[#315] Supply Chain in Numbers - Dec 8, 2025

Welcome to “Supply Chain in Numbers.” This newsletter tracks significant numbers from the supply chain world. Five prominent numbers are published every Monday. If you have any feedback, please send it to me.

5,800 confidential files from o9

A federal lawsuit filed in Texas accuses SAP and three former o9 Solutions executives of orchestrating one of the largest trade secret thefts in enterprise software history. The complaint identifies the sender as Sean Zonneveld, then a senior vice president at o9 Solutions, a Dallas-based artificial intelligence company. The lawsuit alleges the recipient was Zonneveld’s personal email account. Over the following months, the complaint claims, Zonneveld allegedly downloaded more than 5,800 confidential files before departing to join SAP. [The Chain]

24 hours to 10 minutes

China’s factory and port operators are using robots and AI to make and export goods even faster and cheaper than before, as the nation vies to maintain its global manufacturing dominance. China’s embrace of AI carries risks, and in areas such as frontier AI tech and chips, it lags the U.S. Still, China installed 295,000 industrial robots last year, nearly nine times as many as the U.S. The port of Tianjin teamed up with tech giant Huawei to launch a fleet of unmanned trucks and a system that optimizes tens of millions of variables and constraints, such as ship arrival times and crane capacity, to manage scheduling. Planning that used to take 24 hours now takes 10 minutes, Huawei says. [WSJ]

$150 million contracts to 22 US suppliers

GE Appliances has awarded $150 million in contracts to American suppliers as it prepares to move manufacturing of some product lines from China to the U.S. The 22 suppliers will provide steel, resin, parts, and components for washers and combination washer-and-dryer machines at a renovated factory in Louisville, Ky. GE Appliances, owned by China’s Haier Smart Home, said the suppliers are located across 10 states, including four in Kentucky, four in Tennessee, and three in Indiana. The investment adds to the company’s plan announced earlier this year to spend $3 billion over the next five years to expand and modernize its U.S. factories, including a $490 million expansion of the Louisville washing-machine factory. [WSJ]

68% US population coverage

Uber Freight is deepening its last-mile with a strategic investment and partnership in Better Trucks, plugging into its tech and delivery network to reach ~68% ...