Invisible Innovation: A collection of articles on innovation, supply chain, technology, and trade

By Nigel Duckworth

This is a collection of the author's articles spanning many publications and covering energy, materials, regulation, and supply chain. Most of the innovations in these areas we hardly notice and take for granted. Inside, you will discover little known facts about "the miraculous material," nuclear power, and digital supply chain networks. Some of the articles also address the "enemies of innovation," bad ideas and policies that undermine innovation and progress.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Innovationized
• Release date: Sep 17, 2023
• ISBN: 9798989152001

Book preview

Invisible Innovation

A collection of articles on innovation, supply chain, technology, and trade

Nigel Duckworth

Innovationized

Copyright © 2023 Nigel Duckworth

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Cover design by: Nigel Duckworth

Printed in the United States of America.

The main ingredient in the secret sauce that leads to innovation is freedom. Freedom to exchange, experiment, imagine, invest, and fail; freedom from expropriation or restriction by chiefs, priests, and thieves; freedom on the part of consumers to reward the innovations they like and reject the ones they do not.

Matt Ridley

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Epigraph

Introduction

Free Market Fallacies:

The Evil of Bigness

Billionaires, Labor, and Wealth Creation

In Defense of Price Gouging

The Miraculous Material

The Assault on Nuclear Power and the Threat to Progress

The Federal Disinnovation Administration

Data and Disaster: The Lessons of Miracle Flight 32

Beyond Digital Transformation: Creating a Platform for Innovation

From Supply Chains to Vibrant Network Ecosystems

7 Saboteurs of AI Success

Manufacturing Amidst The Fourth Industrial Revolution

Sixth Sense: The Evolution of Digital Business Networks

Brexit, Global Trade, and the Digital Transformation of the Supply Chain

Streamlining Global Trade

Elitism for All

Ten Pillars of an Effective Network Platform

Disruption and the Rebirth of the Rust Belt

The Edge Effect: Finding Value at the Edge of the Enterprise

Bedrock of Business Transformation

Agility and Efficiency in an Era of Uncertainty

Optimizing for Uncertainty

Supply Chain Visibility and Transparency: How Everybody Wins

Acknowledgements

About The Author

Introduction

This is a collection of my articles loosely covering innovation in various areas, and spanning energy, materials, regulation, and supply chain. It is a far from complete collection. Some articles did not fit here, while others were ghost written for executives.

The topics broadly cover innovation across a number of areas, including energy, materials, and supply chain management. Many of these innovations, processes, and indeed, entire industries, we hardly notice and take for granted...until they fail. Energy and supply chains are prime examples, invisibly enabling our wonderous world.  

These articles are in no particular order, I recommend simply reading what interests you.

Finally, I‘d love to hear your thoughts on these topics and connect, so feel free to reach out to me through the channels below.

Nigel Duckworth

Huntersville, NC 2023

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nigelduckworth/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/duckworth_nigel

www.innovationized.com

[e-mail]

Free Market Fallacies:

The Evil of Bigness

The antitrusters have denounced the Kroger-Albertsons merger. But which is the real threat, big companies, or big government?

US grocery retailers Kroger and Albertsons want to merge. This has brought out the anti-capitalists like Robert Reich, spreading the typical falsehoods and fear about the free market.

The truth is, bigger companies can only get bigger through voluntary trade and offering superior value to customers. They are a benefit not a threat. The real threat is the big government advocated by antitrusters like Reich.

Reich attacks the Kroger-Albertsons merger here:

https://twitter.com/RBReich/status/1633166537317322754

Let us look at Reich’s key claims in the order he presents them.

Just five companies control 60% of American grocery sales.

Reich states:

Corporate concentration in the grocery market is already a huge problem. Just five companies control 60% of American grocery sales.

True, but so what. I say: What an impressive five companies! What incredible efficiency, productiveness, and service they must be providing in order to gain and hold that market share.

Reich: This means less consumer choice and more opportunity for grocery stores to jack up prices.

This is a common claim, but it is false.

Companies operate in a market and are subject to the law of supply and demand. That law does not disappear simply because there is one less company, or because a company grows bigger.

Any attempt to jack up prices to make bigger profits, simply attracts competitors and investment. Investors are looking for returns above the average market rate. It’s the constant threat of competition which keeps prices low.

The facts support this. For example, Walmart has not raised prices as it has grown larger, it has lowered them.

