AdBlue: Important to the Environment and to the EU’s Supply Chain

AdBlue is a diesel exhaust fluid used in vehicles with Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) technology to reduce harmful gases being released into the atmosphere. AdBlue is a 32,5 % solution of high-purity, synthetically manufactured urea in de-mineralized water. It is a safe-to-use fluid¹ (to know more about AdBlue visit the following link: How does the Adblue SCR DEF system work?).

AdBlue by Yara: Keeping the wheels turning

The availability of AdBlue, a crucial additive used in millions of trucks across the EU, has become a growing concern for the logistics industry. AdBlue is essential for meeting EU emission standards by reducing nitrogen-oxide emissions from diesel truck exhaust. Without AdBlue, vehicles are programmed to come to a halt after a short distance. However, Russia’s natural gas squeeze is spiking the price³ of AdBlue, raising fears of potential shortages.

The significance of lorries in transporting goods throughout Europe cannot be understated. According to Raluca Marian from the International Road Transport Union (IRU), three-quarters of all goods in the EU are transported by lorries. If AdBlue supplies were to deplete, half of the bloc’s 6.2 million heavy-duty vehicles would be unable to function² properly, resulting in empty supermarket shelves within days and breakdowns of essential services reliant on ambulances and fire engines².

The shortage of AdBlue can be traced back to the halt in production by SKW Stickstoffwerke Piesteritz, a German chemicals company, due to exorbitant gas prices. This disruption, combined with constrained supply and higher costs faced by the remaining major producers basf of Germany and Yara of Norway, has caused the price of AdBlue to skyrocket. The price per liter has increased from 17 cents in August 2021 to €1.20², causing significant financial burdens for haulage firms and additional annual costs of up to €500,000² for companies with a few hundred lorries.

Mrs. Marian wants the European Commission to recognise AdBlue as an “essential product without which logistics chains would stop”². She suggests monitoring the availability of AdBlue on an EU-wide scale and creating official reserves. Although these proposals may seem ambitious, the shortage of AdBlue could potentially alleviate as gas-price controls and government schemes to mitigate the energy crisis come into effect in the EU.

1. What is AdBlue® | How does AdBlue® work?  | Yara International. (2022, August 23). Yara None. https://www.yara.com/industrial-nitrogen/adblue/
2. The Economist. (2022, November 10). A series of shortages threatens EU supply chains. The Economist. https://www.economist.com/business/2022/11/10/a-series-of-shortages-threatens-eu-supply-chains?utm_content=article-link-5&etear=nl_today_5&utm_campaign=a.the-economist-today&utm_medium=email.internal-newsletter.np&utm_source=salesforce-marketing-cloud&utm_term=11/14/2022&utm_id=1388750
3. Cokelaere, H. (2022, October 8). Russia’s war threatens EU trucks with running out of puff. POLITICO. https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-war-ukraine-truck-natural-gas-adblue/#:~:text=Natural%20gas%20shortages%20are%20boosting,by%20many%20diesel%2Dpowered%20trucks.&text=Voiced%20by%20artificial%20intelligence.
4. GarageTech. (2018, January 21). How does the Adblue SCR DEF system work? Explained Diesel Exhaust Fluid Selective Catalyst Reduction [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzqOXVLyfEc
5. Yara International. (2020, July 8). AdBlue by Yara: Keeping the wheels turning [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haGiJsL-OPM
6. GarageTech. (2018b, January 21). How does the Adblue SCR DEF system work? Explained Diesel Exhaust Fluid Selective Catalyst Reduction [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzqOXVLyfEc

Would you teach your kids about logistics? Writing a children’s book about the Incoterms®

The other day I was thinking on different ideas to write about and one of the subjects that came to me was Incoterms®, which are a set of 11 individual rules issued by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) which define the responsibilities of sellers and buyers for the sale of goods in international transactions. Of primary importance is that each Incoterms rule clarifies the tasks, costs, and risks to be borne by buyers and sellers in these transactions (International Trade Organization – ITA).

I thought that this description made by the ITA has quite an interesting set of words, but what if we were to describe or talk about the Incoterms® to people who are not familiar with world trade, international commerce or anything of the sort? What if we were to explain these rules in simple words to maybe teenagers or young children? Which brought me to think on how would I explain this topic to my two year old son? (not that he would ask or even care about it at this point in his young life, but what if I wanted to talk to him about it and introduce him, at a young age to the world of logistics? So here is my humble attempt to do precisely that:

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Teddy Bear wants to sell his Toys

Would you teach your kids about logistics? Writing a children’s book about the Incoterms®

Scroll right to see the sequence. It is recommended to select the full screen view for a better experience.

