A Different Kind of Supply Chain Solution

by Hannah McCall | Apr 16, 2025 | Berlin's Wall

LP has always prided itself on Hannibal’s old saying: “Find a way or make one”.

Here’s a wonderful example of a businesswoman who did just that.

Enjoy : )

JB

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DIfCkRnhCH9/

WTF???

by Hannah McCall | Apr 15, 2025 | Berlin's Wall

All,

Please see the article below about our good friend and colleague from TFA, Mark Antal.

https://nypost.com/2025/04/14/us-news/delta-force-veteran-forced-to-fend-off-brick-wielding-maniac-in-unprovoked-nyc-attack-they-feel-safer-in-kyiv/

Unbelievable.

How does our society allow people like this to repeatedly do what they do to innocent people?  Luckily, Mark as a former US Special Ops team leader could protect himself, move that attacker away from his young daughters, and restrain this guy til the police arrived (while wisely holding back from using deadly techniques he knows all too well).

How does the guy have all these arrests and still get released back onto the streets time after time after time?  I get compassion for people with mental illness but what if it had been Mark’s daughters, who could not have fended this guy off?  What if this happened to you? Or your wife? Or your mother/father kids?  TOO MUCH!!!

It’s like my Governor Shapiro said the other day after some nutjob broke into his home and tried to burn down his house with him and his children inside  and hoping to “beat him with a hammer”.

He said: “I don’t care which side of the political fence you are on. This is NOT acceptable.”

NYC (and other many communities) need a way more rational, effective and safe-for-its-residents policy than this “catch and release” IMHO.

This feels like Bizarro world.

Make it stop!

JB

A Blast from the Past. Still Relevant Today?

by Hannah McCall | Apr 14, 2025 | Berlin's Wall

“Savings” That Never Really Delivered

Back in the day, we were managing truckload freight for a large industrial company. The setup was solid—good rates, consistent service, everything working as it should.

Then along comes one of their internal guys—let’s call him Brent—who wanted to prove he could wring even more “efficiency” out of the operation. Without involving us, he went out and re-bid ten of their biggest lanes on his own. Soon after, he announced with great fanfare that he had found $800,000 in annual savings.

He got a big award. Some kind of internal hero. Made us look kind of bad (why couldn’t LP have done that) but we had to keep our heads down. Didn’t want to get in front of this news cannon.

But nobody looked too closely at the numbers. They just heard the word “savings” and they all nodded approvingly. GOOD NEWS!

Eventually, I asked to see the actual data. Took some persistence, but I got it. And what it showed was that nine of the ten lanes were actually higher—by a combined $200,000 a year. The entire “savings” was based on just one lane, which supposedly saved a million dollars.

Now, you’d think someone of the big execs would stop and ask, “Wait—a million-dollar savings on a single truck lane?” But no one did.

That lane? A short 150-mile “mini” route on paper. But the freight was a huge, oversized part—over-width, requiring flatbeds, special routing, permits, no night driving, no driving in the rain or snow and no weekend runs. Oh—and customs clearance on both sides of a very congested, slow-moving international bridge thrown in for good measure.

The winning bidder came in at half the price of every other quote—$1,000 below the next-lowest. A number that only made sense if you had no idea what the freight actually was. But hey: $1,000 of savings per load x 1,000 loads a year = $1 million in “savings.” Woo hoo, right?

Only problem? Once they realized what they’d signed up for, that company just disappeared. Never moved a single load. Never heard from them again.

But those “savings” stayed on the books. The award stayed on Brent’s shelf. And the myth of the great cost-cutter lived on.

Moral of the story?

It’s easy to find “waste” when you don’t understand the work.

And even easier to declare victory—and then quietly slip away—when no one notices that none of those trucks actually rolled.