The Supply Chain Buzz is Supply Chain Now’s regular Monday livestream, held at 12 noon ET each week. This show focuses on some of the leading stories from global supply chain and global business, always with special guests – the most important of which is the live audience!

In this monthly Digital Transformers edition of the Buzz, Scott Luton and co-host Kevin L. Jackson share and discuss some of the top news in digital transformation, technology, and cybersecurity. Listen and learn as Scott and Kevin discuss:

• Some of the lessons learned in the digital transformation of supply chain in manufacturing
• The rise of compressed digital transformations and how cloud technology empowers organizations to navigate these changes effectively
• The Australian port operator that’s back online after a cyber incident
• How to navigate digital transformation from manual to automated
• And much more!

Intro/Outro (00:03):

Welcome to Supply Chain. Now the voice of global supply chain supply chain now focuses on the best in the business for our worldwide audience, the people, the technologies, the best practices, and today’s critical issues, the challenges and opportunities. Stay tuned to hear from Those Making Global Business happen right here on supply chain now.

Scott Luton (00:32):

Hey, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, Scott Luton and Kevin L. Jackson with you here on Supply Chain. Now welcome to today’s live stream. Alright, Kevin, let me have it. How you doing?

Kevin L. Jackson (00:42):

You’ll refer to me by my proper title. Alright, that’s all I have to say. Those birds did it to you, not me.

Scott Luton (00:57):

If y’all can’t tell to let you in on our little not so inside joke. Kevin, of course, is a huge Washington Commanders fan. We had a little friendly wager when the commanders played the Falcons a couple weeks ago, and the commanders put it on the Falcons. So I had to hang the banner

Kevin L. Jackson (01:14):

Jail to the chief. You can kneel off screen, that’s fine.

Scott Luton (01:19):

You can make me be like the old Superman film when they hunted the three bad guys. Man, we’re going to have a Hollywood moment. But anyway, Kevin, all that aside, congrats and it’s fun to do these kinds of things and I appreciate you being a good sport about it.

Kevin L. Jackson (01:33):

Yes, I appreciate you also as long as

Scott Luton (01:39):

Thank you and your falcons for losing. All right?

Kevin L. Jackson (01:41):

Yeah, thank you Falcons for losing. Yes,

Scott Luton (01:44):

It’s a special edition of the Buzz today. It’s the Digital Transformers edition of the Buzz on the second Monday of each month. Kevin joins us as we walk through some of the leading stories across global business, especially with the extra helping of all things technology. And if you’re listening to the podcast replay, which we usually drop the buzz replay on Fridays after the Monday live show, Hey, if you’re listening to the replay, hey, join us on LinkedIn or YouTube or some other social media channel of your choosing. Alright, so we’re going to dive right in. We’ve got a lot to get into here today beyond Commander Jackson’s team’s supreme prominence. But let’s dive into some resources, folks. Y’all know that really we’re here to equip you with resources to help you make better decisions, help you and your team succeed on a heightened plane, right?

(02:34):

A whole different universe. So I want to start with making sure you’re all aware of the US Bank Freight Payment Index for Q 3 20 23 that was released a couple of weeks ago. You can find from this wealth treasure trove of data, you’ll find a lot of actionable insights and perspective from the front lines folks out there moving freight across the country. So you can sign up for this resource, it’s free, it comes out once a quarter. You can either go to freight.us bank.com, which you can see right there in the graphic, or we’ve dropped link to it right there in the comments in your one click away. Kevin. It’s important that we learn and we take from billions of data points and find ways of making better decisions, huh?

Kevin L. Jackson (03:16):

I think it’s more important to learn if all of that weight that’s being transported is turkeys.

Scott Luton (03:25):

Kevin, did you know, speaking of turkeys and data points, did you know that turkeys this year, I read last week, they’re about 22% cheaper than last year.

Kevin L. Jackson (03:36):

Oh, that’s good. That’s excellent.

Scott Luton (03:39):

Isn’t that great news? How

Kevin L. Jackson (03:39):

About the ham? Do you ever have duck for Thanksgiving?

Scott Luton (03:41):

I have not had duck, but ham is up a smidge and beef is up a good bit over last year. So as I shared that via social, I can’t remember who it was, could have been my dear friend Michael, he said, looks like Turkey for us.

