(light cheery music) - Welcome to InFocus.
I'm Jennifer Fuller.
Pandemic living has changed how we work and do business, to be sure.
In this episode, we're exploring how the supply chain economy has an impact on everything we do.
To start, we head to Nashville, Illinois, where Producer, Mark St. George learned more about the logistics of the supply chain.
(low dramatic music) - [Mark] In pre-pandemic times, things seemed to be very fluid in the supply chain.
Just in time inventories are working.
Manufacturers were making enough product.
Consumers were purchasing enough product.
Logistics was tight because things were consistent.
During the pandemic, all that changed.
- I'm Andy Kirchner, President, CEO of NOTS Logistics.
(low dramatic music) For an 18 month period of time, it's been a scramble in the supply chain, as is evidenced by the country's and the global's impact is seeing right now on supply chains.
Demands are still high, productivity isn't where it needs to be yet, inventory levels are very low, and we've created a dynamic here that will take a considerable amount of time to compare it to a pre-pandemic type arrangement.
The one thing that was learned throughout that maybe not have been quite as focused on in pre pandemic, and then was brought to height in the pandemic, and now coming out of it, in post-pandemic, is that supply chain's everything.
The world does not run without a very effective supply chain, or it runs, bumps, and it has bruises, and it has problems, and it has disruptions.
The thing that makes the supply chain work forward, move forward here positively, is consistency, is alignment, is strategic partnerships.
It's understanding the needs of consumers, understanding the needs of manufacturers, and being a bridge that goes between the two, from the manufacturer to the consumer, at the end of the day.
The new normal is going to, it still hasn't been invented.
It still hasn't been completely described and defined.
It's going to have a green mentality.
It's going to have a strategic partnership mentality.
It's going to have a mentality, that's going to understand that inventories, while tight right now, have to be built again.
You have to have product to be able to ship like that.
And consumers are gonna have to say, if they want all these things.
When you want something and you want it bad enough, it comes at a higher cost.
So hence, a lot of the costs of getting goods and services moved, or the end product, is gonna cost more.
Manufacturers is gonna cost more to make them, It's gonna cost more to transport them, and fill the supply chain.
It's gonna cost more to the consumer, but that may be the new norm moving forward.
As we try to move forward in the next step, and the next level of what the post-pandemic supply chain is going to look like.
I go back to strategic alliances.
You have alliances with shippers and manufacturers.
So when they have lulls, you hadn't planned for that, you communicate effectively, use technology to measure these things.
You're in constant communication, rather than, you know, the assumptive factor that this is how it's gonna continue to be.
Their forecasting, you're forecasting, that the tightness and scrutiny of using measurable data has to be placed in front of you, so you can understand how, what these trend lines and patterns are gonna be with manufacturing, and disruptions along the lines right there.
So then you can reallocate assets, or reallocate staff, or move them to someplace else, that needs to be done.
It's more of a just-in-time mentality, what to do with your assets, and your productive revenue producing things, rather than the consistency, what they would normally do.
There are many factors contributing to some of this diverse disruptions that still can assist in a supply chain.
From our perspective, some of the things we're challenged with, you can say that there's challenges with having enough CDL-equipped drivers, to get things from point A to point B.
There's been a CDL truck driver shortage for over 20 years.
And beyond that, even where there's gonna continue to be a shortage in that industry.
It's very dynamic.
It's very challenging, it's very litigious.
It's very overreaching on law enforcement, and things that are being done.
However, it will still need to be done.
The old saying, if you got it, a truck brought, it still exists.
Okay, it has to come from somewhere.
(soft mellow music) The supply chain is driven, not just by technology, or by hard assets, being trucks, and trailers, and warehouses, and boats, and trains, and anything like that.
It's driven by people.
At the end of the day, somebody has to do the work, and people do the work.
So the many individuals and the high percentage of people that are employed in a supply chain are very valuable assets moving this forward.
That includes a green mentality, or the perception of a green mentality.
And how does that integrate into today's supply chain from packaging, to transportation needs, to storage needs, to labor management, to whatever it may be, and how industrial power trucks run, and the whole nine yards.
It's a huge change in culture, and a huge change in mentality.
(soft mellow music) Do I continue to operate where someone is used to getting something same day, when they walk in the store, and they see an entire shelf of toilet paper, or will we still, are people willing to say, well, the shelves are only half full.
