The Operations Podcast with Fexingo: Process, People, and Profit in Modern Business

Lucas and Luna dive into the operational challenge of battery recycling, using Li-Cycle as the central case study. They explore how the company's hub-and-spoke model—with distributed shredding 'spokes' and a centralized hydrometallurgical 'hub'—solves the logistics nightmare of transporting hazardous lithium-ion batteries. The hosts break down the specific numbers: 95% recovery rates for critical...

In the early 2000s, LEGO was bleeding cash — expanding into theme parks, clothing, and jewelry had pushed the company to the brink. By 2004, it was $800 million in debt and losing $1 million a day. Then-CEO Jørgen Vig Knudstorp slashed 90% of product variants, sold off non-core assets, and rebuilt the supply chain around a core set of bricks. The turnaround is a masterclass in operational discipli...

In the early 2000s, Nvidia's GeForce FX 5800 ran so hot it nearly destroyed the product line. But the failure forced the company to overhaul its entire supply chain and manufacturing operations, leading to the parallel engineering model that powers its AI dominance today. Lucas and Luna walk through how Nvidia transformed a GPU disaster into the operational backbone for its $3 trillion empire. The...

Episode 29 of The Operations Podcast explores Haier's radical 'Rendanheyi' model, which broke a 70,000-person appliance maker into thousands of self-managed micro-enterprises. Lucas walks through the 2005 restructuring that turned assembly-line workers into profit-and-loss owners, and how the approach slashed inventory days from 30-plus to single digits while boosting new-product velocity. Luna pr...

In this episode of The Operations Podcast, Lucas and Luna explore how Starbucks built one of the most vertically integrated supply chains in food retail. They trace the journey from green coffee sourcing through roasting, distribution, and store-level execution, focusing on the company's decision to open its own roasting plants and farmer support centers. Specific numbers include the 800 million p...

In this episode of The Operations Podcast, Lucas and Luna examine how Zipline engineered a drone delivery network that operates at scale in Rwanda and Ghana. They break down the central operational insight: a fixed-wing design that separates flight from payload, enabling 70-mile round trips without recharging. The discussion covers Zipline's launch-and-recover system, its centralized distribution...

In this episode of The Operations Podcast, Lucas and Luna examine how Patagonia has built an operations model that balances growth with environmental responsibility. They focus on Patagonia's use of recycled polyester and organic cotton, its repair and resale program Worn Wear, and the operational challenges of scaling sustainable supply chains. The hosts discuss how Patagonia's mission-driven app...

Lucas and Luna dive into the operational story behind the Toyota Prius — not the hybrid technology, but how Toyota rebuilt its entire supply chain and production system to make it viable. In the late 1990s, Toyota faced a massive challenge: the Prius needed new components like nickel-metal hydride batteries, inverters, and electric motors that didn't exist in its supplier network. They had to co-d...

In this episode of The Operations Podcast, Lucas and Luna dive into Zara's legendary just-in-time supply chain. They unpack how the Spanish retailer's vertically integrated model—from design to store in two weeks—lets it produce small batches, test demand, and pivot faster than any competitor. Specific numbers include how Zara's inventory turns exceed the industry average by 3x, and why its factor...

In this episode of The Operations Podcast, Lucas and Luna explore how Nintendo's hardware supply chain strategy actually fuels its creative advantage. They look specifically at the production of the Switch — how Nintendo deliberately avoided the console arms race, kept its supply chain lean, and used parts shortages as a forcing function for design simplicity. Lucas breaks down the numbers: how Ni...

In this episode of The Operations Podcast, Lucas and Luna dive into Domino's Pizza's remarkable operational overhaul from 2009 to 2016. They break down how the pizza giant rebuilt its supply chain from the dough up—centralizing dough production, optimizing delivery routes with a proprietary algorithm, and using real-time store data to slash waste. Learn how Domino's reduced delivery times by 25%,...

In 1973, FedEx launched with 14 small planes and delivered only 6 packages on its first night. Lucas and Luna trace the operational decisions that turned a seemingly impossible idea—overnight delivery across the US—into a logistics empire. They break down the hub-and-spoke model, the Memphis hub's strategic location, the real-time tracking system that predated the internet, and the cultural obsess...

