Supply Chain Brain

Saudi Arabia is planning to ramp up pipeline capacity by 40% to avoid the Strait of Hormuz, after the kingdom leaned heavily on an existing cross-country conduit to export oil during the Iran war. As the kingdom struggles to fend off almost daily attacks on its energy and civilian infrastructure, Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said it aims to boost pipeline capacity away from the Persian Gulf to 10 million barrels of crude a day in two or three years.

When a freight invoice arrives with unrequested charges, accounts payable asks the warehouse about it. The warehouse recalls that the shipment was booked, but the quote can’t be found. Shipping has the bill of lading, and the delivery receipt can be obtained from the carrier, but nobody has checked them together, because that takes time most operations don’t have. The invoice could be wrong, or it could show a service the shipment did require but that was never quoted.

In theory, Google Maps could instantly produce a list of every route you’ve ever driven. The record would be totally accurate — and completely useless, because the only thing you want from that application is the next turn. Truck-fleet software built the opposite product. It keeps a careful account of every load, stop and mile behind you, but when you ask which of two choices sitting in front of you is the better one, it has nothing to offer. That was a sensible approach for the era that built it.

Date: November 12, 2026 Time: 11:00 AM ET Live Webinar: 1 hour Webinar Description AI promises to make warehouse operations faster and more efficient. So why are so many teams still struggling to turn information into action? Critical operational knowledge is often buried in disconnected systems or difficult-to-access documentation, putting the information frontline employees need out of reach.

As of October 9, three days after vote tabulation commenced, it was clear Fain had won, with over 68% of the vote. His closest opponent, Rich Boyer, received just over 13% of the vote. “The membership has spoken.

China has agreed with the EU to “halve” its sales of hybrid cars in the bloc in a landmark deal that is aimed at staving off the demise of parts of the European car industry, reports The Guardian. Trade commissioner Maroš Šefčovič said the deal came after “intense” negotiations with China that have been underway since June in an effort to reduce a ballooning EU trade deficit of €1.18 billion ($1.32 billion) a day, which has caused mounting tensions between the two economic powers.

The U.S. administration says it is suspending the Permanent Labor Certification program, or PERM for a range of big tech companies, most notably Microsoft, reports Associated Press. The PERM program allows U.S. companies to apply for green cards for foreign workers who come to the U.S. to live and work using H-1B visas.

Tesla Inc. is backing away from its Full Self-Driving branding to help secure approval for the driver-assistance system in Europe, distancing the company from a name that has drawn criticism as dangerously misleading. The automaker has begun using the name “Tesla Assisted Driving” on its European websites in recent days. The U.S. version of the same site is continuing to use “Full Self-Driving (Supervised)” for the technology.

Oracle is using a novel power strategy to keep several data centers on track: trucking natural gas directly to the server farms. The truck deliveries kept a data center on the outskirts of Salt Lake City moving forward for more than a year as Oracle waited for a gas pipeline to be built and integrated with its machinery, according to people familiar with the work.

What does shipment “visibility” really mean? Depends on where the shipment is. In discussions about optimizing supply chain management, the word “visibility” gets tossed around a lot. And it gains even more power when it’s modified by the phrase “end-to-end.” But what does the word really mean? And what kind of visibility do shippers actually want? Turns out the answer depends on the mode of transportation that’s carrying a shipment at any given moment.