(03:56):

So on a much serious note, we’re talking food and of course Thanksgiving time, I think a lot of us are real grateful for the opportunity to eat good food and be with family and nice warm homes wherever you live. But there’s a lot of folks that aren’t able to do those things and Kevin and I both want to call attention to this week, which is always intentionally, from my understanding of the week before Thanksgiving, it’s Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week here in the States, and it runs from November 11th through the 18th. Y’all can learn more at this site here, hh week.org. It’s promoted and organized by some very reputable nonprofits to include the National Coalition for the Homeless. And Kevin, I want to get you, I want to share just a couple. I’m not going to hit all these. These are really staggering factoids, but let me pick a couple here. Here in the states, 37.2 million Americans live below the poverty level. 580,000 Americans are homeless on any typical night and then taking it globally. Sadly, almost 800 million people worldwide do not have enough to eat. That’s

Kevin L. Jackson (04:57):

Terrible.

Scott Luton (04:58):

It’s awful. Six children die each minute globally of a hunger related disease. And folks, you can learn more@hhweek.org. Let’s find a way to change some of these terrible, terrible factoids. Kevin, your response when you see some of this in the overall theme, it’s

Kevin L. Jackson (05:15):

Really important to think about others not just during the holidays but year round. When your stomach is growling, it doesn’t care if it’s the week before Thanksgiving, it’s still hunger support. Those that need help, they’re not there most of the time. It’s not to any fault of their own. It’s outside forces that they have no control over. So remember that and be thankful.

Scott Luton (05:41):

Yes, be thankful. I’ll tell you, it’s certainly a blessing. But if you’re in a position where you can act and support others, whether you get involved in the Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week, which we’ve dropped link there in the chat, or your hometown nonprofit or food bank or just taking care of your neighbors, sometimes your neighbors are dealing with some terrible burdens and how can we do a simple good deeded that makes their day or their week easier? So, so important. Okay, well thank you Kevin for leaning into that and thank you team for dropping the link out in the chat so we can all learn a lot more. Can

Kevin L. Jackson (06:13):

I also, one thing that I didn’t see you or talk to you on Saturday, but happy Veterans Day and thank you for your service,

Scott Luton (06:20):

Kevin. Likewise, you as well, as many of folks know you’re a former Naval aviator. I was a data analyst in the Air Force and we have a good natured rivalry between the Navy and the Air Force here. But Kevin, when you mentioned that I talked to my son over the weekend as we were traveling to make sure he understood the differences between Veterans Day, Memorial Day and Armed Forces Day, and really Veterans Day is meant to celebrate all the veterans that have worn a uniform. It’s a much different day than Memorial Day, and it’s important, Kevin, that folks understand and lean into those differences, right?

Kevin L. Jackson (06:53):

Yeah. Also, it’s important to note where the origin of Veterans’ Day, I was talking to somebody about that. It was the 11th hour, the 11th day of the 11th month, the last day of World War I, the war to end All Wars. So Veterans Day is not just in the United States. Yes. Important to note that as well. Every country has its veterans and every country honors the people that serve for something greater than themselves. That’s right. So honor them as well.

Scott Luton (07:26):

Well put a lot of folks out there living a life of consequence to quote Kevin L. Jackson from a year or two ago, one of my favorite quotes you’ve dropped here on us. Alright, let’s get into the first of four stories we’re going to tackle here today. And we’re going to be talking about a quick update on a cyber attack at DP World Australia, which there is one of the country’s largest ports operators, according to our friends over at Reuters cyber attack had caused a company to pause all operations for some three days. Kevin we’re talking, pausing, all activity related to managing about 40% of all the goods that come in and out of Australia.

Kevin L. Jackson (08:04):

That’s a lot of money there.

Scott Luton (08:05):

Geez man, how about it? No word yet from DP world in terms of any related ransomware demands. Some companies don’t make that public for a variety of reasons, but Kevin, as we’ve been talking, it feels like for decades now, I’m afraid we’re going to be seeing a lot more of this type of disruption in the months ahead, especially for those organizations that don’t prepare and prepare with a sense of reality. Kevin, your thoughts?

Kevin L. Jackson (08:28):

So we just celebrated, as it were, cybersecurity month, right? In October and on November 3rd, research by IT governance reported that there were 114 publicly disclosed security incidents in October. Think how many weren’t disclosed, but just from the ones that were disclosed, there were 867,072,315 compromised records, and that brings this year’s total to drum roll pleas. Over 5 billion records have been compromised this year. And one of these breaches in October that may probably touch all of us is the breach at 23 and me that affected 20 million DNA related records. I mean, we’re all linked through DNA, aren’t we?

