As the world emerges from several years of doldrums, global trade continues to expand at ever increasing rates. By connecting the first stage of the supply chain anywhere in the world through to the final customer, integrated global logistics is changing the face of business everywhere.

The Fabulous Fifty Plus One are some of the exemplary people, institutions, places and things that are driving that change. From transportation to finance to ports to logistics to supply chain management to logistics academics, here's a sampling of leaders who are transforming world trade.

CHRISTOPHER LOFGREN
CEO, SCHNEIDER NATIONAL

Every industry has big shoes to fill. In trucking, Christopher Lofgren stepped into a pair of the largest several years ago when he replaced Donald J. Schneider as president and CEO of Schneider National, the nation's largest over-the-road carrier with annual revenue of about $3 billion.

Founded during the Depression year of 1935, Schneider has become one of the most recognizable names on the road. In part, this is because the company's signature bright orange fleet catches the eye; it's also because those trucks are so common with over 15,000 of them on the road.

During Don Schneider's long tenure, the company moved early and aggressively into information technology as a key to its success. In 1998, it equipped its trucks and drivers with a satellite-based communications system that allowed instant communication between driver and office and a global positioning system that gave each truck's location to within 300 feet. By 2000, half of Schneider's orders were coming in either over the Web or through its electronic data interchange system (within a half-hour of placing an order, the shipper is notified when it will arrive and the truck that will be carrying it).

Lofgren, who joined Schneider in 1994 as Vice President of Schneider Logistics, and then served as it Chief Information Officer and COO, runs a company that boasts 600 customer service representatives, all of whom train for at least four weeks before starting work. Computers provide each sales rep with pertinent customer histories, allowing them to answer customer questions en route. Schneider's pursuit of the advantages of IT continues with its Global Scheduling System, which is geared to finding the most economical match of drivers and load for the seven thousand assignments it processes each day.

THOMAS FRIEDMAN
FOREIGN AFFAIRS COLUMNIST, THE NEW YORK TIMES

Few have done more in articulating for a general audience the new global reality that is taking shape around us than this Pulitzer Prize winning author. Friedman's thought finds form in his regular New York Times column and current best-seller, The Lexus and the Olive Tree. The title comes from his quintessential 'globalism' experience on a single day when he watched robots assemble automobiles in Japan in the morning and that evening in the Middle East witnessed primal turf arguments of Israelis and Palestinians over land.

Friedman wanders the world-from global financial summits to the Brazilian rain forest to chats in Indonesian marketplaces with local entrepreneurs.

To Friedman, globalization is the compelling force in the modern world, 'the One Big Thing'...The integration of capital, technology, information and people moving across national boundaries is creating a single, largely market-driven world. Globalization is not just a phenomenon and not just a passing trend according to Friedman, but the emerging international system as old fashioned power politics gets supplanted by the imperatives of global capitalism.

One reviewer sums up Friedman's argument this way: "there is no longer a first, a second and a third world; there are just the Fast World and the Slow World. And his message to the Slow World is simple and a bit chilling: Speed up or become road kill."

KURT CAVANO
CHAIRMAIN & CEO, TRADECARD, INC.

Technology is pointing the way toward extraordinary advancements in world trade, with the Internet making possible the management in real-time of extraordinarily complex global logistics networks. Huge breakthroughs are in the offing, particularly for processes which involve what software engineers call 'multiple nodes' or points of contact. Trade finance is an area where this transformation will be particularly impressive, as is evidenced by the progress already being made by both major trade banks and a relatively new player, TradeCard, launched in the spring of 2000.

Without drilling down too deeply into details, TradeCard offers its clients an Internet platform that automates the financial processes in the procurement-to-payment process. Through partnership relationships established with key global players in banking, credit card, insurance, inspection and logistics, its network provides such 'one-stop' services as purchase order delivery, credit protection, electronic invoice presentment, vendor financing, automated purchase discount programs, payment decisioning, settlement and dispute management. All of this is integrated within a cash management system.

This is a supply-chain centric business in which all participants-buyers, sellers, importers, exporters, financial and trade service providers-have access to the web-based system without need of specialized hardware investments or alterations in pre-existing IT environments.