I have less choices, and I have to wait.
If I have to wait three days for them to be stocked, I'm willing to wait three days for them to be stocked.
If consumer demand continues to be for toilet paper, automobiles that have chips in them, whatever it may be, says, "I like to have it right now."
Well, that comes at a cost, and manufacturers will produce more goods, and more inventories will be kept.
And resellers of product to end will have more inventory to sell.
If we become a different society than we were in the pre-pandemic times that says, We want it, we want it now.
We don't wanna wait for it.
We wanna order it, we want to here overnight.
We want it done and taken care of like that.
That only comes with inventories that are in place, and a supply chain that's willing to be able to move the product from point A to point B in a timely manner.
Is that gonna be the new norm?
That is the biggest question there is out there.
Will people start carrying more inventories now that the supply chain is evidencing, that without inventories in place, people are doing without?
(soft mellow music) - We all remember last year's shortages of things like toilet paper, hand sanitizer, masks, and more.
Well some inventory has been restocked.
Benjy Jeffords reports the global supply chain disruption is still causing headaches.
- The pandemic forced people to work from home, and our kids began remote learning next to them.
Remote workers started upgrading their devices, which led to an increase in demand for laptops, phones, Bluetooth accessories, and other electronic devices.
All those devices require semiconductors to operate, because they function as the brains for electronics.
SIU's Associate Professor of Operations Management, Greg DeYoung says, "The automotive industry is having a tough time producing vehicles because of the global semiconductor shortage."
- Unfortunately, what happened really, and started this, was during the initial shutdowns for COVID.
The auto manufacturers stopped production, and canceled a lot of their orders for semiconducting chips.
And so the chip manufacturers had to stop manufacturing those chips for awhile.
- [Benjy] The canceled orders were quickly replaced with orders for semiconductors for other electronic devices.
DeYoung says it can take up to seven months to make semiconductors from start to finish.
- So once they got busy again in the semiconducting chip industry, then they couldn't catch up because suddenly the orders all came back, and there was no way to catch back up.
- [Benjy] WaterMark Ford and Hyundai Sales Manager Jesse Edwards says pre COVID-19, they usually have more than 200 new cars in stock, but now.
- We're running anywhere between 10 and 20% of that.
Lately, we've had somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 to 35 new cars at any given time.
- [Benjy] Edward says with lower inventory, the manufacturers are rethinking how they produce vehicles, and what options they're making available.
- The more equipment that you want, kind of bigger struggle there is there, I guess you could say.
But at the same time, the manufacturers are being smart in analyzing customer demand.
So they're not building us a lot full of cars that people don't want.
They're focusing on, you know, what has a fast turn?
What is selling quickly?
What the market's actually asking for, and so they're pouring their resources into that.
- [Benjy] While the automotive industry waits for the supply chain to deliver products, car shoppers are waiting, as well.
- Once upon a time, it was eight to 10 weeks.
We've been seen three to six months.
There are some constraints with materials other than chips, even though chips are the main focus.
- [Benjy] DeYoung says multiple industries have taken notice during this global shortage and changed their approach to selling products.
- We are also doing the same thing Apple's doing, which is moving towards their higher profit margin products.
So you'll see a lot better supply of SUV's, then you'll see of a small cheap cars, because that's where the money is right now.
But they're really, they're leaving features out of cars because they don't have the chips to support them now.
- [Benjy] The semiconductor industry has had its own problems to deal with.
And Edwards says, that has had a big impact on the supply chain.
- The plants where these chips are produced, have fallen victim to COVID outbreaks for further shutdowns, fire damage, some produced in Texas, and snow storms wipe those out for a little while.
- [Benjy] DeYoung says the impact was huge because of the number of manufacturers around the world.
- You know, it's one of those things where the industry has been kind of consolidating for a while, and we haven't really noticed.
And so suddenly we woke up one day, and we said, wow, there's only one American manufacturer that makes chips, that's Intel.
And there's only a couple in the whole world now, where there used to be dozens of chip manufacturers.
There's been a lot of consolidations.
- [Benjy] Analysts are predicting the supply chain should catch up within the next two years.
For InFocus, I'm Benjy Jeffords.
- Agriculture relies on the same market forces and efficiency measures that can spell the difference between success and failure.
