Category Operations

Subscribing to the Blog

If you like what you read, you can now subscribe to the blog newsletter and follow on twitter.  I will collate interesting pieces roughly every few weeks. I respect your privacy. The subscription list is (and will always remain) private.

UPS struggles with scaling Automation

Here is an interesting article from the Wall Street Journal about the struggles of scaling Automation at UPS.  (An interesting tidbit: UPS says about half its packages are processed through automated facilities today. At FedEx, 96% of ground packages move through automated…

Thanksgiving and Black Friday Sales

Happy Thanksgiving, dear readers! In the modern consumer mythology, Thanksgiving – a uniquely American celebration – is a day for Turkey and Football, usually starring the underwhelming Cowboys who coincide with the decline of the NFL.   But, all traditions are…

Amazon HQ 2.5

It increasingly appears that Amazon has chosen to split its second headquarters between Long Island City, NY and Crystal City, Northern VA — essentially locating a large portion of their upper management closer to the political and cosmopolitan classes (DC…

Scaling Tesla Production

In the last Tesla post on Musk fans and naysayers, I had expressed cautious optimism about Tesla’s Model 3 production growth. There are some legitimate concerns about the process management within the Tesla Fremont plant. Much of the production planning problems…

Spectacles: The Landscape has Changed

Spectacles are back again. Earlier this year on this blog, I wrote about Snap’s disastrous over-commitment into Spectacles inventories, and subsequent difficulties in selling the items, as thousands of inventories piled up.   I argued that their sales figures were…