TradeCard is the creation of Chairman/CEO Kurt Cavano. Among the first generation of MBAs specializing in information technology, the Pennsylvania native spent two decades at American Management Systems helping guide global banking clients out of a "technological backwater reliant on 400-year old paper processes" and into the era of electronic credit processing prior to launching TradeCard with an initial focus in soft goods and retail.

How's it doing? The privately held company lists among its customers such major players as Staples, JC Penney, Linens n' Things, Warnaco, Hurley International, Wolverine Worldwide and Phillips Van Heusen. Revenue and transaction volume processed through the TradeCard platform increased some 200% last year and is increasing in 2004 at a monthly average of 10%. It currently employs 100 people from its New York headquarters and in offices located in Hong Kong, Taipei, Seoul, Tokyo, China and Brussels.

The outgoing, ebullient Cavano, 47, is something of a modern-day renaissance man. Widely traveled, a gourmet both in and out of the kitchen, he worked as a commercial lobsterman between college and graduate school and an investor in one of the only amethyst mines in the United States. Married to a journalist, he has two daughters (ages 12 and 8) and lives on the New Jersey shore.

And what does the future bode for TradeCard? Cavano doesn't suffer from an absence of ambition. "The ultimate vision is to make TradeCard a universal electronic platform on which millions of international business transactions would be conducted." In effect, the 'MasterCard' of business-to-business global trade.

NICHOLAS LAHOWCHIC
PRESIDENT & CEO, LIMITED LOGISTICS SERVICES

The Limited-the brainchild of Columbus, Ohio entrepreneur Leslie Wexner-remade the practice of retailing women's clothing. In fair measure, this was made possible by its expertise in supply chain management. Shoppers learned that The Limited's various outlets-Lane Bryant, Structure, and of course, Victoria's Secret-would have new fashions on the shelves faster, and that they could count on the stores to keep hot-selling items in stock.

The question for those who set the new standard for others to copy is 'how do you stay ahead of the crowd?' From a supply chain perspective, women's apparel is a tough field. Even experienced observers have a hard time forecasting next season's hot-selling item. And, as fashion cycles are getting shorter, the pressure on supply chain flexibility grows.

At The Limited, that task falls principally to Nicholas LaHowchic, head of Limited Logistics Services. LaHowchic came to the company from Becton Dickinson Supply Chain Services, part of the giant medical firm. Perhaps his initiatives don't count as brain surgery, but they're the stuff of success: tighter relations with suppliers, shifting EDI relationships to the Web, and paying attention to the entire business model.

More fundamentally, LaHowchic's approach suggests that to do its job properly, supply chains need to expand in scope. This means integrating the supply chain function across an organization. Decisions made throughout an organization will impact on how it moves its goods, and people making those decisions must have a sense of how the supply chain will be affected.

DR. SUPACHAI PANITCHPAKDI
DIRECTOR GENERAL, WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION

Dr. Supachai Panitchpakdi, the world's leading advocate for free trade knows what the U.S. has at stake. Addressing the sentiment of anti-globalism afoot in this country, he told a D.C. audience earlier this year that not only had the U.S. done more than any other country to create the world trading system, but also that never has it had more riding on the success of that system.

A native of Bangkok, Dr. Supachai served as Thailand's deputy finance minister and deputy prime minister before becoming head of the 146-member WTO in 2002. Currently, number one on his agenda is restarting the next stage of WTO talks, the Doha Round, which are stalled at an impasse over agricultural issues. "History shows that multilateralism offers the most powerful means of achieving deep and lasting trade liberalization," he observes. "Only through a balanced negotiation will countries achieve the cross-sectoral trade-offs that drive liberalization forward."

On the U.S. front, he points out that the rules-based trading protocols of the WTO have helped increase the global trade share of America from 10 percent in 1970 to 25 percent today. The number of U.S. jobs tied to trade has increased in the past decade from 7 million to 12 million. Moreover, trade goes further to help other American objectives such as fighting terrorism, reducing poverty, improving health standards, and bringing the rule of law to countries like China by way of the global economy.

When the United States took the lead after World War II in creating a multilateral trading system, Dr. Supachai stressed, it did so to prevent the world from withdrawing into hostile trading blocs. That need remains: "America must lead. The multilateral trading system is too important to fail. The world depends on it."

