Manufacturing remains a booming industry. In fact, there are the same number of Americans working in manufacturing in 2019 as there were in the industrial heyday of the late ’40s. However, the industry is changing faster now than in perhaps any time period since the Industrial Revolution. As manufacturing becomes increasingly high-tech, it’s clear that tomorrow’s manufacturing worker will need to come ready to work with a new toolbox.

For the first time in over a month the Morgan Stanley Truckload Freight Index (TLFI) increased and showed signs of life.

LeanCor's corporate headquarters and Logistics Control Center is located in the state of Kentucky. Horses are deeply associated with the "Bluegrass State," as they are raised, trained and raced throughout the land. There are lots of well-known idioms and metaphors that come from working with horses. One such phrase is "chomping at the bit (also known as “champing at the bit”).  This is usually used to describe a situation in which a subject - whether horse or human - is so eager to begin something that their energy can become impatient or anxious during the wait.

What we have found at LeanCor is that team members, more than ever, are quickly chomping at the bit to learn new skills, grow professionally and advance their careers.  

Have you ever heard a word and realized that you didn’t really know what it meant? As in, you heard it over and over but couldn’t nail down its use to a specific, enduring definition? One of these words for me early on in my corporate services role was employee engagement.  I understood what the word “employee” meant.  I understood what “engagement” meant. But when I put them together, I didn’t feel that I grasped the meaning as well as I should.

The state of California passed a law, starting on January 1, 2020, that will prevent truck owner/operators from leasing on or contracting with another trucking company as an independent contractor. Doing so, would impose significant liabilities on the companies that contract with owner-operators.

Where do you see yourself in two years, and do you see a path to get there? 

This was one of the open-ended questions in a December 2015 team member survey. One response that came back stood out to us:

“Do not know. The path is very cloudy. Pulled in many directions…”

We deemed this response as indicative of missing a strong, developmental approach for performance management. There was no structured format for guiding team members along their career at our company.

“Its employees were leaving in droves, as many as 50 to 70 percent each year.” In his book, The Culture Code, Daniel Coyle tells the story of a call center that was facing major issues with employee retention.

To deal with this phenomenon, the call center ran some experiments to improve retention that included injecting a new, personalized approach into its day-one training. What they found through this experiment was that an individualized onboarding program drastically improved retention by fostering a heightened sense of safety and belonging for new employees.

First impressions are everything.

We opened our doors as a tour site this spring for the 2019 Shingo Conference for Operational Excellence. Conference attendees dispersed throughout our office and spoke to team members about purpose, people, and process. While we always have room for continuous improvement, we're proud to report the positive feedback!

LeanCor Supply Chain Group has once again been named a Great Supply Chain Partner!

"For seventeen years running, SupplyChainBrain has published the much-anticipated list of 100 Great Supply Chain Partners — a select group of companies whose customers recognize them for providing outstanding solutions and services.

"The freight market has been soft for almost a year, and in our view, slid into freight recession in the first half of 2019. The U.S. trucking industry faces a supply and demand imbalance – excess equipment capacity and not enough freight – which continues to press rates lower" (DAT).

The first half of 2019 could be described as a "shipper's paradise and a carrier's nightmare." Here's our take on some transportation market trends we're seeing from our Logistics Control Center -- and what to expect going forward.