Game Changers in Supply Chain Tech (9/16/25)

Ellie Thornton

Alright, hello everyone, welcome back to Milestones Behind the Freight Curtain! I'm Ellie, and as always, I'm here with Steve—Steve, how’s your week been?

Steve DeNunzio

Hey Ellie, hey folks! Honestly, it’s been one of those busy weeks but in a kind of exhilarating way? Just spent a couple of days in Charlotte at MHI Work. And what great stuff they're doing! And relevant, all the change happening in supply chain tech right now, it well, it keeps me on my toes. Thanks for asking. And hello to our listeners!

Ellie Thornton

Absolutely Steve! It’s like every time we blink, there’s a new headline. And this week, cloud-native warehouses are leading the charge, aren’t they? DHL’s big move with Manhattan Associates stood out for me. So, they’re going all-in on Manhattan Active Warehouse Management, right?

Steve DeNunzio

That’s right—what's cool, or, well I should say, what’s actually crucial here is this concept of “versionless” software. The old way, where you’d have to schedule these huge upgrades, sometimes shutting down or slowing operations for hours or days, is basically out. Now, DHL gets new features as they roll out, no waiting, no major disruptions.

Ellie Thornton

It’s kind of wild, isn’t it? Cloud-native, microservices-based platforms, just always up-to-date. And DHL’s got a monster network, so anything that helps them scale, adapt, keep pace—that’s got to be a massive competitive advantage. Markus Voss, he’s the CIO and COO of Supply Chain at DHL, he called it transformative for a reason.

Steve DeNunzio

Totally. Legacy systems just can’t match that flexibility. This cloud-first push means faster deployment across sites, integrating labor and automation, all in one view. And, they’re expecting to take this across hundreds of sites, so the scale here is—well, it’s no small potatoes.

Ellie Thornton

You know what? The other story that made me genuinely smile this week was the Bentley iTwin4Good Challenge awards. These student teams—SiTESalvage from the UK and Ireland, for example—they’ve built a platform to use digital twins for repurposing demolition materials! Demolish a building, and instead of landfill, you’re reusing stuff with data and digital models. I love that.

Steve DeNunzio

Oh, I do too Ellie. It, um, reminds me of why I love working with students at Ohio State. Every year, supply chain case competitions just—a burst of energy, new ideas, like a shot of espresso for the field. Digital twins are becoming foundational, not just buzzwords. And you saw that with the runners-up, too—Basola’s plastic-to-fuel tech, and EcoTwins’ abandoned gold mine energy projects. It’s all this entrepreneurial “let’s fix it” creativity you can’t get anywhere else.

Ellie Thornton

Honestly, you put students in a room and give them a big hairy logistics problem—magic! The way all these stories, even DHL’s shift to the cloud, are pushing for sustainability and speed, it really shows how collaboration—industry, students, academics—is where the best stuff is happening. And that’s not just a PR line!

Steve DeNunzio

Exactly. I mean, all these things—the cloud, digital twins, student innovation—they’re creating a toolkit none of us could’ve dreamed of back when I was, uh, stumbling my way through my first retail job. But hey, speaking of the future—should we talk mobility? Because the Jacksonville news is huge.

Ellie Thornton

Let’s! HOLON setting up their, uh, first US plant for autonomous shuttles—right in Jacksonville, Florida. Five hundred thousand square feet! I keep picturing it, it’s like several football fields of robots and electrified buses all buzzing around.

Steve DeNunzio

Yeah, it’s enormous. They’re aiming to produce 5,000 autonomous “movers” a year by 2027, so this isn’t just a pilot, it’s... it’s a real manufacturing hub. And it’ll create up to 150 jobs. What’s notable here is how Jacksonville could turn into a kind of national center for autonomous mobility—close to ports, intermodal connections, and now, high-tech manufacturing.

Ellie Thornton

It’s brilliant, and, you know, I visited an EV battery plant early in my career—sort of got roped onto a project, didn’t know what half the machines did! But watching the speed at which partnerships like these—manufacturing, automation—transform whole regions... it’s just happening so much faster now. I guess that's the only constant: speed.

Steve DeNunzio

Good call Ellie. And it’s not just vehicles. The Mercedes-Benz and LG Energy Solution news—wow. That’s two massive battery supply agreements worth, I think, $11 billion? With 107 gigawatt hours of EV battery cells over a decade. Most of that supply is for the US market—LG is basically staking their claim as North America’s battery heavyweight by 2030.