WILLIAM [GUS] PAGONIS
EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT OF LOGISTICS, SEARS

An army, Napoleon observes, marches on its stomach-it goes nowhere without its requisite supplies. Commander of support efforts during Desert Shield, Gen. William Pagonis gave a stunning demonstration of supply chain mastery, shifting 7 million tons of supplies to mobile and shifting recipients, "the flawless execution of the logistical portion of the Gulf War," for which he was promoted to the three star rank of Lieutenant General. Post-conflict, he moved on to Sears, where he oversees the systems the retailer depends on to make 5,000 home deliveries per day and move 250,000 truckloads of goods every year, across 30 large distribution centers and 90 smaller outlets that supply 100,000-plus products to more than 2,000 Sears stores.

SKY TEAM CARGO

In unity there is strength, and to provide strength in air cargo service, Aeromexcio, Air France, Alitalia, CSA Czech airlines, Delta, and Korean Air combined forces to create Sky Team Cargo, the first joint freight operation cargo alliance launched in September 2000. The model offers more extensive offerings to customers, savings on fuel and other purchases, with more than 1,200 aircraft and more than 8,000 daily flights in the network. Further integration of the effort continues, including the staged extension of electronic reservation services via Global Freight Exchange.

U.S. SENATE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE & TRANSPORTATION

Global trade is a rules-based world. Many of those rules emerge from the deliberations of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, whose broad jurisdiction includes interstate commerce, the Panama Canal, the merchant marine and much else. It's the Senators who get their pictures in the newspapers; it's the staff that does much of the work. At Commerce, that includes senior staffer David Wonnenberg and senior staff counsel Ken Nahigian. Senate Commerce Committee chair is John McCain, Rep.-Arizona, with South Carolina's Ernest Hollings as ranking Democrat. The U.S. House of Representatives has no exact parallel to the Senate Commerce. Many matters of interest to the supply chain field are handled by its Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, chaired by Republican Don Young of Alaska. Ranking Democrat is James Oberstar of Minnesota.

JACKSONVILLE PORT MARINE

When the Jacksonville Port Authority was established in 1963, its assets included a deteriorating wooden dock and what one writer termed "a rattlesnake infested spoil site." The development effort was backed by Florida's state legislature, which placed Jacksonville's public airports in the jurisdiction of the authority. With time, the port's natural strength, the pull of trade and a succession of strong leaders-including current chairman Marty Fiorentino, make Jaxport one of the East Coast's rising logistics powerhouses.

JOHNSON & JOHNSON HEALTH CHAIN SUPPLY

Students of supply chains put Johnson & Johnson near the head of the list. The company, with 2002 sales of $36.3 billion, is the world's largest and most comprehensive maker of health care products. J&J HCS manages supply chain activities for eight J&J businesses, handling over one million customer calls a year with over 99 percent accuracy and over 98 percent on-time delivery.

ROBERT C. BONNER
U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION COMMISSIONER

The post-9/11 world offered a contradiction: how to make U.S. borders impervious to terrorists yet welcoming to trade. Early on, that task seemed daunting-the day after 9/11, the wait to cross Ambassador Bridge from Canada into Detroit reached 12 hours. Clearly, Robert C. Bonner had a big job ahead. Through adoption of such steps as better international cooperation, advanced cargo information, improved targeting of inspections and greater personnel-on the border with Canada, for example, the number of guards increased from 1,600 to 2,900-these twin tasks became do-able. Port protection ranks high on the agenda of this Homeland Security chieftain these days.

EXPORT-IMPORT BANK

In 70 years, the Export-Import Bank of the United States has helped support over $400 billion in U.S. exports, through financing that eases the entry of America-made goods into foreign markets. Most of those goods were produced by small- and medium-sized American businesses that might lack the expertise to take their products to the world. Commonly, Ex-Im Bank provides technical support and assumes credit risks from which many private lenders might shy. Its range is extensive-since 1998, the bank has supported $1.2 billion in exports to opening markets in southeast Europe. Last December, it joined with the export credit agencies of 15 other nations to create $2 billion in support for the Trade Bank of Iraq.

