![]() ![]() ![]() How technology supports the unrelenting quest for efficiency in the last century is critical. He writes, “Shipping is full of these odd juxtapositions of relatively puny humans and enormous objects designed to contend with equally enormous forces: from the person at the helm turning a wheel a foot in diameter to deflect a rudder two stories tall, to the sailors tossing ropes to one another to begin the mooring process for a vessel that weights a million times as much as they do, to the longshoremen scampering up, down, and across stacks of containers the size of whole neighborhoods just to release the next box to be grabbed by the office building-size crane hovering above.” (69)Īs a technology writer, Mims is especially good at explaining how technology is transforming logistics. Mims does a great job of explaining the size and complexity of modern ports, especially focusing on container shipping and the people needed to run them. Six of the chapters focus specifically on ships and ports. Pulled together, the book is a wonderful wide-angle lens view of the entire supply chain. Rather than focusing on one part or mode of transport, Mims goes step by step through each mode. Mims touches on a wide range of topics including shipping, robotics, management philosophy, trucking, warehousing and, all things Amazon. As such, it’s also an exposition of the underlying drivers of America’s growing inequality in wealth, income, and rights in the workplace.” (3)Īs we proceed through the 22 chapters of the book, we move from a factory in Vietnam to a front door delivery in the American heartland. Mims wants it to be “a window into the lives of the people who are most affected by the rapidly changing ways we buy, sell, and transport the billions of dollars’ worth of stuff we consume every day.” (1) As he notes, he wants the book to explore “the lives of people who make supply chains possible and of those who designed them in the first place. ![]() Mims hopes that Arriving Today will be a “skeleton key” to “unlock insights into the past, present, and future of automation and work.”(1) Though an understanding of ships, trucks and robots is fascinating, the focus on people is key. The book is a page-turner, explaining the physical infrastructure, technology, and people that make the movement of goods “From Factory to Front Door” possible. The book was planned pre-pandemic, but the pandemic put an exclamation point on all that was being explained. As the chapters of the book progress, noting the movement of his USB charger, so also we experience the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, and all the stress that put on supply chains. ![]() It was useful that his reporting trips around the world were scheduled in the early months of 2020. In Arriving Today, Christopher Mims, technology columnist for the Wall Street Journal, shares “all the effort that comes before you click the Buy button.”(2) Mims uses the example of the simple click on our smartphone to purchase a USB wall-charger to tell the story of the incredible complexity that is the modern logistics chain. If we would have had a pandemic a generation or two ago, that might not have been possible. It was very useful to be able easily to get essential items shipped to our homes when we couldn’t easily go out to get them. The COVID-19 pandemic drew a spotlight on how much we all rely on shipping every day. Christopher Mims, Arriving Today: From Factory to Front Door – Why Everything Has Changed About How and What We Buy. ![]()
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