Ellie Thornton

You can see it, can’t you? The factories popping up in Arizona, Michigan—LG’s building an empire. And for Mercedes-Benz, knowing you’ve got a pipeline for batteries locked in for nearly a decade, that’s gold dust in a world where everyone’s scrambling for cell supply. Also, both companies get to push sustainability goals at the same time as growth, it’s—what do Americans say?—a win-win?

Steve DeNunzio

Win-win, exactly. And remember, it’s not just about making more EVs. These deals mean more resilient supply chains, less risk of shortages when demand spikes, and—yeah—quicker time to market. It echoes some of what we talked about in our truck parking episode, right? Modern supply networks, whether for parking, batteries, or buses, work best when everyone’s at the table—industry, government, tech partners.

Ellie Thornton

That’s what’s so different now. A battery plant or an autonomous shuttle line isn’t siloed—it’s woven into everything: jobs, sustainability, logistics. And I have to say, watching partnerships form and evolve so quickly, it’s proper exciting! Not just for big business, but also for smaller firms, whole regions. Makes me feel like we’re barely scratching the surface. Now, another area where there’s so much brewing is traceability and data—should we dive in?

Steve DeNunzio

Absolutely, let’s dig in. ASOS, the fashion retailer, is taking supply chain visibility to, uh, new extremes with their TrusTrace partnership. They wanna go all the way down to Tier 5—that’s like, back to farms and primary sources. Not just factories or tier-one suppliers. And it’s all AI-powered. It’s not just a nice-to-have, either; regulations are basically forcing everyone to show their work, and fast.

Ellie Thornton

Exactly! TrusTrace gives them real-time traceability, centralizes documentation, and with analytics, they’re not just watching the whole chain—they’re actually able to, you know, manage risk, compliance, all that. They’ve even paired it with Celonis for process intelligence. It’s like giving the supply chain its own nervous system. And honestly, I feel like it’s just the start. These tools are powerful, but it’s the mindset shift that really matters, isn't it?

Steve DeNunzio

Totally agree. And it links perfectly to what’s happening at IIT Madras with the FedEx SMART Centre. FedEx just pumped in $5 million over five years to, uh, create this hub for sustainable supply chain research—carbon-neutral ops, AI-driven worker safety, all under one roof. It’s very much a space for cross-pollination: students, faculty, industry. They’re running national competitions, student projects, faculty proposals, all to push tech—like AI and warehouse automation—faster from labs to real life.

Ellie Thornton

And it’s that partnership thing again, isn’t it? When companies like FedEx bring academia into the fold, all these walls—between research, tech, operations—they come down. That’s how you get 3,000 students into competitions, 40 students on real projects, dozens of expert sessions. It’s not just... well, it’s not just hypothetical.

Steve DeNunzio

Exactly. I sometimes ask—alright, this is maybe more of a challenge for our listeners—but how do we get more companies to move at this pace? What gets in the way? Is it cost, buy-in, talent gaps? And for retailers like ASOS, can they actually get true Tier 5 traceability? Or will there always be, I don’t know, some fog at the edge of the chain? Ellie, I’m curious what you think—optimistic, skeptical, or both?

Ellie Thornton

Oh, it’s got to be a bit of both, right? I mean, the pace of change is wild—what felt impossible a couple of years ago is now table stakes. But there are still, you know, so many moving parts—tech, regulations, legacy systems, people. It’s, like, we’ve got the tools, but real-world adoption is messy. That’s kind of the beauty and the challenge.

Steve DeNunzio

Couldn’t agree more. Well, we’re out of time for today, but it feels like we barely scratched the surface on AI and transparency, right? There’s loads more to cover in the coming weeks as these tech stories keep evolving.

Ellie Thornton

Yeah, I mean, I’ve got, like, a dozen questions left in my notebook! But we’ll leave it here for now. Steve always a pleasure, and thanks to everyone tuning in—don’t forget to subscribe and join us next week as we keep following these supply chain game changers. See you next time!

Steve DeNunzio

Thanks Ellie! And a reminder, you can always email us at milestones at Steve DeNunzio dot com. Thanks listeners—catch you all soon. Bye!