SWITZERLAND

Switzerland is a place of limited natural resources. Centuries ago, its young men went abroad to fight as mercenaries, then brought back their pay: the money was used to found the nation's banks. Strength in banking, a strategic location and a reputation for efficiency combined to support Switzerland's strength in supply chain activities.

NYK LINE [NORTH AMERICA]

NYK Line is the North American operation of the over-a-century old Japanese shipping company, recently renamed NYK Logistics and Megacarrier. The new name reflects the growing importance of logistics services, which already account for one-fifth of the revenues of the company, and which owns or charters 782 vessels. Logistics is one expanding area, concern for the environment is a second. NYK was the first maritime transportation group to obtain ISO 14001 certification for its "green" operation. The effort includes use of low-sulfur fuel, increased use of double-hulled tankers and such practices as exchanging ballast water at sea, which reduces the risk of introducing non-native marine life into local waters.

ROB QUARTEL
CHAIRMAN, FREIGHTDESK TECHNOLOGIES

A nation endangered seeks to protect its borders. But in today's world, where do those borders lie? Testifying after 9/11, Quartel-a former member of the U.S. Federal Maritime Commission-argued that the nation create "virtual borders." Inspecting everything that arrives in America's ports would create an enormously expensive backlog. Instead, he argued, those ports should be the last, not the first line of defense by inspecting U.S.-bound ships before they sail from their overseas port. He currently heads FreightDesk, a Virginia firm that makes software to track cargo from warehouse through customs to ships and back through another nation's customs-something that is vital to security.

KAREN L. ALBER
VICE PRESIDENT, INTEGRATION, QUAKER OATS

One piece of supply chain logic is to get all your ducks in a row. Rows, however, sometimes cross-like in the 2001 merger of $5 billion Quaker Foods and $27 billion PepsiCo. The task, at merger, was to determine how to create an internal collaboration that supported external supply chain efficiency. With expertise in supply chain strategy, enterprise solutions, change management, performance measurement, process improvement, and supply chain synchronization, Alber led the effort from the side of Quaker Oats. She did her job so well that Consumer Goods Technology named Alber one of "The 25 Most Influential Executives" in the industry. One measure of success; Quaker's Canadian operation cut its inventory levels by 60 percent and paperwork by 77 percent.

EXPEDITORS INTERNATIONAL

At Expeditors International of Washington, 2003 sales jumped 14 percent, with over half its $2.6 billion in revenue coming from the growing Asia/Pacific region. At the same time, the Seattle-based firm was named one of the world's two top freight forwarders by the International Logistics Quality Institute. A freight forwarder middleman, its core business is purchasing air and seagoing space in bulk and then reselling that space to private shippers at rates the shippers could not obtain independently. The company intends to expand its operations in Eastern Europe and China.

FREYMILLER, INC.

Not all innovations are the work of the big boys. Recently, the Oklahoma-based trucking firm of Freymiller, Inc. deployed wireless connectivity to control on-the-road temperatures in its 200 refrigerated trucks. In the past, drivers had to arrive some hours before their departure times so that they could cool the trailers. Now, the refrigeration will be up and temperatures down when those drivers arrive-saving hours on each run.

APL

Shipping, an APL publication notes, began with ships. At APL, it also began with innovation. In 1867, the line first pitted steam against sail by introducing the first regular steamship service across the Pacific. Today, APL has both scope and range, with 450,000 containers in its service and a fleet of 80 container ships to transport those containers to 100 world markets. Thirty of those markets are in China, where APL has been doing business for over a century.

BERNARD J. LALONDE
OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY

A few years back, Bud LaLonde stood watching trucks backed up at the U.S.-Mexican border. For globalization to work, he thought, infrastructure must support it. For four decades, LaLonde-now an emeritus professor at Ohio State University-has been developing the theory and knowledge that makes supply chains run more smoothly. LaLonde and fellow professor James Ginter have built up Ohio State as a center for the study of transportation and logistics with books, articles and lectures on such subjects as "The Effect of New Information Technology on the Practice of Traffic Management." Regarded as one of the founding fathers of logistics study, the approach that LaLonde helped launch keeps trucks, and everything else, moving.

