Management as a Liberal Art Research Institute

Next Steps in AI, Mobility and Sustainable Nearshoring

Francisco Suárez Hernández, Ph.D.

PUBLISHED:

September 22, 2023

Photo:  Mexican Industrial Chambers and federal authorities, among others: Alex Theissen, President of the ANTP; Alejandro Malagón, Secretary General of CONCAMIN; and Jose Abugaber, National President of CONCAMIN.



Last week I had the pleasure and honor of participating in the National Freight Transport Forum of the National Association of Private Transport (ANTP), a Mexican corporation that groups and represents companies that produce cargo. The Forum had a concept that I really liked, as it integrated "transforming logistics and freight transport for the commercial challenge," focusing on human capital, nearshoring and artificial intelligence, "AI."

 

The challenge and central point is to have our own fleet or to be providers of goods transfer (transport) services, where we seek to contribute to the integral development of cargo transport systems and their environment, so that they are competitive and sustainable. The focus of the conversation was how to ensure that a means to provoke a sustainable link is found throughout the chain to promote electric transport within multiple initiatives, operational efficiencies, optimizing and reducing in all possible ways the emissions that are caused by moving a product from one point to another, and how the electrification of transport plays an important role in achieving the objectives of decarbonization of the economy.

 

In my case, this is the third time that I have participated in the 23 years that the Forum has been held, and I remember that from day one it positively featured a panel that made me connect with many issues on which we have to move faster, as it evokes the use of AI applied to efficiency in mobility, where although the technology has been available for years, there is no progress in its implementation. The manufacturers of heavy goods vehicles agreed that the incorporation of AI solutions in the units would be beneficial, since it accompanies the operator from the cabin and detects actions that could threaten their safety. I have had the opportunity to test the technology firsthand on test tracks and what already exists on the market is impressive—literally in times of danger the unit takes control to protect everyone.


During the Forum, the ANTP asked the authorities to remove cargo trucks that are more than 20 years old from circulation, seeking to make the transfer of goods more efficient and profitable. Let's just take into account one shocking fact: 20 trucks over 20-25 years old pollute as much as 1 single truck, but with recent technology, said data was a focal point to emphasize urgently moving forward in a program of staggered change of units, thus seeking to progress more quickly.

 

Strengthening logistics and digitalization are pressing needs in the era of sustainable nearshoring, where the urgency of strengthening Mexico's logistics chain and the adoption of technologies to perform processes in the sector more efficiently is placed at the center of the agenda; we have a great moment to take advantage of when considering the MUCH lower footprint in the comparative supply of Mexico vs. Asia, but we must recognize that we have expensive logistics, which complicates the implementation of nearshoring on a large scale.


In human capital, examples were presented where programs were initiated to recruit more and more female drivers of units, where it is urgent to make greater progress in the numbers and percentage of women participating in the sector, accompanied by more training for greater efficiency in the management of the unit, along with safety, which always comes first.

 

In terms of technology leveraged predictive maintenance, it will be essential to optimize the entire process and proper functioning of the units we have in Mexico; state-of-the-art technology and impressive announcements of new electric vehicle charging fleets should not be discarded.

 

According to the industry leaders who presented the breakthroughs, it will be critical to prepare for what's to come:

·      Modernizing the fleet.

·      Identifying the type of uses they may adopt first (based on kilometers traveled, type of routes, cargo, etc.).

·      Performing pilot tests to adapt the availability of vehicles with the type of operations (especially in terms of autonomy and yields).

·      Being essentially “early adopters” in AI in transport.

 

As I get to know the industry more closely, beyond my position in the plants that I had the opportunity to enjoy for more than 10 years, within coordinating the production and logistics control of steel and aluminum can plants from Baja California, now the advances must be supported with intense training of human capital and sustainable nearshoring. This includes the border states that already have everything ready to go, but many more states and regions of Mexico must capitalize on this hand in hand with the AI, optimizing loads, closing travel circle and above all, taking advantage of Mexican talent and ingenuity, all of which combined will provide the conditions to really see exponential sustainable growth in the region.


In the equation we have experts in mobility, AI and proximity to the most important markets on the planet, now we just need to add more sectors so that it becomes sustainable mobility and expand the use of green technologies, increase electric charging points, and adopt more technologies that we require for different transport routes, such as land, air and sea: In Mexico we can become leaders in all areas of sustainable integral mobility!

