Mitch Mac Donald has more than 30 years of experience in both the newspaper and magazine businesses. He has covered the logistics and supply chain fields since 1988. Twice named one of the Top 10 Business Journalists in the U.S., he has served in a multitude of editorial and publishing roles. The leading force behind the launch of Supply Chain Management Review, he was that brand's founding publisher and editorial director from 1997 to 2000. Additionally, he has served as news editor, chief editor, publisher and editorial director of Logistics Management, as well as publisher of Modern Materials Handling. Mitch is also the president and CEO of Agile Business Media, LLC, the parent company of DC VELOCITY and CSCMP's Supply Chain Quarterly.
John Janson’s career journey in logistics began almost 40 years ago, although he didn’t know it at the time. It was 1983, and he had just graduated from college with a degree in communications. While he was hoping to land a job in his field, it wasn’t in the cards. The job market was the tightest it had been in the post-war era, with unemployment in the high single digits. So when he was offered a job in sales by a local trucking firm, Janson accepted it.
That job started him down a path that included stops at a number of major motor carriers before he crossed the fence to work as a shipper—in this case, managing logistics for an Idaho-based tech startup called Micron PC. From there, he went on to manage logistics operations at companies that included MWI Animal Health/AmerisourceBergen, Bodybuilding.com, and now apparel wholesaler SanMar, where he serves as head of global logistics.
Although somewhat unusual, that career trajectory has provided Janson with a number of benefits. For starters, the fence-hopping has given him the perspective of both a buyer and a seller of logistics services. More importantly, perhaps, it has allowed him to cultivate the strong business generalist skill set that’s so often the hallmark of successful logistics and supply chain professionals.
Janson spoke recently with DC Velocity Group Editorial Director Mitch Mac Donald about his long, strange career trip; the “Amazonization” of supply chain; and what the future holds for logistics.
Q: Tell us about SanMar and your role there as head of logistics operations.
A: SanMar is a privately held company based in Seattle, Washington. We are the nation’s largest wholesale distributor of apparel to the “imprinting”—meaning custom printing and embroidering—industry. Essentially, we sell the blank canvas that is then decorated by one of our 75,000 customers in the U.S. and sold as uniforms or “fan wear.” I always tell people that SanMar is probably the largest small company you’ve never heard of and that I can almost guarantee you have some of our products hanging in your closet. If you have something from makers like Port Authority, Sport-Tek, Port & Co., Red House, and so forth, you have something from SanMar.
It’s always interesting to see where our products end up. We recently had that chance when the 49ers pulled on their championship gear after winning the National Football Conference (NFC) Championship Game in January. Those hats and shirts were provided by [the online sportswear retailer] Fanatics, and we provided the blank canvas for Fanatics, meaning that we actually delivered the T-shirts and baseball caps that went to the NFC champions. That’s the more flashy side of the business.
To support the business from the logistics side, we source materials for manufacturing from 22 different countries around the world. We have 10 domestic DCs, so we can basically provide the product to most of our customers within a one-, or at most, two-day transit time. It is a pretty complex operation for a little T-shirt company.
Q: What are your team’s responsibilities?
A: I have a 20-person team. We are responsible for managing all of the global logistics activities at SanMar. We are responsible for getting product from manufacturing sites in 22 countries through our cross-dock operations and all of our distribution points, and then delivering it to our end-of-the-line customers.
Q: Tell us about your career journey. How did you come to hold your current position?
A: Back when I graduated from college, it wasn’t like today—where people are actually going and getting degrees in supply chain and logistics, and targeting this industry for its career opportunities. I graduated from Boise State University in 1983, and the job market was kind of tough at the time. I got hired by a truckload carrier that was based out of Idaho. They offered me a job in sales, even though I distinctly remember telling them that I had never sold a thing in my life and I knew nothing about trucking.
I went from there to Consolidated Freightways and Yellow Freight, and from Yellow Freight, I crossed the fence to go to work for one of my customers. Once I landed on this side of the fence, I really never looked back.