Scott Luton (09:37):

It sounds like a really bad Hollywood movie plot,

Kevin L. Jackson (09:41):

Kevin. Geez.

Scott Luton (09:43):

Well, and also going back to the veteran’s theme and those staggering numbers you’re talking about no one’s immune. A couple years back, I recall getting a letter in the mail from the Department of Defense and the personnel center. This was probably about five years ago, I believe the personnel center for the Department of Defense had been compromised and a lot of service members records, not DNA, but service member records had been compromised. How about that?

Kevin L. Jackson (10:07):

I got one of those two.

Scott Luton (10:08):

Yep. No fun folks. So hey, the good news here though, the good news here on the heels of October, which Kevin mentioned was cybersecurity awareness month. We’ve got opportunities to prepare. So if you haven’t been hit hard, you’ve probably been hit. I think it’s safe to say, Kevin, every organization has been hit. It’s just to what degree, right,

Kevin L. Jackson (10:27):

Exactly. It brings up that you have to be aware of the data that you create and share every day and protect it. You say it takes a village to raise a child, it takes the whole world to stop cyber crime. So let’s work together.

Scott Luton (10:44):

That’s right. And unfortunately, there’s going to be a lot more opportunities working together based on all the bad growth rates we’re seeing in terms of what bad actors are doing. Okay folks, we got a lot of good, uplifting, positive stuff to get to here. Now, y’all know every time Kevin joins us, we got to talk about the cloud. The cloud team know the nickname, the Kevin L. Jackson here. So in this piece from Inspirage, hope I got that right, we’re talking cloud powered, compressed digital transformations that are helping to revolutionize global supply chain. So Kevin, tell us more.

Kevin L. Jackson (11:18):

Digital transformation is really a strategic imperative in just about every industry. And the priority is particularly evident in supply chain management where we need to adapt and innovate due to unique challenges posed by the global pandemic, economic uncertainty and supply chain disruptions as well as labor shortages. So the supply chain industry, however, seems to be adopting what’s referred to as the compressed digital transformation strategy. And this involves looking across the entire organization’s operations and choosing a single approach to the transformation, finding the right partner and re-imagining the business from end to end. This approach harnesses technology and deploys solutions at an accelerated pace. This really reduces cost, improves the experience for the customers, partners and employees, and delivers more value over time. And cloud technology is the enabler of compressed digital transformations because adopting a cloud-based solution as the foundation for supply chain management really enables scalability, the ability for you to really respond to changes in the marketplace, a cost efficiency, saving those dollars, real time data insights that you know gives you that visibility into the supply chain and into your customers and partners needs and requirements. And it also enhances collaboration. And it’s all about collaboration Today. Before we had onshoring, they went offshoring, now we’re going nearshoring. Now we have to do all three.

Scott Luton (13:33):

Especially, I mean, think of the global multinational organizations, corporations, MNCs, I think if I get it right, yeah. In some cases, to your point, Kevin, they’re going off shore, they’re going on shore. I mean there’s lots of complexity in their global supply chains

Kevin L. Jackson (13:46):

And it’s all about collaboration.

Scott Luton (13:48):

That’s right. And a couple of the points I want to pull out that you shared and a couple other that this article spoke to me, visibility across the ecosystem and taking a step further because as Greg and I and Kevin, we all have talked about visibility is faster and faster becoming table stakes these days, we need to have solutions far beyond the visibility itself. And a couple of things from this article, as Kevin, you spoke to the rate of change for the leaders out there, according to Accenture’s research, prior to the pandemic, true industry leaders and technology adoption, innovation, well, they were growing two x the rate of the laggards. Right? Now, that gap is much larger as Accenture research indicates it’s closer to five x in terms of the difference of growth between the performers and the folks that just ain’t not getting it with it. Other thing, Kevin, quick comment on that before I move to the second point, Kevin. The cost is real for not embracing the modern day technology, right?

Kevin L. Jackson (14:40):

Yes, absolutely. You’ll fall behind a laggard will not exist in a year.

