Before the cloud - before the commercial internet - there were communications networks that linked manufacturers with their suppliers. How effective they were is another matter entirely.

Here's the latest advice for supply-chain managers: Sweat the small stuff. Manufacturing company executives responsible for parts and supplies tend to worry most about what would happen if deliveries from one of their biggest suppliers were disrupted by a natural disaster or other unforeseen event, says David Simchi-Levi, an engineering professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The importance of produce traceability has been made devastatingly clear in recent years by well publicized incidents of illness, and even death, due to contaminated lettuce, spinach, cantaloupes and more. While officials in such cases spend weeks tracing the contamination to its source, all growers, wholesalers and retailers suffer market consequences.

A conversation with Richard Sawyer, vice president of supply chain with Dole Fresh Vegetables.

Does commercial shipping have to be a matter of life or death?