Mark McDonald visited a dairy farm near Carthage where investments in technology have transformed the business model.
- [Mark] You may have already been aware that robots have been milking cows for some time, but at the Udder Hill Dairy near Carthage, technology has completely transformed their operation.
- So this collar right here, hangs on the cow's neck, and this computer chip right here, actually records all the information on that cow.
It's basically like a Fitbit.
It tracks her- activity every day.
- A Fitbit.
(chuckles) - It tracks her movements.
It has a number on here that corresponds with the robot to keep all the information, to make sure that cow's amount of milk production goes back to this cow's number.
So this little computer chip right here is very vital to each cow.
It has a number that's very specific to each cow.
It's recorded in the computer.
And that's how everybody kind of talks to each other, as far as the cows talks to the robot.
- And it not only tracks the amount of milk, like you said, but it tracks everything about that cow.
Like it knows its temperature.
It knows how much it's had to eat.
It knows, it actually knows when it's ready to breed too, right?
- Yeah, yeah.
So like I said, as far as the activity, we call it the activity monitor, it tracks the activity.
And when this cow, and when she becomes in heat, and is ready for insemination, her activity will go up 20, 30, 50%.
So her activity has gone way up.
Actually the robot will move a gate, and actually direct this cow to what we call our management panels.
It also records what we call her rumination, or how many minutes a day she eats, specifically.
So this sets on a muscle on her neck, and every time she takes a bite, chews her cud, it's gonna record those minutes.
- [Mark] (chuckles) Oh wow.
- The herd average is about 500 minutes a day is how long our cows eat.
- [Mark] To maximize efficiency, the Huls grow all the grain for their herd right there on the farm.
- My brother and I, and family, we farm and own our own land.
So we are all self-sufficient on the corn and the wheat side.
And then we also use a nutrient management plan to re-fertilize, to help grow them products also.
- Yeah, and you know, we were talking about this Fitbit, like this collar that the cows wear, and I know Sid said this, but I still find it unbelievable.
It's recording every time a cow takes a chew, right?
- Yes, it is.
- So that's how you know how much they're eating, and whether they're eating the right amount for them.
- That's exactly right.
Because that consistency of that feeding goes back to here.
And those rumination minutes, is what we call those, that are kind of forecasting the milk production for the herd.
And the rumination minutes are telling us how good a job we're doing processing and providing the feed to, 'cause the cows ultimately give us the answer every time.
- [Mark] The information from the cows determines how the feed will be mixed.
- Inside what we call the feed mixer is two drums, that kind of resemble a washing machine drum.
And it sits there and turns that feed.
So as we're adding the corn silage, we have a computer program that determines, hey, we need to feed this amount of corn silage today.
We need to feed this many pounds of wheatlage today.
This many pounds of mineral, this many pounds of protein supplement.
Our nutritionalist helps us put it all together.
And then we bring it down.
We mix it all together in what we call the feed mixer, and then we deliver that to the cow.
That's roughly 18 to 20,000 pounds per day.
- That big bin, that's one day's worth?
Is that one day's worth of feed?
- [Sid] That's one day's worth of feed, yep.
- [Mark] (laughing) Wow, what an operation.
The goal of course, is to produce as much milk as possible.
It's refrigerated and picked up every morning.
- [Sid] These storage tanks right here, actually go through the wall, and are on the exterior too.
So the milk is collected from the cow.
It's pumped up here, put in the storage tank, and it's immediately cooled down to 41 degrees to keep anything, bacteria from growing or anything.
Just the same as your refrigerator.
- [Mark] How many gallons are we talking about here?
- [Sid] So the milk hauler comes every day, usually seven o'clock in the morning.
And he's usually right on the dot.
And he is going to pick up from 16 to 1700 gallons a day, from us.
- [Mark] Wow, every day.
- [Sid] every day.
- [Mark] That makes you a big producer, doesn't it?
- [Sid] Well, we are actually just average.
- [Mark] Really?
That seems like an awful lot.
What's this tank for?
- So this tank is what we call our buffer tank.
So since the robots work 24 hours a day, the milk hauler has to quit adding milk, if he's gonna collect it, right?
- Right.
- So he, the milk hauler will divert the milk, instead of the storage tank, he'll divert it into a buffer tank.