Scott Luton (14:45):

Ooh, how about that? The other thing I want to point out, I believe this is also mentioned in this read, the Boston Consulting Group, which we’ve interviewed a couple of folks from them in the last couple months. Good stuff there where they report that only 30% of digital transformations achieve their objectives with the biggest obstacle being employee resistance. So folks, you got to engage a people answer that important question that they all are dying to get the answers to. What’s in it for me and Kevin? Do it with your people, not to your people, right Kevin? They

Kevin L. Jackson (15:17):

Have to be part of the transition. It’s natural, it’s human to want to protect what you have. And some people fear technology is going to steal their job. I mean, this was one of the reasons why all the actors went on strike, right? They were afraid that artificial intelligence was going to replace them. That’ll never happen. Okay? But that is once again, data and information that you have to understand and protect. So they were on strike to protect their digital asset, their face, their voice, the jokes that they may say, right?

Scott Luton (15:54):

Some of us have no IP value in the jokes that we say, Kevin.

Kevin L. Jackson (16:00):

Everyone has to digitally transform themselves, their organizations, their business models, but do it together and do it with eyes wide open. Yes. Don’t be an ostrich.

Scott Luton (16:16):

So Commander Jackson, I want to go back to something you shared a second ago because I think we’ve talked about this numerous times, whether it’s on digital transformers or your appearances here, but let’s see if you agree with me. If you’re of the ilk that we’re talking to all the individuals out there that work in a variety of different places in their teams, if you’re someone that to continue that phrase, Kevin mentioned, have your eyes shut, may have your head buried, and you want to stick to doing the same thing from eight to five and stay right there and not change and not learn new things. Folks, I got some bad news for you. Those are the types of roles that may well be replaced by ai. However, the good news, and Kevin, I’m checking in with you, make sure we’re in lockstep here. The good news is, if you’re willing to lean into this incredible opportunity field environment that is 2023 and beyond, and learn new things and raise your hand and volunteer for more fulfilling activities, you’re going to find window after window of opportunity. Kevin, did we agree on those points?

Kevin L. Jackson (17:12):

Absolutely. One of the fastest growing jobs is what’s referred to as a prompt engineer. You know what a prompt engineer is?

Scott Luton (17:23):

I do not one that’s always on time. I’m assuming

Kevin L. Jackson (17:31):

That’s a bad guess. No, but when you’re interacting with artificial intelligence through something like chat, GPT, you have to fashion the request what you want, you have to tell the system what you’re looking for. I want it this high, this low, or this color to address this type of thing. And the text that you put into the search bar or the query bar is called a prompt. All these years where you’ve been putting these texts in Google in order to find something, you are practicing prompt engineering. And now it’s even more important as you are prompting artificial intelligence to give you information or to create something or to find something or to augment your own capabilities. That job position is a real job, is a prompt engineer, and they’re pulling 200, $250,000 per year salaries

Scott Luton (18:40):

That I buy a lot of turkeys or ducks or whatever you want for Thanksgiving, huh?

Kevin L. Jackson (18:45):

Yeah. So all that practice of trying to find something on Google or Bing, it’s going to pay off. That’s right.

Scott Luton (18:53):

I appreciate you sharing that, Kevin. I really do. That’s a great example of kind of what we’re talking about. Let’s see here. Kevin, I mentioned digital transformers a couple minutes ago. You had the beat goes on the train, keeps on the express train. That is digital. Transformers keeps on cranking out great content. Episode 70 was recently released and you sat down with a business leader from at t business. Tell us more.

Kevin L. Jackson (19:15):

Yeah, I had the opportunity to interview Rich Banks. He’s the at and t chief Information Security Officer and oh’s, fun, fun. We discussed the future of digital security and risk management. We learned about the role of culture really in shaping cybersecurity practices and the impact of cutting edge technologies like AI and quantum computing. I’ll tell you, he was just so full of information. He used to work with the CIA actually, and he didn’t tell me any secrets. That’s why I’m still here. But you need to check out the show Digital Transformers. Wonderful. And episode 70. Hey, before you know it, it’s going to be a hundred.

