All articles
Every LightSource article, newest first: AI procurement, sourcing strategy, BOM cost management, supply chain risk, and industry deep dives.
Six of the Top Eight Phone Makers Are Now Chinese: The Supply Base Apple Helped Build Powered Their Rise
Blueprints Into Paychecks: America Built the Factories, Now They Have to Make Money
Tariffs Between Allies: What the US-Canada Escalation Means for the World's Most Integrated Supply Chain
Civilization's Biggest Bet Runs on Five-Year Lead Times: Takeaways from the Berkeley Agentic AI Summit
Velocity Is Existential: Three Takeaways From the MEMA Commercial Vehicle Outlook Conference
Source Code Episode 14: Jim Nelles, Supply Chain & Procurement Executive, on Why Procurement Is the Fastest Way to Grow EBITDA
The Cannon Byzantium Didn't Buy: The Oldest Case for Early Supplier Involvement
Five Months Used to Be a Deployment Record: Today That's Molasses
Source Code Episode 13: Aaron McMillan, Editor from Procurement Magazine, on AI Predictions for Procurement in 2026
Source Code Episode 12: Chris Chandler, Founder & Managing Partner at The Creovia Group, on Procurement Lessons From Private Equity
The Procurement of Outside Lands
Source Code Episode 11: Douglas Johnson, Former VP of Global Supply Chain at Emerson, on 34 Years of Supply Chain Leadership
Source Code Episode 10: Victoria Folbigg, CEO of Folbigg Consulting, on How AI Will Transform Procurement
AI Workforce Is Live: Five Sourcing Capabilities and the First Results
Source Code Episode 9: Shashi Mandapaty, Former Chief Procurement Officer at Johnson & Johnson, on Why One Throne Isn't Enough
Source Code Episode 8: Running on Paper: Rick McDonald, Chief Supply Chain Officer at Clorox, on Why Supplier Trust Is the Real Business Continuity Plan
The IEEPA Ruling Doesn't End Tariffs: Refunds Are Slow and New Authorities Fill the Gap
Direct Materials Needs an Operating System Before AI Can Help
Source Code Episode 7: The Failed Historian: Jason Busch, Founder of Spend Matters, on Why 99% of the Auction Happens Before Bid Day
Rent the Model, Own the Evals: How to Buy AI Like a Procurement Team
LLMs Are Playdough: Deployment Is Where the Value Gets Built
Source Code Episode 6: Boots on the Ground: Danny Wang, former SVP at Canada Goose on Consulting, Sourcing, and Supply Chain Trust
Source Code Episode 5: From Cost Center to Competitive Advantage: How AI Is Reshaping Procurement Leadership
5,100 Suppliers vs. One Country: Two Ways to Build the Machines That Make Chips
Google Sold a Million Chips to Its Own Competition
The Power to Resist Influence: What Investors Are Actually Buying in the SpaceX IPO
Source Code Episode 4: CFOs Have a Ledger. Why Don't CPOs?