In fact, some of the most competitive markets have fewer, but larger companies. Where you have a lot of small companies, costs are invariably higher, because these companies lack economies of scale.

Are companies gouging consumers under the guise of inflation?

Reich continues…

Big corporations are using the excuse of inflation to pass price increases through to you!

Inflation is real, caused by the very government that Reich invokes to oppose the Kroger-Albertsons deal. Costs are rising, and of course they get passed on to buyers, the same way raising the minimum wage gets passed on to buyers.

Inequality is so obviously wrong, no need to make an argument

Reich goes on to bemoan the disparity between executive compensation and the common worker.

Rodney McMullen (Kroger CEO) compensation is 679 times that of the typical Kroger employee.

Reich makes no argument. We are just supposed to accept that as an obvious injustice.

Rodney McMullen’s is not just an associate or worker who does the job better. McMullen’s job involves knowledge and skills that the typical Kroger employee doesn’t even have. The jobs are incomparable. It is like comparing the compensation of the janitor with the anesthetist at a hospital. It is a meaningless comparison. Let them switch jobs for a day and that will quickly become clear.

A CEO’s job is not physical labor, it is not pen-pushing, it’s far more intellectual, and demanding.

It involves knowledge and decisions that must incorporate complex factors such as finance, the economy and market trends, evolving customer preferences, the competition, and a lot more. It involves an incredible range of intellectual ability including integration, analysis, projection, imagination, and complex trade-offs and evaluations that few people are capable of pulling off.

Not to mention, that the compensation of executives is nobody’s business, except the stockholders.

Can big companies raise prices at will?

Reich again repeats the fallacy that prices are arbitrary and rise with fewer competitors.

Grocery prices are already going through the roof. Kroger buying Albertsons gets rid of the roof altogether.

No. To repeat, size does not make a company exempt from the law of supply and demand.

Prices are rising due to actions by interventionists like Reich. Massive spending and expansion of the money supply caused inflation. With more dollars chasing fewer goods, the price of those now relatively scarcer goods rise to absorb those extra dollars and demand.

It is the law of demand and supply applied to dollars.

The blame lies not with greedy corporations, but with the all-powerful politicians, with monopoly power over our money supply, who are devaluing the dollar, eroding savings, and doing untold damage to the economy and our financial well-being.

Can big companies exploit labor by lowering wages at will?

A Kroger owned mega company can also get away with paying its workers less than it already does. Fewer competitors mean grocery workers have fewer choices of who to work for.

You have one less company in grocery, but so what?

You generally have better companies to choose from.

Bigger companies are usually a lot better in terms of work environment, benefits, and opportunities for growth. They are companies that are proven to be viable and healthy, not fly-by-night operations, or teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.

[T]he weight of the general evidence is that the firms indicted under the antitrust laws were not abusing consumers, and that the laws have tended, instead, to protect competitors and reduce efficiency throughout the market. -Dominick T. Armentano

The truth is, in a free market, size is a sign of virtue

The reason companies grow to be leaders in a free market, is because they provide better products at better prices than their competitors. They do this through being more efficient and lowering costs, while providing what shoppers want, at the highest quality and at the lowest price.

In short, they are more productive and serve customer needs better than any other company.

Shoppers vote with their dollars to reward (grow) or penalize (contract) companies, according to the company’s performance across its products, service, and prices.

Such companies grow into mega companies, because they are very, very good at what they do.

To maintain quality, they must retain the best talent

To be good at what they do they have to have good employees.

Excellent employees are critical to running an excellent operation. It’s impossible to maintain superior customer service and efficient operations with bad and unhappy workers, which is what you’d have if you paid below market rate for employees.

According to the Kroger website:

[O]ur average hourly wage [is] more than $17. With comprehensive benefits factored in, our average hourly compensation is over $22, with generous benefits like affordable healthcare, 401(k)s and pensions that many of our competitors don’t offer.

Employees are also eligible for an education benefit of up to $21,000.

And of course, workers who show initiative and develop the higher skills that the company needs, can move up and into new, more challenging and more rewarding roles.

Big is bad (except when it comes to government)

Reich concludes:

Corporate consolidation is bad for everyone, except the super rich. It’s bad for workers, consumers, and the economy as a whole, and driving extreme wealth imbalance.

In fact, the opposite is true. As companies grow and merge, they generally get better, more efficient, and can provide more products and services at lower costs because of economies of scale, and their wider and deeper