MIKE ESKEW
CHAIRMAN & CEO, UPS

Speaking earlier this year, UPS CEO Mike Eskew drew an analogy between the assembly line Henry Ford organized to boost auto industry efficiency and today's global supply chains. Modern supply chains, he said, "are really like long conveyor belts where workers in different countries contribute by doing specialized tasks faster, cheaper and more efficiently." Faster, cheaper, more efficiently have been bywords at UPS, which sorts and moves 1.6 million packages a day at its Chicago facility alone. A Purdue graduate who began his UPS career in 1972 as an industrial engineering manager in Indiana, Eskew cites five fundamental tasks, which an optimal integrated supply chain should be able to perform for a company: reach new markets; improve service; differentiate products; enhance focus on core competencies and improve cash cycles.

NORTHWEST AIRLINES CARGO

Northwest Airlines Cargo is the only U.S.-based passenger carrier to maintain a dedicated fleet of freighters-wide-body Boeing 747s that transport cargo to 250 cites worldwide. Northwest is known throughout the airline industry for excellence in turbulence forecasting and, forewarned, is able to make adjustments to deal with weather hazards that might otherwise cause schedule delays. Specializing in the Orient, more freighter service was recently added to service Osaka, Japan and Seoul, South Korea. Early this year, NWA Cargo joined KLM, United Airlines Cargo and Austrian Airlines Cargo in establishing an Internet-based Cargo Portal Services that eases booking arrangements with any of the airlines and allows shippers to follow their shipments seamlessly through transit on multiple airlines.

CONCORD/EVERGREEN CARGO INTERNATIONAL

In the past decade, India has gained attention for its startling economic transformation. Less noted are the success stories of Bangladesh, its next door neighbor. Another example is Concord Cargo International/Evergreen Cargo Liner, which is gaining a reputation in air and sea freighting characterized by the resourcefulness of one company statement: "We handle crises for a living, every day."

HEWLETT PACKARD

By general manufacturing standards, Hewlett Packard has unusually rapid shifts in its product mix. That makes supply chain management at HP a more than usual important task. The company responded with an end-to-end supply chain management system that ties together all internal organizations, its vendors, intermediaries and customers. In doing so, the company learned how the implementation of critical standard technologies could boost the ROI on supply chain investments.

DAVID T. LAWSON
PRESIDENT, MODALGISTICS

Modalgistics might sound like an outpost in Siberia. Actually, it's the supply chain services group created by Norfolk Southern Railway to provide a broad selection of modal and distribution services to the railway customers. It's an example of a trend-companies that move things for a living have started selling their expertise in moving to others. Norfolk Southern operates 21,800 miles of track in 22 states and Ontario, with 174 rail transfer points. A current target is heavy-equipment movers with shippers such as John Deere, Caterpillar, Case New Holland, and others moving excavators, bulldozers, combines, tractors and cotton-pickers from Midwestern manufacturing plants for export to Bosnia, Romania, Turkmenistan, and Iraq to assist in rebuilding efforts.

DONALD J. BOWERSOX
UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR, THE ELI BROAD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT AT MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY

This Michigan State University hands-on thinker has written, alone or with others, a dozen books on supply chain management, transportation, sales forecasting and other subjects related to successful business management. Characteristically, they combine a top down view of the field with rock solid perspectives on how individual firms can improve their performance. Fans of Bowersox' books, like Logistical Management: The Integrated Supply Chain Process and Dynamic Simulation of Physical Distribution Systems, praise them from all over the world as equally valuable to students and managers.

BANK OF THE WEST

Nothing moves unless the money moves with it. As foreign trade expands and accelerates, investors require a wider range of expertise. Bank of the West handles tasks such as assessing foreign business opportunities, risk assessment and international business and trade issues. The bank also employs over 100 bilingual relationship specialists assigned to the Pacific Rim alone.

THE NETHERLANDS

Location, location and unmatched experience help the Netherlands retain its standing as the preferred shipping point for companies moving their goods into the European continent. At present, 170 million people live within a single day's transit of Rotterdam, a figure even larger than that living so near the most geographically favored U.S. distribution point, Columbus, Ohio. That and the nation's centuries of experience as a port of call help keep it Europe's port to call on.