Fluency First: The Right Order of Operations for AI in Procurement
Closed-Loop Procurement: What Spend Management Can Learn From Control Engineering
The Buyer's Tariff Playbook: Duty Math Belongs in the BOM
Introducing Source Code: The LightSource Podcast
What the People Building AI Agree On (and Where They Contradict Each Other)
China Time: Chinese Automakers Ship New Cars in 24 Months, Half the Western Clock
Consolidate Your Data and Keep Your Best Tools
The Front Line Is a Factory Floor
The Two Percent Ritual: What Automotive Cost-Down Targets Really Buy
Every Job in Procurement and Supply Chain, Ranked by AI Risk
When the Mothership Leaves: Procurement After a Corporate Spinoff
The AI Sourcing Playbook: A Stage-by-Stage Guide to Where AI Delivers and Where It Doesn't
What Suppliers 51-100 Tell You That the Top 50 Won't
Why $1 of Procurement Savings Is Worth $31 of New Sales
What the 10-Ks Tell You: Reading the Strategic DNA of the World's Biggest OEMs
The Convergence Problem: Why Dual Sourcing Alone Won't Save Your Supply Chain
The Iran War's Supply Chain Shockwaves: Helium, Oil, and the Downstream Reckoning
2026 Working Relations Index: Every OEM Improved -- Here's What Changed
The Supplier's Case for Digital Procurement
China's New Supply Chain Decrees: A Practical Guide to Decree 834, Decree 835, and the Compliance Catch-22
e-Auction Types: A Complete Guide to Forward, Reverse, Dutch, Japanese, and Beyond
Should-Cost Modeling for Food: What Changes When Your BOM Has a Shelf Life
Should-Cost Modeling for Consumer Electronics: A Practitioner's Guide
HTS Codes: A Complete Guide
What Procurement Can Learn from Sales
How to Securely Serve an Enterprise App in China
Digital Twins: From Tesla to Waymo to Your Supply Chain
Duty Drawback: A Practical Guide to Recovering Import Duties
LightSource vs. Coupa: Choosing the Right Procurement Platform
The Top 10 Wartime NPI Projects of All Time
Make vs. Buy: The Case for Professional Software in the Age of AI
What Andy Warhol Can Tell Us About AI: When Making Gets Cheap, Taste and Distribution Win
ITAR Explained: What Every Procurement Leader Needs to Know
From Automotive to Aerospace: A Procurement Leader's Transition Guide
The Top 10 NPI Projects of All Time
Mastering bill of materials (BOM) data for direct materials sourcing
Getting Ready for a LightSource Deployment: Pre-Kickoff Guide
People at the Center: Leading the Procurement AI Journey in 2026
The Sourcing Bottleneck: Why "Excel & Email" Costs You Money
What is Budgeting in Procurement?
What is Supplier Performance Management?
How AI Supports Sustainable Supply Chains
Procurement Finance 2025: Strategic guide to ROI & alignment
What is RFQ in direct materials procurement? A strategic guide
What’s the difference between direct vs. indirect procurement
LightSource is validated in the fall 2025 Spend Matters SolutionMap
Before you invest in another tech stack, your best resilience tool is already on your payroll
The AI tipping point: How generative AI is reshaping procurement
Specialty chemicals leader Arxada leverages LightSource to drive process efficiency, impact, and cost control in tail spend chemicals sourcing.
Announcing AI Tariff Tracker: Automatic HTS Classification for Every Part on Your BOM
The modern chief procurement officer: Adapting to change and leading with AI in 2025
Measuring the ROI of AI: Building the business case for intelligent sourcing
Why your next sourcing optimization tool must be intelligent
Direct Material Cost Modeling with AI: A Guide
Vendor management for a new era of procurement
Auction fairness in procurement sourcing: Balancing efficiency, equity, and strategic value
Decoding the hype: A pragmatic look at analyst claims on AI in procurement
LightSource at DPW Amsterdam 2024: Helping procurement achieve 10x growth with AI
Driving cross-functional collaboration with sourcing software
Food procurement 101
Spend analysis 101
Sustainable procurement: What is it and why does it matter?
What is the difference between purchasing, procurement, and sourcing?
Apparel procurement 101
Supplier Diversity: What It Is and Where It Pays Off
3 steps for supply chain success
Healthcare procurement 101: Common procurement categories
Predictive procurement: Is it a fad?
Procurement categories for chemical manufacturers: A brief guide
Indirect procurement for dummies
What is an RFX: RFP vs RFI vs RFQ
Procurement analytics explained
Automotive procurement 101: OEM categories
What is New Product Introduction (NPI)?
What is BOM cost management?
Sourcing software's most valuable integrations
What is the current penetration of sourcing software?
Iterative RFPs: Evolving procurement processes
What Advanced Sourcing Software Actually Saves
A Perfect Marriage: PLM & e-Sourcing aka BOM cost management
Indirect procurement - The underdog
Does ease-of-use matter in sourcing tech?
How can procurement professionals maximize benefits of e-sourcing software
White paper: Inflation gate
What is supply chain?
How to build a car
Supplier partnership hierarchy
Should-cost modeling changes the game
Incoterms: A complete guide
Why procurement matters more than sales
The third wave of SaaS
A cultural double-standard in supply chain
What is LightSource?