In 1995, Toy Story made Pixar a household name. But five years earlier, the studio nearly collapsed. When Disney backed out of a deal and Pixar's first feature-length project fell apart, the company faced a make-or-break moment. Instead of shutting down, Steve Jobs, Ed Catmull, and John Lasseter used the failure to build an operational system that would define creative production for decades. This...

IKEA's flat-pack furniture is a design icon, but the operational system behind it is even more impressive. In this episode, Lucas and Luna break down how IKEA's supply chain, store layout, and inventory management are engineered for efficiency at scale. They dive into the numbers: IKEA operates 460+ stores in 60+ markets, with 12,000 products sourced from 2,500 suppliers across 50 countries. The k...

Netflix isn't just a streaming service — it's an operations machine. Lucas and Luna break down how Netflix uses data to decide which shows to greenlight, how much to spend, and even which thumbnail art drives the most views. They walk through the company's A/B testing culture, the 'Netflix model' of content operations that replaced traditional pilot seasons, and the specific numbers behind shows l...

Trader Joe's sells two-thirds organic groceries at prices that beat Walmart on staples like milk, eggs, and bananas. How? This episode digs into the grocer's unorthodox operations: a tiny curated inventory of 4,000 SKUs versus a typical supermarket's 40,000, direct supplier relationships that cut out distributors, and a private-label model that accounts for 80 percent of sales. Lucas and Luna walk...

McLaren doesn't just build supercars — it runs one of the most efficient factories in the world using Formula 1 pit-stop discipline. In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore how the McLaren Production Centre applies race-day logistics to assembly lines. You'll learn about the 'pit stop mentality' — cross-trained teams, parallel workflows, and data-driven rotation schedules that cut build time for a...

Lucas and Luna dig into the operational engine behind TSMC — the Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturer that makes chips for Apple, NVIDIA, AMD, and nearly every major tech company. They focus on a single metric: yield rate. How does TSMC maintain over 90 percent yield on the world's most complex chips while competitors struggle below 70 percent? The secret isn't just EUV lithography machines; it's...

Lucas and Luna explore how SpaceX transformed rocket manufacturing by vertically integrating production, rethinking the factory layout, and treating each Falcon 9 and Starship like a high-volume product rather than a bespoke NASA contract. They drill into specific operational choices: building the factory in Hawthorne to shorten design-to-production cycles, reusing tooling across vehicle variants,...

In this episode of The Operations Podcast, Lucas and Luna dive into how Maersk, the world's largest container shipping company, overhauled its operational playbook after the 2023-2024 Red Sea and Panama Canal disruptions. Using real data from the rerouting of 12,000 TEU vessels around the Cape of Good Hope, they explore the economics of slower steaming, the role of real-time data in fleet manageme...

In episode 12 of The Operations Podcast, Lucas and Luna examine how Nubank—Latin America's largest digital bank—built a lean operating model from scratch. They break down the specific operational choices that allowed Nubank to serve 100 million customers with a fraction of the cost base of traditional banks. Topics include zero-branch customer acquisition, the micro-service architecture that enabl...

In 2011, Dollar Shave Club launched with a viral video and a simple premise: razors should not cost a fortune. But behind the irreverent marketing lay a quiet operational revolution. Lucas and Luna break down how the company built a direct-to-consumer subscription model that bypassed retail middlemen, optimized unit economics with a razor-thin margin, and scaled from zero to 3 million subscribers...

In 2007, Boeing launched the 787 Dreamliner with a radical plan: outsource 70 percent of the aircraft to global partners and assemble the rest in Everett. The result was years of delays, billions in cost overruns, and a hard lesson in operations management. Lucas and Luna break down what went wrong — from the titanium shortages at Mitsubishi Heavy to the fastener crisis that grounded the program —...

In this episode of The Operations Podcast, Lucas and Luna dive into how Puma overhauled its global supply chain after a 2018 inventory crisis. The German sportswear company faced a 12 percent revenue miss due to poor demand forecasting and overstock. They brought in an operations chief from the automotive industry, implemented a centralized planning system called 'GOAL,' and reduced lead times fro...

In 1995, General Electric launched the GE90 jet engine, a massive gamble that required rebuilding supply chains, testing facilities, and maintenance operations from scratch. This episode unpacks how GE transformed its operations to produce the world's most powerful jet engine, from forging fan blades the size of a human torso to co-locating suppliers on-site. Lucas and Luna explore the trade-off b...