Supply Chain Design

How supply chains are structured, including flows, decision points, and system architecture.

Circular Supply Chain

Jun 7, 2026

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8 min read

The Cobbler Economy

Before fast fashion, 62,000 American cobblers ran the most efficient recovery network in history. One resole at a time.

Jamin Nieri

Circular Supply Chain

May 31, 2026

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6 min read

Fancy, No. 1, No. 2, Cull: The Four-Tier System a 1912 Produce Grader Used to Route Their Produce

In 1912, a produce grader at a Manhattan wholesale market sorted every apple to its highest-value destination, leaving nothing unsold and nothing unrouted. The USDA formalized that logic 5 years later in 1917. Modern returns operations are still working toward that standard.

Jamin Nieri

Circular Supply Chain

May 24, 2026

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5 min read

Item-Level Traceability: How a 1920s Library System Still Shapes Modern Returns Processing

In 1900, John Cotton Dana solved a problem at the Newark Public Library that most modern brands still don't grasp. He understood that return scalability requires discipline at the unit level: every item needs its own history as it moves through the network. A century later, brands are finally learning to do the same thing, using item-level data not just to track returns, but to identify and fix design flaws to improve the quality of their products.

Jamin Nieri

Circular Supply Chain

May 17, 2026

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3 min read

The Coca-Cola Deposit Model And The Economics of Getting Product Back

In the 1950s, Coca-Cola embedded recovery into the transaction itself. The deposit was 30 to 50% of the purchase price, return paths were simple and widely available, and consumers became the final node in the network. The result was a 96% recovery rate sustained at scale. Today, most deposit systems sit at 2 to 5% of product value. The return data follows that gap directly.

Jamin Nieri

Circular Supply Chain

May 10, 2026

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3 min read

The Milkman Run: Designing Circularity Into The Forward Route

In the 50s, the milkman solved two logistics problems on a single truck. Delivery and recovery operated as one system. When that model disappeared, returns became a cost problem instead of a value problem. Here's what changed, and why it still matters.

Jamin Nieri

Circular Supply Chain

May 3, 2026

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2 min read

How WWII Salvage Depots Invented Reverse Logistics

How a World War II recovery depot at Reims operationalized unit-level grading and routing under constraint, setting the foundation for modern reverse logistics and recovery economics

Jamin Nieri

Circular Supply Chain

Apr 24, 2026

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1 min read

The Supply Loop: Our Mission

Circularity is often presented as a new idea. Looking back at how supply chains were originally designed, recovery was already part of the system and designed into the flow.

Jamin Nieri