The position was with a startup operation in Boise called Micron PC. We were a direct-to-consumer personal computer company. Over the course of seven years, we went from a startup to a retail company with $3.2 billion in sales. I advanced in that time from a traffic manager to the vice president of supply chain. My time there probably provided me with a better education in logistics than I could ever have gotten in school. It was a fast-growth ride and then an educational ride down. [Micron Technology’s PC division was spun off and acquired by Gores Technology Group in 2001.] Although the ride down was nowhere near as much fun as the ride up, it taught me a tremendous amount that I carried forward into my other positions.
Three years ago, I went to work with SanMar, leading the whole global logistics scene, which is the coolest opportunity I’ve ever had in my life.
Q: So you’ve experienced the logistics game from both sides now, and it seems you’ve developed a very strong generalist business skill set along the way. You really have to understand the business as well as the logistics to support it, right?
A: It is, and it’s funny. People are always asking what my degree was in. I got a degree in communications and that has served me well, because communication is truly what we’re doing. It is about building these strategic relationships. It is about servicing our internal customers and our external customers. And that communication background has been invaluable in leading a global logistics team.
Q: You’ve been in the field long enough to have seen logistics and supply chain management’s star rise, as it went from a back-office function to one that now has a seat in the boardroom. What do you think is driving that trend?
A: I think that is a great question. We just concluded a series of webinars with NASSTRAC on getting your seat at the table, and I do think that companies now get it—that they understand the importance of the logistics arm. I think what more companies have realized is that it really does come down to getting the right product to the right place at the right time and then on to the customer.
Certainly, part of it is what you might call the “Amazonization” of supply chain. What that’s done is to re-set the expectations of the end-user, so that if you’re not focusing on logistics and supply chain, then you’re just not going to survive as a company.
Q: Let’s shift gears and talk about what’s happening in the field from a macro perspective. What are some of the biggest challenges logistics practitioners face in 2020?
A: I think one of them would be customers’ escalating delivery expectations. Today, anything longer than two days is just not fast enough. If they can’t order something in the late afternoon or early evening and have it in two days, they’re not a satisfied customer. So that’s our challenge both now and going forward: How are we going to constantly improve that delivery service to our customer?
I think the other major challenge is the geopolitical turmoil. Businesses operate best in a stable environment, not the kind of volatile times we face right now. Take the tariff disputes with China, for example. As trade tensions have escalated, we’ve moved some of our manufacturing out of China to countries like Myanmar, Pakistan, Cambodia, and Vietnam. While that might solve the short-term problem, it introduces complications in the front end of the process—like the need to find the right logistics service partners in new countries. Everything has gotten a little more difficult.
Q: How important is technology in meeting today’s challenges?
A: I’d say it’s critically important—particularly with respect to visibility. One of the things customers always want to know is when their package will arrive. Likewise, my team here wants to know when an inbound ocean container is going to get here. Technology can provide that kind of crucial information.
Q: We’ve talked a lot about what has changed—emerging technologies, shifting consumer expectations, geopolitical dynamics—over the past 20 years. What hasn’t changed?
A: I think one of the fundamentals that we’ve built our organization on is that strategic relationships matter. If you’re able to develop very strong long-term relationships with your service providers, the strength of those relationships will help you during good times and carry you through bad times.
For example, I think the reason SanMar was relatively unaffected by the 2018 trucking capacity crunch was that we had built long-term relationships with our service providers, and they knew we were in it for the long haul. That’s not to say we didn’t blow up our budget, because we did. However, we did come through it pretty much unscathed, largely because we made a conscious effort to become a shipper of choice.
As for how that went down, we decided early on that this driver shortage was a real deal and would only get worse, so we began working to make sure carriers would see us as a driver-friendly company—one that doesn’t waste drivers’ time when they show up at our facility. They can just drop off a trailer, pick up an empty or pick up a load, and get back out on the road.
Another part of that is letting our carriers know that we’re going to be a good steward of their assets—that we’re not using their trailers for short-term storage and that we’re looking to get those assets back into their hands as quickly as possible so they can continue to do business. I think those kinds of efforts really make us somebody people want to do business with.
Q: It’s time for you to dust off the crystal ball that I know you keep on your desk. What is the next big thing? What is on the horizon that’s going to profoundly change the way we approach logistics?
A: I think one is going to be the continuing escalation of customer expectations and the “I need it now” mentality. I remember sitting on a panel several years ago when the subject of same-day delivery came up. I remember thinking, “Why? Who would ever need something the same day?” And now, we’re talking about two-hour deliveries. I think the immediacy of “I want it now” is going to continue to drive this industry. I think that will certainly be one of the game-changers.
