Week in Review: Supply Chain Pros, Structural Woes & Airborne Meds

This week’s supply chain saga has it all: Tive’s CEO pulls off an award three-peat while America’s bridges play Russian roulette with cargo ships (spoiler: the bridges are losing). Digital-savvy thieves are giving freight security nightmares, pharma companies are playing beat-the-clock with potential tariffs by taking their pills to the skies, and Walmart’s letting AI play weatherman to keep your salad dreams alive. Grab your coffee—this newsletter delivers more drama than a March Madness overtime game, with considerably less shouting at your TV.

Hat Trick! Tive CEO Krenar Komoni Receives Third Straight “Pros to Know” Award from Supply & Demand Chain Executive

The trophy case keeps growing. Our fearless leader pulled off a hat trick that even Alex Ovechkin would admire. Krenar Komoni, Tive’s Founder & CEO and the brains behind what we do, just snagged a 2025 Pros to Know award from Supply & Demand Chain Executive in the “Leaders in Excellence” category.  

The Man Who Spearheaded a New Era of Shipment Tracking  

Krenar launched Tive to eliminate the frustrating black holes in supply chain management with one underlying mission: to make real-time shipment visibility crystal clear—from the first mile to the last. That vision has grown over the years: Tive is now the trusted visibility partner for global powerhouses across pharmaceuticals, perishables, and high-value goods sectors. “Supply chains never stop, and neither do we here,” Komoni explains. “This recognition goes to the entire Tive team and the relentless work we do to help businesses track, protect, and deliver their shipments with confidence.” Under his leadership, companies worldwide have slashed delays, prevented damage and theft, and gained complete confidence in their delivery promises.

Breaking Barriers While Breaking Records

Three years. Three awards. Zero signs of slowing down. The 2025 Pros to Know committee doesn’t hand out participation trophies—they reward genuine game changers who impact industries from the ground up. Komoni earned his spot by pushing technology past what competitors thought possible, and by giving supply chain leaders weapons to fight chaos. “Every day, we push the limits of what’s possible,” Komoni says. “We’re here to make sure our customers never have to wonder about where their shipments are—or how they are doing.”  

Bridge Roulette: Is Your Commute Crossing a Ticking Time Bomb?

One year after the Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore, research shows it wasn’t a fluke—it was a preview. Johns Hopkins engineers just dropped a bombshell study revealing America’s bridges are sitting ducks for massive ships. Despite design standards calling for a minuscule 1-in-10,000 annual collapse risk, some bridges face catastrophic hits every few decades.  

Crash Course: Your GPS Might Be Driving You Over Disaster

Michael Shields and his Johns Hopkins team mined 16 years of ship tracking data and discovered that the odds of driving over a disaster depend entirely on which bridge you cross. For instance, Louisiana’s Huey P. Long Bridge faces a major ship strike every 17 years, and the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge every 22 years. The now-collapsed Key Bridge? It was statistically due for a hit within 48 years—and fell at 46. Meanwhile, New Orleans’ Crescent City Connection (34 years), Texas’ Beltway 8 Bridge (35 years), and Louisiana’s Hale Boggs Memorial Bridge (37 years) all face looming threats as well.

Between a Dock & a Hard Place: Engineers’ Urgent Mission

“If one of these massive ships hits a bridge, it’s catastrophic,” warns Shields. The problem isn’t fancy or complicated—ships keep getting bigger while bridges stay put. The team’s calculations paint a terrifying picture: the NY/NJ Bayonne Bridge (hit expected every 43 years), Texas’ Fred Hartman Bridge (47 years), even Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay Bridge (86 years). While the Golden Gate might dodge disaster for 481 years, other bridges need immediate protection: barriers, dolphins, anything to keep ships away from vulnerable piers. The cold, hard truth? Accepting bridge catastrophes “every few years” as the new normal is a red flag on steroids.

Highway Robbery 2.0: When Freight Thieves Got Tech Degrees

Cargo crooks have graduated from ski masks to keyboards, and the industry is panicking. “It’s an exponential advance,” warns Claude Pettis of Hub International. These digital thieves, often Eastern European-funded, execute sophisticated scams by manipulating documentation—delivering 40 pallets while secretly keeping 10, then repeating this pattern multiple times before anyone notices.

