretty much govern the labor relations

on both coasts, east and west.

It's very different,

the relationship in the west coast

and east coast are very different.

But I think it's unrealistic to expect

that a terminal in the United States

can get 100% automated like we see in a few terminals

in Europe and Asia.

In the next I don't know, five years or six.

It's just, it's just complex.

There's a lot of discussions to go on.

It's not just, "Let's spend the money.

"We're sitting on a cash,

"on a warchest of capital right now

"and we can invest this in automation."

That's a simplistic view.

- Yeah, thank you so much for the answer.

Paulo, do you want to go ahead?

- Yeah, we still have many questions here.

Many learners are thanking you,

congratulating you for your great presentation.

I chose one other one here.

So Kevin is asking,

which of the lags that you talked about

are the biggest cost drivers?

For instance, ocean, rail, road.

Warehousing, storage, et cetera

and how much does that vary

based on the product being managed?

For instance, Megatron versus Xbox, versus team pieces,

et cetera.

- Wow that's an entire presentation in itself.

So to ship Megatron from China to Cambridge

cannot cost more than Megatron right?

Someone's paying for that shipping, it's not free.

But it's done at scale.

Which means a container that will cost you, I don't know,

10,000, $12,000 to ship overseas,

for that one box will only really,

if you want to allocate cost,

really will only cost you maybe 10 bucks,

a few bucks perhaps.

Because you have hundreds of those boxes

inside that container right?

If I had to guess,

I think the most expensive part is the part,

well apart from all the pieces and raw materials

that go into the product,

which means everything upstream of your supply chain,

it would be the echelon with the most labor.

The most labor-intensive echelon or said another way,

the least scalable part of your supply chain

which is obviously downstream.

There's no question about this.

It's not ocean shipping, it's not the container terminal.

It's definitely not the rail transport.

It's probably not the road freight.

It's probably storing and parcel delivery.

These things are expensive

when you think about a little box.

Again, a van, a sprinter van, a FedEx van,

can make 30 stops in a day.

Keep in mind, you cannot drive a van 24 hours a day.

You have regulations and labor guidance

and a lot of very hard restrictions.

You can only drive for eight, 10 hours a day.

Depending on the state, depending on whatever.

Which means you're gonna make 30 deliveries that day,

that's it.

A container can carry hundreds

if not thousands of boxes.

So, it's just a different scale entirely right?

Someone mentioned drones here in the chat.

Drones are not a solution today.

They might be a solution tomorrow

but for consumer goods like Megatron or plastic toys,

even Xboxes or more expensive things,

they're not a solution.

One drone cannot make 30 deliveries a day, in eight hours.

It's just, yeah they don't rest,

you can use them 24/7.

But the battery technology's just not there.

There's a number of things that we're

kind of moving in the right direction

but it's just not there.

It's, it's a great technology

and we should absolutely be investing in it.

It's not the disruption we expect in 2023.

It's just not there yet.

- Yep, actually Jude just answered

one of the questions from another learner

in terms of drones being used for last mile delivery.

We actually have some research here going in MIT

in this area and it's true that it's still,

I mean it's not much here at all.

But it's promising I would say.

Maybe not 2023, but maybe. - Oh absolutely.

Absolutely. - At some point.

We'll see.

So. - No it's definitely moving

in the right direction.

I have no, I'm not discounting the drone space.

It's great.

It's just not something.

It's just not the solution

for every type of product

out there today. - Oh totally, totally, yeah.

- You know? - And not only that.

I mean, it comes with a lot of regulations

from aerospace, many other things, for sure yeah.

So I think we only have time for one more question maybe.

So I'm gonna steal one of yours Paulo, you did on mine,

because I think this is one

is really good to close the live event.

One of our learners, Divige, sorry if I pronounce it wrong

is asking us about what you see,

that are the key, hard and soft skills

needed for someone interested

in pursuing a career in supply chain management?

Looking at the complexity,

you know, in supply chains nowadays.

The volatility, how things changed

and what it requires to actually design

a robust supply chain.

What do you think are the keys for our learners

to pursue a career in this field?

- Should I do a quick you know, advertisement

for the MicroMasters program right now?

- Of course, of course.

- So look, supply chain is an industry that's so interesting

because it blends elements of engineering

and business so well.

It's very quantitative.

There's no question about that.

So you gotta get your math concepts sharp.

But that's not to say

that you just have to be really good at calculus.

There's a lot of very technical elements involved in there.

From you know, inventory optimization,

transportation management but also,

a lot of finance, a lot of business concepts

that are very conceptual but also very quantitative.

So all this matters on day to day.

From cost accounting to cost management,

to inventory planning and forecast,

forecasting is an entire science on itself right?

So that's the quantitative aspect of it.

Then there's also a qualitative element.

Supply chain leaders are people managers,

first and foremost.

There's not avoiding that, you gotta manage people.

Because, simply because even if you don't want to,

simply because there's no way

you can do everything on your own.

Supply chain is such a vast field

and for global organizations

like a consumer products company

like the ones we saw in this presentation,

they have hundreds of people on each department,

on each continent.

It's incredible, incredibly complex.

So people management, you've gotta be good

at simplifying things, having common sense.

Supply chain often comes,

or should I say logistics often comes down to

real life common sense.

It's not just about the science.

It's a little bit about the art as well.

So you know,

a little bit of everything to be completely honest.

You don't have to know anything about biology,

that's for sure.

- Well now that sustainability

is becoming a huge topic too, I don't know.

Maybe? - That's true.

- Maybe even biology. - Yeah.

- So yeah, yeah, we are multidisciplinary, that's for sure.

So you guys just heard from Luiz that yeah,

this is a tough field but also probably

one of the most interesting and fun ones to enjoy.

So thank you so much Luiz, Paulo, everyone, for being here.

I just want to remind the audience before we wrap up

that this was the first live event

of a series of three webinars

that we are gonna have between SC1X and SC3X

during the spring.

So we still have two upcoming webinars.

Stay tuned for those.

And yeah, again, enrollment and verification

for both courses.

SU1X and SU3X is still open.

For SU1X it closes really soon, in only a week.

So if you're already a learner but you haven't verified,

feel free to go into the main page

and get verified for the course.

If not, you can still enroll right now

by clicking on the links that we shared before and yeah,

again, just thank you so much Paulo.

Thank you so much Luiz and of course,

thank you everyone for joining us today.

- Thank you very much guys.

Have a great rest of the wee.

- Thank you so much you all, goodbye.

- See you soon guys.

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