It'll stay in there while he collects the milk, while the tanks do an internal cleaning.
Once everything's done, it will divert the milk from the buffer tank into the cooling tank.
- Okay, so there's a period of time between the time he empties these out, and they automated, the robots, or the system cleans them out.
Then you can reintroduce the milk again when they're done.
- [Sid] Yup, the milk hauler starts the process.
He takes the milk, he'll start the cleaning process.
So then the computer takes over.
It controls the cleaning cycles of everything.
Once it knows the tanks are clean, it diverts the milk here into the clean, fresh storage tanks.
- [Mark] The software and tracking technology provide a personal profile for each of the 180 cows.
- Over here, we have the number of visits a day.
- [Mark] Oh, that's to the robot.
- That's to the robot.
So, we have just right under 500 visits today, and that's in all three machines.
- [Mark] Now you can also bring up that same kind, depth of information on each cow in the herd, right?
- [Sid] Yup, yup.
So if I wanna go over here, I can pull up this in any individual cow, and I'm gonna pick this cow right here.
So this page right here gives a whole overview of this cow.
So I could go on all these tabs, and it would give any information I want about that cow.
But I'm gonna click on this one.
- [Mark] Okay, and that is called the activity graph.
- [Sid] This is the activity graph.
So I was talking earlier about how that, you know, collar, or the computer chip is tracking her activity, her rumination, and all this stuff.
So there's a lot of information in this graph.
Here we go.
So as you can see in this graph, the dark blue line, that is her activity.
So that you can see every time that she got up to go eat, every time she laid down and chewed her cud, right.
And as we can see right here, something happened.
Something went way off the chart.
That cow came into heat.
So actually inseminated her the day after, and she became pregnant off that.
- [Mark] Oh, okay.
So that, when that spikes like that, did you know that she had gone into heat?
- [Sid] We did not visually see that, but the robot picked it out.
- [Mark] So that means she's getting frisky, I guess right?
- [Sid] Oh yeah, she's just chasing the other cows around and she's feeling good.
- [Mark] Okay, and that's when you know to inseminate Her, and bang, go, it worked, didn't it?
- [Sid] Yep, the computer knew, that the computer picked it out, that she needed to be inseminated.
It actually moved that cow.
- [Mark] About five years ago, the Hul's made a sizable investment in new technology.
No complaints here.
InFocus, in Carthage, I'm Mark MacDonald.
- The transmission of information and entertainment from point A to point B has evolved over the ages.
There's a world of performers, radio stations, even gear, that has shaped the history of music, and it's all connected to Illinois.
Julie Staley gives us this look and a listen.
- This exhibit at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum isn't just history you can see, it's history you can hear.
("Blue Collar Man") It might not be the same music Abraham Lincoln listened to, but music like this has a true place in history at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum.
This is a one of a kind exhibit, highlighting the best achievements and contributions to music from the land of Lincoln, called The State of Sound.
- Illinois has a remarkably rich musical history.
("Ridin' the Storm Out") In the history of American music, Illinois has a special place, and so the exhibit tries to reflect that by highlighting the different genres of music.
- [Julie] Miles Davis was born in Alton, raised in East St. Louis.
His signature red Martin Trumpet was made in Chicago.
The king of swing, Benny Goodman was born in Chicago.
His family owns only two of his clarinets.
One of them is on display here.
- The history of the music from Illinois is varied and deep.
And I think part of it you could say is that, you know, Illinois was one of those landing spaces and Chicago in particular, for the great migration.
So an argument could be made that popular music in general, the music from the south, whether it be jazz or blues, landed in the Northern part of our state, and was then sort of electrified, and commercialized, and brought to the world.
And it spurred music that is still resonating today.
- There's a lot of musical stories from Illinois, that really illustrate how central Illinois is to the history of American music, and really world music.
- [Julie] A forefather of rock and roll, Howlin Wolf, kept a gun wherever he went.
His gun license predates the current FOID card.
It's on display right next to his prized harmonica.
- One of the better examples is in the early 20th century, during the great migration, when large numbers of African Americans left the south, trying to find better economic opportunities in cities.
And so you get these guys like Muddy Waters, and Howlin Wolf, and Mahalia Jackson, and Gospel.
And through these recording studios in Chicago, that music is able to spread not just throughout America, but all over the world.