Your Wallet’s Worst Roadside Emergency

Insurance companies now treat cargo policies like rare diamonds: expensive and full of conditions. “When cargo thefts increase beyond what’s expected, rates need to match,” admits Nick Saeger from Sentry, skipping the sugarcoating. Insurers have cooked up a menu of painful options: theft-specific deductibles that’ll make your eyes water, coverage that mysteriously vanishes in “high-crime regions,” and limits slashed specifically for electronics and pharmaceuticals. Commodities once covered through negotiation are now either budget busters or flat out rejected—no exceptions.

Prove You’re Paranoid or Pay Up

Carriers must now act like they’re hauling crown jewels to get basic coverage. “You won’t get insurance on pharmaceuticals without geofencing, tamper-proof seals, and vendor vetting,” says Bryan Paulozzi of Risk Strategies. The insurance crowd demands technological bodyguards—IoT sensors, telematics, and cameras—while Pettis recommends playing hard to predict: “Vary your lanes and transit modes so you’re not an easy target.” The fix requires teamwork nobody’s mastered yet: FMCSA’s easily manipulated databases need overhauls, insurers must step up, and shippers need to wake up. Cargo theft stopped being “someone else’s problem” when premiums skyrocketed and coverage shrank.

Pills in the Sky: Drug Companies Airlift Meds to Beat Trump’s Tariff Threats

Fear fuels a frenzy when billions are at stake. European drugmakers have been rushing meds across the Atlantic by air to beat Trump’s April 2 tariff threat. Nothing motivates pharmaceutical execs quite like a tax on their profits. 

Flying Pharma: The $97 Billion Mad Dash

Pharmaceutical executives aren’t taking chances with their bottom lines. Two European drug companies admitted they’re “scenario planning” and “stockpiling” medications in America, shipping unprecedented volumes by air through UPS and DHL rather than slower sea routes. It makes sense why: EU medicine exports to the U.S. totaled about €90 billion ($97.05 billion) in 2023, including active ingredients for Botox, weight-loss drugs Wegovy and Zepbound, and cancer treatment Keytruda. Ireland alone saw pharmaceutical exports jump to €9.4 billion in January—nearly triple December’s €3.2 billion figure, and double the €4.1 billion shipped in January 2024.

Stormy Seas & Pharma’s New Reality

Medicines historically dodged trade wars due to public health concerns, but Trump’s previous tariffs on Chinese drugs and raw ingredients shattered that notion. One executive described their company packing planes with “above average” volumes of medication despite air freight costing significantly more than sea shipping. And they’re not alone: automakers like General Motors and Mercedes, French cognac producers, Italian parmesan, and sparkling winemakers have all expedited U.S. deliveries, too. 

Walmart Asks AI: “What’s the Weather Doing to My Lettuce?”

Walmart just leveled up its grocery strategy by partnering with Cropin, whose AI accurately predicts weather threats to crops across the Americas. Whether it’s sniffing out unexpected frosts or pest outbreaks before they devastate harvests, this is a partnership set to protect produce supply for Walmart’s 270 million weekly shoppers who expect full shelves, not excuses.

Mother Nature Meets Her Match

Climate change makes farming feel like gambling these days. Walmart decided to stack the deck by deploying Cropin’s farm-watching AI across their massive operation. The tech spots trouble like plant diseases and weather threats before farmers even notice—while predicting harvest sizes with scary accuracy. Kyle Carlyle, Walmart’s VP of sourcing innovation, put it straight: “Tech innovation drives real-world solutions.” Translation: Walmart's 10,750 stores won’t run out of lettuce just because it rained too much in California.

Farm-Watching Robots (Minus Actual Robots)

Since 2010, Cropin has wired up 30 million acres of farmland and helped 7 million farmers worldwide grow smarter. Their digital brain tracks 500 different crops with 10,000 varieties across 103 countries—now feeding intelligence to Walmart’s $681 billion operation and its 2.1 million workers. CEO Krishna Kumar called the deal “a significant milestone,” noting that fancy farm tech “jumped from luxury to necessity.” The system even counts greenhouse gases and water usage. In other words, consider them the invisible caretakers who make sure your avocado toast habit doesn’t secretly burn down the planet.

Seeing Clearly in a Chaotic World

We live in a world where award-winning CEOs share newsletter space with crumbling bridges and cargo theft. Imagine that. But while pharma companies frantically airlift medicine and thieves upgrade their résumés, you could watch your shipments glide safely to their destination—no drama, just data. That’s the peace of mind Tive’s real-time tracking and visibility solutions deliver.  

Arm yourself with innovation: let Tive lead the way in transforming your supply chain operations. Embrace the future of logistics—get started with Tive today.

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