Another is going to be the complications that come with globalization. The planet feels much smaller today than it did 20 years ago—especially for a company like ours that now manufactures in a lot of far-away places. That will put pressure on the logistics side to drive costs out of the supply chain and move merchandise faster.
I think both of those challenges are with us for the long haul—not to mention shorter-term disruptions like the truck capacity shortage or IMO 2020 [the maritime industry’s costly new anti-pollution regulations], which are cropping up with increasing frequency. So you’ve got to be nimble, you’ve got to be flexible, and you’ve got to be ready to adapt to a changing environment. If you can’t adapt, you’re just not going to survive.
The way that shippers and carriers classify loads of less than truckload (LTL) freight to determine delivery rates is set to change in 2025 for the first time in decades, introducing a new approach that is designed to support more standardized practices.
But the transition may take some time. Businesses throughout the logistics sector will be affected by the transition, since the NMFC is a critical tool for setting prices that is used daily by transportation providers, trucking fleets, third party logistics providers (3PLs), and freight brokers.
For example, the current system creates 18 classes of freight that are identified by numbers from 50 to 500, according to a blog post by Nolan Transportation Group (NTG). Lower classed freight costs less to ship, ranging from basic goods that fit on a standard shrink-wrapped 4X4 pallet (class 50) up to highly valuable or delicate items such as bags of gold dust or boxes of ping pong balls (class 500).
In the future, that system will be streamlined by four new features, NMFTA said:
standardized density scale for LTL freight with no handling, stowability, and liability issues,
unique identifiers for freight with special handling, stowability, or liability needs,
condensed and modernized commodity listings, and
improved usability of the ClassIT classification tool.
The new changes look to simplify the classification by grouping similar articles together and assigning most classes based solely on density – the most measurable of the four characteristics, he said. Exceptions will be handled separately, adding one or more of the three remaining characteristics in cases where density alone is not adequate to determine an accurate class.
When the updates roll out in 2025, many shippers will see shifts in the LTL prices they pay to move loads, because the way their freight is classified – and subsequently billed – might change. To cope with those changes, he said it’s important for shippers to review their pricing agreements and be prepared for these adjustments, while carriers should prepare to manage customer relationships through the transition.
“This shift is a big deal for the LTL industry, and it’s going to require a lot of work upfront,” Davis said. “But ultimately, simplifying the classification system should help reduce friction between shippers and carriers. We want to make the process as straightforward as possible, eliminate unnecessary disputes, and make the system more intuitive for everyone. It’s a change that’s long overdue, and while there might be challenges in the short term, I believe it will benefit the industry in the long run.
Business leaders in the manufacturing and transportation sectors will increasingly turn to technology in 2025 to adapt to developments in a tricky economic environment, according to a report from Forrester.
That approach is needed because companies in asset-intensive industries like manufacturing and transportation quickly feel the pain when energy prices rise, raw materials are harder to access, or borrowing money for capital projects becomes more expensive, according to researcher Paul Miller, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester.
And all of those conditions arose in 2024, forcing leaders to focus even more than usual on managing costs and improving efficiency. Forrester’s latest forecast doesn’t anticipate any dramatic improvement in the global macroeconomic situation in 2025, but it does anticipate several ways that companies will adapt.
For 2025, Forrester predicts that:
over 25% of big last-mile service and delivery fleets in Europe will be electric. Across the continent, parcel delivery firms, utility companies, and local governments operating large fleets of small vans over relatively short distances see electrification as an opportunity to manage costs while lowering carbon emissions.
less than 5% of the robots entering factories and warehouses will walk. While industry coverage often focuses on two-legged robots, Forrester says the compelling use cases for those legs are less common — or obvious — than supporters suggest. The report says that those robots have a wow factor, but they may not have the best form factor for addressing industry’s dull, dirty, and dangerous tasks.
carmakers will make significant cuts to their digital divisions, admitting defeat after the industry invested billions of dollars in recent years to build the capability to design the connected and digital features installed in modern vehicles. Instead, the future of mobility will be underpinned by ecosystems of various technology providers, not necessarily reliant on the same large automaker that made the car itself.