 

Reference sources:

·      El Vigia: https://www.elvigia.net/columnas/2023/7/14/siguientes-pasos-en-ia-movilidad-nearshoring-sostenible-421744.html

 

·      Mundo Ejecutivo: https://mundoejecutivo.com.mx/opinion/siguientes-pasos-en-ia-movilidad-y-nearshoring-sostenible/

 

·      Wokii News:  https://wokii.com/inteligencia-artificial-ia-movilidad-y-nearshoring-sostenible/

 

·      Empresability: https://movimientors.ning.com/acciones-sostenibles/siguientes-pasos-en-ia-movilidad-y-nearshoring-sostenible?xg_source=linkedin

 

·      El Capitalino: https://elcapitalino.mx/opinion/acciones-sostenibles/siguientes-pasos-en-ia-movilidad-y-nearshoring-sostenible/

A Tribute to Charles Handy (1932-2024)

By Karen Linkletter Ph.D. • January 6, 2025
On December 13, 2024, we lost a seminal management philosopher and theorist: Charles Handy. Like Peter Drucker, Handy was a social thinker and management theorist who emphasized the human side of work as more important than profits and valued individual growth and development in organizations. Handy was born in Ireland and studied at Oxford. In 1956, he went to work for Shell, working in Borneo, where he met his future wife, Elizabeth Hill. Disillusioned by corporate life, Handy left Shell in 1962 to study management at MIT in their executive program. Inspired by their humanistic approach, he returned to London in 1967 to start the London Business School. Handy knew Drucker and was a regular keynote speaker at the Global Drucker Forum in Vienna. The two men had much in common in terms of their approaches to management and social theory. Like Drucker, Handy became an author (although, unlike Drucker, Handy was a corporate executive before he turned to writing). Handy wrote not just on business but also society, serving as much as a social ecologist as Drucker was. In his pivotal book, The Age of Unreason (1989), Handy argued for the disruption of discontinuity – resulting in a new world of business, education, and work that was highly unpredictable. He rejected shareholder capitalism and saw the organization as a place for human purpose and fulfillment, based on trust. Like Drucker, Handy advocated federalism in organizations, disseminating authority and responsibility to the lowest possible levels. He also saw “the future that had already happened.” Handy coined the term “portfolio life,” where knowledge workers would increasingly work remotely and for multiple organizations. In the 1980s, he posited that society consisted of “shamrock organizations”: those that had three integrated leaves: full-time employees, outside contractors, and temporary workers. Handy thus foresaw the new “gig economy” and increasingly autonomy of knowledge work. Finally, like Drucker, Handy had a life partner who not only supported his career but was an independent woman with her own interests. Liz Handy, like Doris Drucker, was an entrepreneur who ran an interior design business, and later was a professional photographer and Charles’s business agent.  Minglo Shao, founder of CIAM, remembers Handy as a warm man who made several important contributions to what we see as the fundamentals of Management as a Liberal Art. We are thankful for Handy’s contributions to management theory and social thought, and for his legacy at the Global Drucker Forum in the form of the Charles and Elizabeth Handy Lecture Series.

Treasures from the Charles Handy Drucker Forum legacy

By Richard and Ilse Straub with the Drucker Forum Team • December 29, 2024
For 15 years, Charles Handy did us the enormous honor of choosing the Drucker Forum as a privileged platform for delivering his message to the world, and particularly to the younger generation in which he had such faith. Following up on our initial announcement of Charles’ passing Charles Handy (1932–2024) , we are honored to share a selection of his key contributions to the Forum with our wider community. Charles’ brilliant keynotes at the Drucker Forum have become legendary. Normally accessible only to members of the Drucker Society, from today they are available as recordings to the wider public for a period of 30 days. At the first centennial Forum in 2009, Charles talked about his debt to Peter Drucker while outlining his own fundamental management concepts that he had developed over the years. Two years later, he touched on the ideas of Adam Smith and demonstrated how much more to them there was than the celebrated “invisible hand” of self-interest. In his landmark closing address in 2017, pursuing a thread developed in his 2015 book The Second Curve, he called for a management reformation that would turn it into a tool for the common good – thus drawing the first contours of what we would announce six years later as the Next Management . We took to heart his exhortation not to wait for great leaders but “to start small fires in the darkness, until they spread and the whole world is alight with a better vision of what we could do with our businesses”. Management’s "second curve" will be the focus of the “Charles and Elizabeth Handy Lecture Series” in 2025. Following the loss of his beloved wife Elizabeth in 2018 and a severe stroke, Charles was much reduced in mobility in his last years – but not in his determination to continue spreading his message of hope to the world. He couldn’t participate in person in the Drucker Forum 2022, but he participated in a moving online interview with his son Scott, who directed young actors in a short performance of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot by Beckett to illustrate some points.  Charles also contributed valued digital articles for our blog and for Drucker Forum partners. Even during the most difficult period of his life he continued to write and develop his ideas in weekly columns for the Idler magazine. This entailed first memorizing the article, then dictating it and finally reviewing it by having someone it re-read to him – a remarkable feat of memory and determination. The article is a jewel and most appropriate for Christmas and the season of self-reflection. Have a wonderful Christmas, happy holidays and a healthy and prosperous New Year.

The Future of Knowledge Work: What Drucker can teach us

By Karen Linkletter Ph.D. • November 19, 2024
Interview with Karen Linkletter at the 16th Global Peter Drucker Forum 2024  Video Interview
Show More
Share by: