Curriculum Shipping, Logistics & How Stuff Gets to You
Shipping, Logistics & How Stuff Gets to You
The hidden system that moves goods around the world - containers, ports, chokepoints, warehouses and last-mile delivery - and what happens when it breaks.
- What Logistics Is and Why It Matters How the planning and movement of goods, from factory to shelf, became a major industry, and why logistics costs affect prices and growth. 📄 Read-aloud
- The Box That Changed the World: The Shipping Container How the standard steel container, first used in 1956, slashed shipping costs and made modern global trade possible. 📄 Read-aloud
- How Ports Work and Compete What makes a port efficient, why a few giant ports dominate, and how port performance affects a country's trade. 📄 Read-aloud
- Chokepoints: Suez, Panama and Malacca How a handful of narrow waterways carry a large share of world trade, and what happens to prices and supply chains when they are blocked. 📄 Read-aloud
- Just in Time vs Just in Case The trade-off between keeping inventory lean to cut costs and holding extra stock to guard against disruptions. 📄 Read-aloud
- The Bullwhip Effect Why small changes in what shoppers buy can turn into huge swings in orders further up the supply chain. 📄 Read-aloud
- Shipping, Logistics & How Stuff Gets to You: Checkpoint 1 Quick checkpoint - five questions on logistics, containers, ports, chokepoints and inventory. 5 questions
- The Last Mile: Why Delivery to Your Door Is Expensive Why the final stretch from a depot to a customer's door is often the most expensive part of shipping, and how companies try to cut the cost. 📄 Read-aloud
- Warehouses and Fulfilment Centres How modern warehouses evolved from storage sheds into high-speed sorting hubs, and how automation is changing warehouse work. 📄 Read-aloud
- The 2021 Supply Chain Crunch How the pandemic's shift in spending, port congestion and container shortages caused shipping costs to soar and shelves to empty in 2021. 📄 Read-aloud
- The Semiconductor Supply Chain How computer chips are made through a highly specialised global chain, why a few companies dominate key steps, and why governments now treat chips as strategic. 📄 Read-aloud
- Reshoring, Nearshoring and Friendshoring Why some companies and governments want to move production closer to home or to allied countries, and what it would cost. 📄 Read-aloud
- Cold Chains: Moving Food and Vaccines How temperature-controlled supply chains keep food and medicines safe, why gaps in them cause waste, and what it takes to build them. 📄 Read-aloud
- India's Logistics Costs and the National Logistics Policy Why moving goods in India has been costly, what the 2022 National Logistics Policy and freight corridors aim to change, and how lower logistics costs help exporters. 📄 Read-aloud