[#277] Supply Chain in Numbers - March 17, 2025
Boeing's fastener supply problem, FedEx closing 6 ship centers, Gaia Dynamics raises $1.5M seed, Mixue's 45k stores, 82% PoD compliance using computer vision by Relay
Welcome to “Supply Chain in Numbers.” This newsletter tracks significant numbers from the supply chain world. Five prominent numbers are published every Monday. If you have any feedback, please send it to me.
15% of the aircraft industry’s fastener supply
A fire tore through an airplane-parts factory run by SPS Technologies last month in suburban Philadelphia, decimating the century-old plant. Boeing has been racing ever since to size up whether it will delay the jet maker’s turnaround plans. Equal in size to about 10 football fields, the factory, operated by a Berkshire Hathaway company, was the sole supplier of some critical fasteners used in Boeing planes. Boeing isn’t the only company affected by the fire that broke out on Feb. 17. It took several days to extinguish, but it hurt no workers. The factory, operated by SPS, a Berkshire Hathaway company, is one of the country’s largest aerospace fastener plants, providing about 15% of the industry’s supply. Companies throughout the aerospace supply chain — from engine makers GE Aerospace and Safran to Boeing rival Airbus — use SPS parts. [WSJ]
Closing off 6 ship centers
FedEx’s network streamlining efforts are heating up. The logistics giant confirmed six more ship center closures and two facilities cutting staff in Tennessee, Illinois, Virginia and West Virginia as part of its Network 2.0 initiative. The changes will take place between March and June. Network 2.0 is a multiyear plan FedEx unveiled in 2022. FedEx is merging the operations of its separate Express and Ground networks through the initiative to trim costs and boost efficiency. Network 2.0 has led to a 10% reduction in pickup and delivery costs in areas where FedEx has fully rolled out the plan. [Supply Chain Dive]
$1.5 million seed funding
Gaia Dynamics, a Palo Alto, CA-based provider of an AI-driven platform for global trade compliance, raised $1.5M in pre-Seed funding. Its suite of AI tools provides Accurate product classification and tariff calculations, real-time regulatory compliance, a streamlined process through predictive analytics, and compliance insights to reduce compliance time by assigning the right HTS codes quickly. [Fin SMEs]
45,000 stores
It sells ice cream and sugary drinks for under $1. Its mascot looks like the love child of Frosty the Snowman and the Michelin Man. And its stores relentlessly blare a jingle set to the tune of “Oh! Susanna.” This recipe helped Mixue Ice Cream and Tea become the world’s biggest food-and-beverage chain by number of locations, topping McDonald’s and Starbucks. Mixue (Pronounced ME-schway), the Chinese company is found across Asia and Australia. It ended last year with 45,000 stores after doubling its total in the previous 3 years. [WSJ]
82% PoD compliance using computer vision
Most Western parcel delivery companies have fixed daily routes for drivers, dispatching them from far-flung depots near places like airports to suburban destinations. This creates enormous overhead, wastes mileage, and increases carbon emissions for parcels, exceptionally if they are returned. This is what the founders of Europe’s Relay realized and decided to bring to the region (from Asia, where this has been a standard for some time now). Relay’s end-to-end parcel delivery service adopts this approach, operating more like a food delivery app. It matches couriers to routes, combines deliveries and returns into a single trip, and replaces large trucks with carbon-reducing e-bikes. Most delivery people take a static photo of the handover. Relay enhances this with computer vision, boosting proof-of-delivery compliance by 82%. By the way, Relay raised $35M Series A. [Tech Crunch]