International Trade Administration (ITA). (n.d.). Know Your Incoterms: An Overview of Incoterms® 2020. International Trade Administration | Trade.gov. https://www.trade.gov/know-your-incoterms#:~:text=Incoterms%2C%20widely%2Dused%20terms%20of,clearance%2C%20and%20other%20logistical%20activities.

Images created with the assistance of: DALL·E. (n.d.-b). https://labs.openai.com/

A Crazy Day in the Life of Randolph: Juggling Work, Family, and Leg Hair Emergencies

Randolph wakes up every day at 5:00 am, he has to run, because he has to get ready for work, help his wife with his daughter to get her to the nursery and and have breakfast to get out from home at 7:00 am. If he leaves anytime later he’ll be late for work.

He hops on his motorcycle and rides for about an hour to the warehouse where he works, literally in a different city. He doesn’t want to be late or he’ll be scolded. Finally he gets there, and he’s the first to arrive, but fortunately for him, he has been given a great responsibility, the keys to the warehouse.

He enters, disables the alarm, turns on all the lights and goes to his desk. Once he turns on his computer he notices he has about 200 new emails, nothing shocking, that’s almost every day. He starts reading. Most of the emails are repeating themselves, the same subject from different senders. He has to filter them and read them as fast as possible. Not reading an email could mean missing an important message that could generate a revolution within the company.

After going through all the messages he realizes that two important packages did not leave the warehouse the day before, so he gets nervous and starts calling the commercial department to try to find out how important these were, and how can they do to mitigate the client’s wrath. The messages came to his inbox after the afternoon’s cut at 3:00 pm, time after which the afternoon’s orders are processed, packaged and handed to the transport company. There are two cuts scheduled for each day, one in the morning, at 11:00 am and the one in the afternoon. It is supposed that any order that comes to the warehouse after the afternoon’s cut is not to be processed until the next day, but sales people are as they are.

It happens that both packages are REALLY important! If these do not arrive on time there are a few patients that will not be able to depilate their legs! What will their friends think of them when they show off their swimming suits on their trip to the beach?! Randolph has to run!!! He calls the transport company and asks them to please come by earlier so that the packages can be put on the next plane to the capital. They deny his request, they cannot disturb their schedule just because of a client’s mistake. Randolph thinks of another idea, he calls a friend who owns a motorcycle and offers to pay him to pick up the packages and take them to the transport company’s office in the airport. There they will be able to process the package and, with luck, get it on today’s plane.

The friend agrees, for a fee of course, and takes the packages to the airport where he delivers them to the transport company. If everything goes as planned the packages will arrive at the customers’ venues the next day by noon. Now Randolph can breathe better, but it is now 11:45 am, he missed the morning’s cut so he hurries. It seems he will not have time for lunch today, again. 

Once he finishes readying the packages from the morning cut he continues to read the messages. By now he has 200 more. He spends the afternoon reading these messages and tending to the requests in each one of these: 

“A package did not arrive on time, call the transport company to pressure them to deliver”; “The goods that arrive yesterday need to be gotten into the system so we can invoice them”;

“Why haven’t the goods been registered into the system?”;

“Please let us know how many units are there of X product”;

“Why is the warehouse disorganized and dirty?”; etc.

As soon as he finishes replying to all these requests, by email, by phone, or both, he realizes it is time to process the afternoon orders, and goes ahead to do so. Today is a busy day and there are a lot of orders to process. He even has to ask the transport company to wait for him to finish readying all the packages. But he finishes, and finally, he can dedicate some time to other activities like: cleaning the warehouse, taking out the trash, doing an inventory of the consumables, etc. He is supposed to leave at 6:00 pm, but he leaves almost at 8:00 pm. Not the first time and he knows it will not be the last. But he leaves knowing he left nothing undone.

The first thing he does on the next day is to check the status of the important packages he had to deal with the previous morning. Both seem to be underway. By 10:00 am one of the packages had already been delivered. By noon the second package had not been delivered yet. At 2:00 pm, he receives a call from one of the assistants in the commercial department asking about the package that had not been delivered! The Commercial Assistant also sends an email, and he gets one from the Sales Manager as well. He starts calling the transport company, that package has to arrive, somebody’s leg hair depends on it!!

Based on a true story.