PFIZER

Pharmaceutical companies invest heavily in research. Pfizer, for example, which employs 12,000 scientists, spends $5 billion a year on research. Compared to that outlay, the costs of supply chain inefficiencies might seem slight. Pfizer thought otherwise, focusing attention on supply chain management for new products. One early example was Viagra. Pfizer got the first shipments of the drug through distributors and into the hands of retailers in ten days-half the industry average. More recently, the company has shifted its emphasis from supply-to-order to supply chain replenishment, expecting that to boost both service levels and inventory turnover.

KEN ACKERMAN
SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT

Everything is somewhere, and in today's world that somewhere often is a warehouse. No one has written more incisively on how to manage that warehouse than Ken Ackerman, founder of the Warehousing Education and Research Council, a past president of the Council of Logistics Management, and editor of Warehousing Forum. The publication takes the long view-a recent issue carried a piece on warehousing performance standards for the year 2050. Challenges lay closer at hand. The vast increase in truck traffic is resulting in congestion that cuts the wages of drivers paid by the mile, and adds uncertainty in delivery. Ackerman's possible solutions: move some cargo from truck to rail; ship fuller loads, or-if someone has the money available-build segregated highways just for trucks.

NIPPON EXPRESS

Nippon Express is not only one of the world's largest air freight forwarder, it's also among the best according to ratings of the International Logistics Quality Institute. This well-established Japanese firm opened its first subsidiary office in the United States in 1962. Its basic message is simple: "The inherent value of items cannot be realized until they are transported to the places where they are needed."

RICHARD PHILLIPS
CHIEF EXECUTIVE, PILOT AIR FREIGHT

In 1993, Pilot Air Freight teetered on the brink of bankruptcy. Its chief counsel, Richard Phillips, argued against filing. Phillips was one-time chief counsel to major league baseball's umpires and didn't think it was time to call the game. The company refinanced, Phillips became its chief, and a decade later it is more than back in play. Revenues of the Lima, Pennsylvania-based forwarder have grown from $73 million to 1994 to $250 million last year. And, Pilot has diversified. To its base of heavyweight commercial freight-business-to-business pickup and delivery-it has added a home delivery service and established a ground transportation network.

THE PORT OF LONG BEACH

The Long Beach Harbor Commission recently gave the 'thumbs up' to further study how to electrically power ships at berth to reduce diesel emissions. The practice of 'cold-ironing,' or electrically powering ships at dock, is just one of the steps the port is taking to clean up its act. Efforts to reduce truck congestion and promote the use of alternative fuels are already underway at the port.

DHL

DHL's got moxie. Entering into the U.S. express delivery sector, which is dominated by FedEx and UPS, means there's not much market share left for the newcomer. But, DHL is undaunted. Although the company has about 6 percent of the market, compared to FedEx and UPS' combined 75 percent, executives say DHL's U.S. operations should begin turning a profit in 2005. "We will not make as much profit as the other two companies," said Deutsche Post Board Chairman Klaus Zumwinkel in an interview, "but we will make a decent return."

THE PORT OF SINGAPORE

For the 16th time in 18 years, Singapore was this May named the "best seaport in Asia" in the Asian Freight & Supply Chain Awards. Indeed, the award represented one of Singapore's strongest showings yet-90 percent of shipmasters surveyed expressed high satisfaction with the port, up from 83 percent a year earlier. Singapore is not resting on its laurels. In April, it formed a maritime R&D advisory board, a joint academic and industry panel, in the belief that research and development efforts are key to Singapore's long-term well being as a port. Throughput continues to grow: the 18,410,500 containers that moved through Singapore in 2003 established a new record.

ROB RITCHIE
PRESIDENT & CEO, CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY

When Rob Ritchie, head of Canadian Pacific, was named 'Person of the Year' at Canada's June 2004 National Transportation Week dinner, he issued a challenge to freight carriers and governments alike to upgrade Canada's transportation infrastructure, which he argued was not keeping pace with the demands of expanding commerce. Ritchie took his view beyond Canada and called for a North America-wide transportation summit. Such modernization, Ritchie assures his audiences, will insure that "we are ready for the economic growth that is bound to come and to reap the benefits."

