supply-chain
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Symbotic knows where the box goes.
The clever part of Symbotic’s warehouse robots is what happens after the warehouse. Every mixed pallet is a plan for the store at the other end.
AAR’s next big move starts on the ground
AAR built a business around the unglamorous work that keeps aircraft flying. Now it is buying more hangar capacity, adding software, and walking away from revenue that ties up too much cash.
Campbell’s big idea: leave the water out.
A lighter soup can helped build a pantry business. A costly detour into fresh food, a $2.7 billion sauce deal, and a new round of cuts show how hard that simple idea is to repeat.
Henry Schein sells the stuff. Then it runs the office.
A box of gloves gets Henry Schein through the door. Software, service, and a working knowledge of the dental chair give it reasons to stay.
Boeing’s future is built one bolt at a time.
Boeing can design an airplane that crosses an ocean. Its harder assignment is making sure every ordinary step on the factory floor happens exactly as it should.
Advance Auto Parts has a smaller-store theory
The parts retailer spent decades getting bigger. Now its comeback depends on a more demanding trick: putting the right part closer to the person who needs it.
Albertsons Companies: The neighborhood store is a national machine
Safeway, Vons, Jewel-Osco. Different signs, one grocery business. After a $24.6 billion merger fell apart, Albertsons must make the machinery behind the neighborhood store work harder.
CSX. Think inside the tunnel.
A freight railroad can span 20,000 miles and still be held back by a few inches. CSX’s Baltimore tunnel shows how a network earns its keep - and what happens when efficiency outruns service.
PriceSmart: The business of buying less
Fewer choices. Bigger packs. A reason to renew. PriceSmart took the warehouse club south - and built a business around the discipline of leaving things out.
J.B. Hunt took the train.
A trucking company found a better way to cross America: let the railroad do the long haul. The business it built around that decision now reaches from freight terminals to the living room.
Norfolk Southern and the price of a handoff
A freight railroad makes its money connecting things. Norfolk Southern’s next chapter turns on what happens between them: a container transfer, a warning signal, and an $85 billion merger still under review.
The billion-dollar business beneath your feet
Core & Main turns pipes, valves and local know-how into a $7.6 billion business. Its real product is getting the right parts to the people who cannot afford to wait.
Fastenal sells the part. And saves the trip.
A failed vending-machine idea became a business built around getting closer. Fastenal’s real product is the distance between needing something and having it.
Avnet makes the missing pieces fit
A working prototype is only the beginning. Avnet built a business around everything that has to happen before an electronic idea can ship by the thousand.
Sysco owns the road to dinner.
The restaurant gets the applause. Sysco supplies the ingredients, the equipment, and the delivery. Its next bet is a $29.1 billion deal for the moment a kitchen runs short.
Coca-Cola Consolidated makes the last mile count
A familiar label gets the attention. Coca-Cola Consolidated does the expensive, intricate work of making sure the drink is there when you reach for it.
GXO Logistics makes the boring bits work.
Behind the brands you recognize is a company paid to make millions of small decisions go right. GXO’s warehouse floor offers a practical test of what robots, software and outsourcing are actually worth.
International Paper thinks inside the box
After buying DS Smith, International Paper is redrawing its own boundaries. The humble shipping box explains both the ambition and the awkward economics behind the change.
Stanley Black & Decker is learning what to leave out.
The company behind DEWALT and CRAFTSMAN built a vast tool business. After a $6.6 billion inventory pileup, its next chapter depends on making that business simpler - and its tools more useful.
Watsco sells the minutes back
A broken air conditioner creates a race against the clock. Watsco built a distribution business around helping the contractor win it - then put software in the contractor’s pocket.
Foxconn makes AI a factory job
The company behind the iPhone is putting its manufacturing machine to work on AI servers. Its real product has always been the ability to make something complicated, again and again.
Honeywell Aerospace and the price of a missing part
Its systems help aircraft fly, navigate and stay out of trouble. Now the newly independent supplier must solve a problem closer to the ground: getting every last part out the door.
Core-Mark knows what belongs on the shelf.
The company behind thousands of convenience-store deliveries has a second business: helping retailers decide what deserves the next inch of space.
KFC: The secret is bigger than the recipe
Eleven herbs and spices made KFC recognizable. A network of local operators made it global. The trouble starts when the promise on the bucket outruns the system behind it.
Union Pacific and the art of the handoff
A freight train earns its keep by moving. Union Pacific’s next big bet is that removing the pauses between railroads can make the whole supply chain work better.
Performance Food Group: $67.8 billion, delivered.
Behind the restaurant meal, the convenience-store snack and the movie-night candy is a business of small margins and very large coordination. Performance Food Group makes its money getting the ordinary things right.
QXO’s $30 billion bet on the last mile
Brad Jacobs bought his way into roofing, lumber, and insulation. Now QXO has to make those businesses work better together, one contractor and one delivery at a time.
Wesco makes the cloud a little more physical.
Behind every server rack is a less glamorous problem: getting power, parts and people into place. Wesco has spent a century learning how to solve it.
HD Supply sells the part. The real product is time.
A missing repair part can hold an entire property hostage. HD Supply built its business around getting maintenance teams what they need before a small problem becomes an expensive one.
FedEx made the detour the point.
An overnight delivery promise turned Memphis into a meeting place for packages. Now FedEx is testing how much the information traveling with them is worth.