Revolutionizing Global Trade and Logistics with Starlink

The increase in global trade and logistics that humanity has seen in recent years is making the exchange of goods and services more and more frequent and complex. One of the most demanding tasks that the logistics industry faces nowadays is the ability to reliable and efficient communication networks throughout vast distances, which is even more challenging in inaccessible locations. Starlink, the world’s first and largest satellite constellation (Starlink) plays here a crucial role with its internet service provided through SpaceX satellites (listen here to the role it is having in the Ukrainian military effort).

Starlink’s objective is to make the internet available, even in the most unreachable areas, providing a fast-speed connection with low latency (low level of interruptions) in every country where Starlink service is available across the globe (Starlink). A mega-constellation of satellites (Babbage, 2023) dispersed through the planet’s orbit help accomplish this goal, allowing the internet connection to reach all corners of the Earth. This has significant implications for global trade and logistics, as it could potentially revolutionize the way these industries operate.

Terrestrial communication networks have their limits in range and capacity. Something Starlink could help with is reducing how much we rely on those. Businesses would be able to access the internet, on reliable connections, from the most out-of-reach locations. This would allow faster and more efficient communications between all actors in the supply chain (suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, etc), allowing to decrease lead times, which would in turn, translate into efficiency and cost savings.

Another of Starlink’s benefits is that it could contribute on incrementing safety and security in global trade. By allowing an easier way of monitoring and tracking the flow of products and services and contributing on decreasing the risks of theft or loss. High-value goods or sensitive materials, that require careful handling and monitoring, could see the most benefit in this.

New technologies don’t often come unaccompanied of risks and challenges. The cost of the service would be one of them, especially for small businesses or for those operating in less developed countries with less resources. Another concern revolves around data privacy and security, especially when classified or sensitive information is shared.

In general, global trade and logistics could benefit greatly from Starlink. Companies have now the inherent power to change the way they handle their operations whilst adding to the safety and efficiency of their supply chains. It will be interesting to see how this technology unfolds and how businesses are able to assimilate it in the years to come.

• Babbage: How Elon Musk’s satellites could change warfare forever | Babbage from The Economist. (2023, January 11). https://shows.acast.com/e421d786-ec36-4148-aa99-7a3b2928a779/63bee6c72327eb0010cf4ec1
• Starlink. (n.d.). Starlink. https://www.starlink.com/technology
• SpaceX. (n.d.). SpaceX. https://www.spacex.com/

Logistics as a Crucial Factor in the Success of Large-Scale Events: Lessons from Barranquilla’s Carnival

In order to ensure the success of massive events it is crucial to rely on Logistics. The Barranquilla Carnival attracts thousands of tourist from within and outside the country which requires a huge amount of work, coordination and planning. Numerous meetings have to be held between different entities and companies to coordinate the necessary devices that ensure the safety and comfort of the people who every year visit the event.

To guarantee success the logistics devices that must be taken into account range from ambulances and medical services, to cleaning and sanitation services and security personnel. Even the installation of fences and barriers to control the flow of people in different areas of the event must be planned to avoid overcrowding and accidents. And there also needs to be a contingency plan for emergency situations.

One of the most important venues in Barranquilla’s Carnival is the “Cumbiódromo”, a place that is built in one of the main traffic corridors of the city and that is witness to the most important parades during these four days of celebration. Structures are built along this street’s path that will hold more than 25,000 people who year to year flow to watch the parades. For this to happen several things must be taken into account such as: 

• Building (and unbuilding) process: which takes place 11 days before the event and involves more than 300 people working 24/7.
• Traffic signals: to inform drivers of the streets and sectors that are closed to traffic and temporary changes in flow direction.
• Implementation of “Pico y Placa”: measure to ensure that only vehicles with certain plate numbers are allowed in areas with diminished capacity due to the events.
• Police overview: to ensure the safety of the people who enjoy the festivities.
• Participation of Health Authorities: to make sure that there is an adequate response to any emergencies that may present.

An event cannot be organized without involving logistics, especially those events that attract large crowds of people. It is key to plan and coordinate with different actors to ensure the success of the event and the satisfaction of the people who attend. Logistics is not only concerned about the physical aspects of event organization, communication and teamwork also have to be taken into account to ensure a positive result.

Logistics is crucial for the organization of massive events and their success, as well as the satisfaction and safety of the event’s attendants. A good job handling the logistics to organize the envent will ensure that more and more people visit every year.

Based on the article: Listos los dispositivos logísticos para los eventos de Carnaval by Luis Cantillo Lastre, El Heraldo.

https://www.elheraldo.co/barranquilla/listos-los-dispositivos-logisticos-para-los-eventos-de-carnaval-328179