Ritchie speaks with some authority, given Canadian Pacific's success in recent years. The line, which operates 14,000 miles of track, has developed a web of 23 modern intermodal terminals and recently won-for the fourth consecutive year-Chrysler's Gold Award for exemplary services.

VIRGINIA PORT AUTHORITY

Favorably located plunk in the middle of the Atlantic Coast and boasting its best natural deepwater port, Virginia is claiming a larger role as the place to move goods to, from and through. Virginia has the best natural deepwater harbor on the U.S. East Coast with fifty-foot-deep, unobstructed channels providing easy access and maneuvering room for the largest container ships. The Virginia Port Authority operates four general cargo terminals in Norfolk, Portsmouth, Newport News, and inland, at Front Royal. With six direct-service trains departing for 28 major cities each day and 50 truck firms offering freight moving and consolidated services, Virginia offers easy access to two-thirds of the U.S. population.

ROADWAY EXPRESS

Founded in 1930, Roadway Express grew to become the leading transporter of less-than-truckload loads throughout North America. In 2002, its 26,000 drivers-a number of whom are featured in the firm's engaging Web site-moved an aggregate of 7 million tons of goods a total of nearly half a billion miles in lots that average two-thirds of a ton and travel 1,300 miles. Roadway also has specialized offerings like a service specifically for exhibitors, offering 24-hour access to company tradeshow specialists and delivering their cargoes with virtually 100 percent on-time performance.

THE HUB GROUP

Founded in 1971, the Hub Group has grown to become one of the nation's leading freight forwarders, arranging freight transportation throughout North America. With corporate offices in Downers Grove, Illinois-close to Chicago's rail web-and 20 additional offices located near railheads, Hub has achieved sales of $1.3 billion a year. Rail transit is a specialty. Indeed, Hub is the top revenue producing intermodal provider for each of the U.S. Class I railroads.

ABBOTT LABORATORIES

There are mistakes, and then there are life threatening mistakes, which is what happens when pharmaceutical delivery breaks down. Medication errors continue to be a serious patient safety issue facing the health care industry today. Abbott believes that "building world class supply chains...starts with the code." Until recently, technology wasn't up to the task of shrinking bar codes down to the unit-of-use level, but Abbott has completed an initiative to affix bar codes to all of its hospital injectable pharmaceuticals and IV solutions. Now comes bar-coded pills.

P&O NEDLLOYD

P&O Nedlloyd is the world's fourth largest provider of container shipping services, with a nominal capacity of 416,732 TEUs on its 154 container ships. It supports that core business with logistics services, ranging from freight management to full supply chain management. Through various identities, P&O Nedlloyd traces its history back to 1837, when the Peninsular Steam Navigation Company was formed to carry mail between England, Portugal and Spain. Today, its fleet sails into 229 ports in 94 countries and continues to enlarge-later this year, the company will accept delivery on eight additional 8,100-TEU vessels, for use on the transpacific and Europe-to-Asia sea lanes. To meet demand in the fast growing Russian market, P&O Nedlloyd will to open its own office in St. Petersburg in September.

FRED SMITH
FOUNDER & CEO, FEDEX

Five million times a day, FedEx delivers something to someone. Company founder and CEO Fred Smith has a word for those things: he calls them "inventory in motion." Thirty years ago he launched FedEx on a breakthrough idea that revolutionized logistics. Smith decided that a spoke-and-hub network, akin to that of a bank clearinghouse, could be adapted to shipping. It proved to be 100 times more efficient than a point-to-point network. Of late, FedEx is stepping up the pace on extending its tracking data to help customers use that information to extend inventory control-to redirect, say, products to more favorable markets while those products are "in the air." Smith told one interviewer, "The ability to manage inventory in motion gives people the opportunity to manage their business processes in a way that's never been seen before."

RAM MENEM
SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, EMIRATES SKYCARGO

By late 2005, Emirates SkyCargo will implement what it bills as "the world's most advanced" IT system. Senior VP Ram Menem says: "The New Generation Cargo System will give us and its users direct and firm control over logistics, processes and costs, while providing an advanced tool that manages and boosts productivity and profitability." One feature allows all parties in the supply chain to communicate with each other in real time about a shipment, in effect, establishing a secure business chat room for each consignment. The system will also use bar-coding and embedded chip technology to track and verify shipments and their locations in real time as well as permit necessary commercial documentation to be created electronically.