Regular online readers of DC Velocity and Supply Chain Xchange have probably noticed something new during the past few weeks. Our team has been working for months to produce shiny new websites that allow you to find the supply chain news and stories you need more easily.
It is always good for a media brand to undergo a refresh every once in a while. We certainly are not alone in retooling our websites; most of you likely go through that rather complex process every few years. But this was more than just your average refresh. We did it to take advantage of the most recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI).
Most of the AI work will take place behind the scenes. We will not, for instance, use AI to generate our stories. Those will still be written by our award-winning editorial team (I realize I’m biased, but I believe them to be the best in the business). Instead, we will be applying AI to things like graphics, search functions, and prioritizing relevant stories to make it easier for you to find the information you need along with related content.
We have also redesigned the websites’ layouts to make it quick and easy to find articles on specific topics. For example, content on DC Velocity’s new site is divided into five categories: material handling, robotics, transportation, technology, and supply chain services. We also offer a robust video section, including case histories, webcasts, and executive interviews, plus our weekly podcasts.
Over on the Supply Chain Xchange site, we have organized articles into categories that align with the traditional five phases of supply chain management: plan, procure, produce, move, and store. Plus, we added a “tech” category just to round it off. You can also find links to our videos, newsletters, podcasts, webcasts, blogs, and much more on the site.
Our mobile-app users will also notice some enhancements. An increasing number of you are receiving your daily supply chain news on your phones and tablets, so we have revamped our sites for optimal performance on those devices. For instance, you’ll find that related stories will appear right after the article you’re reading in case you want to delve further into the topic.
However you view us, you will find snappier headlines, more graphics and illustrations, and sites that are easier to navigate.
I would personally like to thank our management, IT department, and editors for their work in making this transition a reality. In our more than 20 years as a media company, this is our largest expansion into digital yet.
We hope you enjoy the experience.
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In this chart, the red and green bars represent Trucking Conditions Index for 2024. The blue line represents the Trucking Conditions Index for 2023. The index shows that while business conditions for trucking companies improved in August of 2024 versus July of 2024, they are still overall negative.
FTR’s Trucking Conditions Index improved in August to -1.39 from the reading of -5.59 in July. The Bloomington, Indiana-based firm forecasts that its TCI readings will remain mostly negative-to-neutral through the beginning of 2025.
“Trucking is en route to more favorable conditions next year, but the road remains bumpy as both freight volume and capacity utilization are still soft, keeping rates weak. Our forecasts continue to show the truck freight market starting to favor carriers modestly before the second quarter of next year,” Avery Vise, FTR’s vice president of trucking, said in a release.
The TCI tracks the changes representing five major conditions in the U.S. truck market: freight volumes, freight rates, fleet capacity, fuel prices, and financing costs. Combined into a single index, a positive score represents good, optimistic conditions, and a negative score shows the opposite.
A coalition of truckers is applauding the latest round of $30 million in federal funding to address what they call a “national truck parking crisis,” created when drivers face an imperative to pull over and stop when they cap out their hours of service, yet can seldom find a safe spot for their vehicle.
According to the White House, a total of 44 projects were selected in this round of funding, including projects that improve safety, mobility, and economic competitiveness, constructing major bridges, expanding port capacity, and redesigning interchanges. The money is the latest in a series of large infrastructure investments that have included nearly $12.8 billion in funding through the INFRA and Mega programs for 140 projects across 42 states, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. The money funds: 35 bridge projects, 18 port projects, 20 rail projects, and 85 highway improvement projects.
In a statement, the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) said the federal funds would make a big difference in driver safety and transportation networks.
"Lack of safe truck parking has been a top concern of truckers for decades and as a truck driver, I can tell you firsthand that when truckers don’t have a safe place to park, we are put in a no-win situation. We must either continue to drive while fatigued or out of legal driving time, or park in an undesignated and unsafe location like the side of the road or abandoned lot,” OOIDA President Todd Spencer said in a release. “It forces truck drivers to make a choice between safety and following federal Hours-of-Service rules. OOIDA and the 150,000 small business truckers we represent thank Secretary Buttigieg and the Department for their increased focus on resolving an issue that has plagued our industry for decades.”