⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Top business executives, tech innovators, and port leaders gathered for the 13th Annual Global Supply Chain Excellence Summit in Long Beach, California, spotlighting sustainability, resilience, and digital innovation amid rising uncertainties. Hosted by the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business from Thursday through Friday, the summit aimed to address critical challenges in logistics and supply chain management. Business executives at the summit pointed to extended production lead times and fluctuating internal processes as major contributors to this growing uncertainty. "Usually in the toy manufacturing from China and Vietnam, it's about 120 days production lead time, 90 to 120 days is production lead time and then there's an internal time for us to be able to prep, and publish and issue EPOs, and purchase orders. Those all have extended at least by 20 to 40, 50 days. We have a lot more uncertainty. We have a lot of changes of numbers that we have to go through internally," said Miyeon Francesca Noh, Vice President of Integrated Business Planning at Jazwares Toy Company. At this year's summit, experts are sharing their experiences on how to navigate the challenges posed by the latest tariffs. For U.S. companies, every move -- from where they source parts to where they ship them -- could be the difference between profit and paralysis. Some carriers are adopting latest AI technologies to mitigate the impact of supply chain shocks. "I think what you have seen is regionals and even some of the larger national carriers just take hold, build the technology, and it's already starting to work. It was force-fed, probably a little bit before some folks were ready, but I think it has been digested. From the carrier side, you're almost on the other end of it now," said Michael Cannizzo, Chief Commercial Officer of the logistics company OnTrac. Meanwhile, the summit's trade coverage highlights that this year has seen an uptick in new U.S. industrial projects with over 15 major reshoring announcements, particularly in solar, semiconductors, and EV components sectors. "As far as our mega site in Texas, what they are building now is all of the infrastructure of the products that go into those panels. And that's what they are leasing 300 acres from us to do that. That's a good example of reshoring more processes to the United States, rather than importing it from other parts of the world," said Randall R. Kendrick, Founder and CEO of the real estate firm Xebec Realty. Kendrick says Xebec's half a billion dollar redevelopment plan aims to revive a previously shuttered industrial sites into a modern manufacturing and logistics hub, as part of a broader trend, spurred by U.S. policy to strengthen domestic manufacturing capacity. Industry leaders say the long-term shift is clear- supply chains will no longer be built with cost alone in mind, as resilience and sustainability have now become the key criteria. SHOTLIST: Long Beach, California, USA - Aug 14, 2025 1. Various of 13th Annual Global Supply Chain Excellence Summit in progress; guests speaking; 2. SOUNDBITE (English) Miyeon Francesca Noh, Vice President, Integrated Business Planning, Jazwares Toy Company: "Usually in the toy manufacturing from China and Vietnam, it's about 120 days production lead time, 90 to 120 days is production lead time and then there's an internal time for us to be able to prep, and publish and issue EPOs, and purchase orders. Those all have extended at least by 20 to 40, 50 days. We have a lot more uncertainty. We have a lot of changes of numbers that we have to go through internally."; 3. Various of 13th Annual Global Supply Chain Excellence Summit in progress; guest speaking; screen; 4. SOUNDBITE (English) Michael Cannizzo, Chief Commercial Office, OnTrac: "I think what you have seen is regionals and even some of the larger national carriers just take hold, build the technology, and it's already starting to work. It was force-fed, probably a little bit before some folks were ready, but I think it has been digested. From the carrier side, you're almost on the other end of it now."; 5. Various of 13th Annual Global Supply Chain Excellence Summit in progress; guest speaking; screen; 6. Various of participants; 7. SOUNDBITE (English) Randall R. Kendrick, Founder and CEO, Xebec Realty (starting with shot 6): "As far as our mega site in Texas, what they are building now is all of the infrastructure of the products that go into those panels. And that's what they are leasing 300 acres from us to do that. That's a good example of reshoring more processes to the United States, rather than importing it from other parts of the world."; 8. Various of 13th Annual Global Supply Chain Excellence Summit in progress; guests speaking; participants. [Restrictions: No access Chinese mainland]