OOCL

Hats off to Orient Overseas Container Line for adding more capacity on the eastbound Asia-U.S. trade lane. In March, the huge 8,063-TEU OOCL Hamburg made her maiden voyage from Yantian, China to Long Beach, California. China accounts for over 60 percent of all imports to the U.S., and estimates are that the cargo volume in the eastbound Pacific trade lane will grow between 8 and 10 percent this year. Later this year, COSCO and China Shipping Container line will also introduce the new generation 8,000-TEU container ships.

OLD DOMINION

Born in Richmond, Virginia in 1934, Old Dominion Freight Line with corporate headquarters in Thomasville, North Carolina has become a major inter-regional carrier, providing services to 40 U.S. states and generating revenue of $667 million a year. In May of this year, Old Dominion announced the inauguration of the OD Solutions Center, where trained specialists will provide shippers with real time solutions on everything from rate estimates and transit times to worldwide LCL /FCL, documentation and logistics consulting.

BILL ZOLLARS
CEO, YELLOW CORPORATION

Numbers are the lifeblood of modern business. When Bill Zollars got to Yellow in 1996, the most remarkable number was 40 percent-that's the share of Yellow's deliveries that customers thought turned up late, incomplete or damaged. Adoption of advanced data management techniques and stubborn attacks on the corporate culture led the charge that changed that. When Yellow determined that customers valued reliability above simple price-competitiveness, it implemented programs like Exact Express, which achieved a 98 percent on-time delivery rate. Today, the $2.6 billion Overland Park, Kansas-based company has 13,000 trucks on the road.

ROBERT B. ZOELLICK
U.S. TRADE REPRESENTATIVE

In its dealings overseas, American enterprise wants "a level playing field"-or, perhaps, just a tad better than level. Making sure that happens is the job of U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, the country's chief trade negotiator and advisor on trade policy. With combined American imports and exports nearing $2 trillion a year, it's a task whose importance keeps growing. He brings high-level Washington experience to the job. In the first Bush administration, he served as James Baker's Under Secretary of State for Economic and Agricultural affairs. Folks on all sides of the political spectrum give Zoellick high grades for his performance as Trade Rep and his efforts to restart the currently stalled round of WTO negotiations.

WAL-MART

Wal-Mart's rise to its current position as the world's largest corporation-$245 billion in annual sales-is a story with many strands. Near the core is the expertise the company has developed in supply chain operation. Indeed, with Wal-Mart, the term "supplier" is almost a misnomer. Rather, the Arkansas-based giant works to boost the efficiency of those from whom it purchases until they become "revenue and margin drivers" for Wal-Mart itself. Wal-Mart's thinking not only helps its own continued growth, but prompts its suppliers to better their own supply chain practices with other customers.

GEORGE GECOWETS
COUNCIL FOR LOGISTICS MANAGEMENT

Every institution, the philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, is the lengthened shadow of one man. In the case of the Council of Logistics Management, that one man has been George Gecowets. Earlier this year, Gecowets stepped down from the top post at the organization, which he had directed since 1970. In those years, CLM built itself into an organization of 14,000 members, who came to view CLM as a byword for raising the expertise of the logistics industry. Gecowets is succeeded in office by Maria A. McIntyre.

PORT OF CHICAGO

Poet Carl Sandburg once described Chicago as "stacker of wheat, player with railroads and the nation's freight handler." Throw electronic components and high grade consumer goods into the mix and the description still stands: the inland port of Chicago is the nation's busiest single transshipment point, with 27 major intermodal yards. The reasons have not greatly changed. The city still draws in a spider's web of rail lines to its location at the base of Lake Michigan, and tosses in O'Hare, the nation's busiest airport. Combined, they bring just about everything through Chicago.

CP SHIPS

With its executive management team now restructured under newly appointed CEO Frank Halliwell, CP Ships recently reported its strongest first quarter profit since going public in 2001. This venerable shipping conglomerate, whose Canadian origins trace back to the 19th century tea trade, has become an industry leader by keeping its fleet of 89 ships focused on providing container service to four key regional markets. Its comprehensive offerings include door-to-door as well as port-to-port delivery.