♪ Whoo ♪ ♪ Yeah ♪ The best example, to show their influences, a lot of these albums make their way across the Atlantic.
And, you know, Chuck Berry records his albums in Chicago, that inspires the Beatles.
Muddy Waters records his albums in Chicago, that inspires the Rolling Stones.
These become world movements.
And I don't think you really have the kind of huge explosion of rock and roll, or later other styles like house and hip hop, without the kind of melting pot, the musical melting pot, that happens in Illinois.
- [Julie] All of the genres can be sampled on many documentaries shown throughout the exhibit, right next to the exact pieces that made history.
- And we wanted to make sure that we were borrowing things that the artists had connections to.
This wasn't gonna be a memorabilia, like places where it's just a guitar that somebody signed.
That's a guitar that that person played.
It was a tool of the trade.
It has much more of a connection.
We felt people would have a much stronger connection to the story, if they're standing in the presence of something that they touched or interacted with.
("Longer") - [Julie] Dan Fogelberg was born in Peoria.
This guitar hadn't left his house in Maine since he passed away.
His wife, Jean decided, like his music, it needed to be shared.
- And the strings that were on the guitar are the last ones that he ever played.
And so she felt his essence, his DNA lived on these strings and she really toiled with whether or not it would be in everyone's best interest for people to see this guitar, rather than be squirreled away in Deer Island, Maine.
- [Julie] Chicago and Herbie Hancock sent two items to the museum.
His iconic keyboard, and the jacket he wore for the movie, "Round Midnight."
- And he said, basically the last day of shooting, I went back to the wardrobe, and I gave a little nod and a wink to the wardrobe manager.
And I just took it under my arm, and I walked out the door with it.
And he's kept it ever since.
And it's kind of great that he loaned it to us, as well.
- [Julie] This exhibit was put together during the pandemic when performers were in lockdown, and looking for a way to connect with their fans.
- These people were all home.
They were surrounded by their stuff.
They actually were really, really engaged.
And they provided me with some wonderful insight on what they felt best represented themselves.
And I really enjoyed having that sort of conversation.
Some of them were really excited about a current project.
♪ R-E-S-P-E-C-T ♪ ♪ Right now what it means to me ♪ ♪ R-E-S-P-E-C-T ♪ Jennifer Hudson, she had already filmed the movie, "Respect" that just came out.
But this was almost nine months ago, maybe even a year ago, she had already filmed it.
And during the filming, there is this painting of her that was done to look like Aretha Franklin.
And it was hanging in the house, in the movie.
She loved it.
When the movie was done, she actually said, "I want that."
And then she had it shipped to her house.
And so when we reached out to her, she says, "Well, I'll tell you what the easy thing is.
I've got this thing in my garage.
It's from the movie.
I haven't found a place for it in my house yet.
You can borrow that.
And when you're done with it, I'll make sure I have a spot for it in my house."
- [Julie] The pieces from each artist are just part of what makes the exhibit seem personal.
They recreated a working radio station, and a backstage experience, a major part of working in the industry.
("Disarm") - And the idea of the exhibit is essentially, you're making your way backstage, and sort of you emerge from this backstage.
There's a big crowd mural there.
And the idea is that you've just garnered all of this appreciation for all of this music, that comes from this state, and hopefully some of that sinks into their DNA.
("I Want You to Want Me") You know, we touch on musicians.
We touch on media, we touch on radio stations.
We touch on gear.
So there's a lot here.
People will, I'd like to think they're gonna learn so much about it, but they're gonna learn about things that they already care about.
So it's not like traditional history stuff.
It's like stuff you would learn in social studies class.
This is stuff that's already built in there.
If you're not in your car listening to music, if you're not a music fan, I get it.
But if you care about music, even remotely, this is just gonna sink in even more.
♪ Feeling like I ought to sleep ♪ ♪ Spinning room is sinking deep ♪ - And the experience doesn't end here.
Once you leave, you can go online to their website for much more information.
For InFocus, I'm Julie Staley.
- You can go to the exhibit website @MusicFromIllinois.com to find links to a podcast and Spotify playlist curated from the museum.
The exhibit was featured through January 23rd.
Thanks for joining us.
For the InFocus team, I'm Jennifer Fuller.
We'll see you next time.
(light cheery music)