Scott Luton (20:01):

Well, you know what? Talking about things we should be grateful for and celebrate 70 episodes of any podcast series is a tremendous accomplishment. I think the average in this industry and this growing industry where there’s over 3 million podcasts, the more every day

Kevin L. Jackson (20:17):

Everybody got a podcast,

Scott Luton (20:19):

Right? And you know what, Kevin? We love that democratization of voices and views and walks of life and all that stuff that’s so important. However, Kevin, most of those 3 million plus don’t have more than 10 episodes because it’s tough to make content that resonates and for all the work that goes into it. So kudos to you and the Digital Transformers team, and I’m looking forward to checking out this latest episode. Kevin,

Kevin L. Jackson (20:41):

Thank you. I’m trying to catch up. What are you guys at like 1,015? Oh, geez, you got so many shows on here. Hey,

Scott Luton (20:50):

It’s not a race, it’s not a race. It is a collective journey, right? To help so many people out there. And while we do that, enjoy the conversations that we team up on. I really enjoy it. Kevin makes my day. But going back to the numbers, I’m curious where we are too. So Amanda and Catherine, big thanks to both of y’all behind the scenes. Let us know, I’m not sure what

Kevin L. Jackson (21:09):

Episode number 1195.

Scott Luton (21:11):

Oh really? Yes. 1195. Okay. Wow,

Kevin L. Jackson (21:14):

Man.

Scott Luton (21:15):

Okay. What are some of your simple predictions and projections and prognostications as synonym day here when it comes to this retail season? What are you expecting as we got 45 days through the end of the year? And then of course the returns season starts. So if you have any bold predictions, share ’em here in the comments or put on supply chain now, social media. We’re going to be gathering those over the next week or two. So Kevin, is there any bold prediction that you want to make for this current retail season or do you want to share that later?

Kevin L. Jackson (21:50):

No, I’ll there right now, the end of Black Friday.

Scott Luton (21:54):

Okay, tell me more.

Kevin L. Jackson (21:57):

There’s no more Black Friday because Black Friday is every day. All you got to do is go right on your laptop. Why are you going to go out late at night after you’ve eaten your Turkey and because you want to catch the first sale at 0, 0, 0 want on Friday morning and fight with all the people, get your hair pulled out and your wig snatched just to go buy something where you can just sit on your laptop or your desktop or your phone and buy anything you want from anywhere at any time at a cheaper price. What’s the purpose?

Scott Luton (22:42):

Sorry, you had me having your wig snatched. I’m sorry, Kevin. I didn’t see that one coming. Amanda is dropping in our production chat here and she’s referencing smearing, which is a term out there that really talks about how the holidays are getting lengthened. And Amanda says, black Friday, according to Walmart, started last week. So it’s not one day, it’s weeks now. Because many retailers are pushing out all that activity from certain days and certain very defined timeframes, and we’re bringing that smearing it across weeks. So Kevin, like your prediction, I think that resonates with a lot of folks. I’ve got some dear family members that it’s like a tradition for them to get together and get out in physical brick and mortar on Black Friday. But I think more and more Kevin folks are tapping into the convenience of year-round deals and e-commerce at their fingertips and in-store shopping on big targeted days, maybe more and more thing of the past. I don’t know, Kevin.

Kevin L. Jackson (23:39):

Yeah, last year was the last time I’m not going to have my TRO snatched ever again.

Scott Luton (23:46):

Alright. Oh gosh, Kevin, you never cease to surprise me. I never know exactly what Kevin’s going to share. Alright, I want to share our third article we’re getting into here today. We’re talking about manufacturing, which of course many of our listeners out there may know what’s one of my favorite topics with my favorite aspects of global industry. So Kevin, did you know, according to manufacturing dive, which puts out great content over there, part of the dive family of publications, the manufacturing industry has some 627,000, 600, 27,000 open jobs, tons of opportunity in this space. Now, from our friends here at Columbus, I want to talk about some of the lessons learned from the digital transformation that manufacturers are going through, especially as it relates to their supply chain management. So Kevin, tell us more.

Kevin L. Jackson (24:33):

So everyone has gone through disruptions in the supply chain, but you would think they would go away after the pandemic, but it’s not true. They even become more and more common in recent years, either because of geopolitical conflict or inflationary pressures or everybody’s afraid of the recession and climate change, weather related events are changing everything. So in order to thrive in this new environment, this new landscape, manufacturers need to revamp their operations. And they do this by doing supply chain transformation. Businesses can create an agile high performance supply chain that makes it easier to respond to the constantly changing business dynamics and the customer expectations as well as retained that competitive advantage across the marketplace. Some of the top manufacturing use cases include demand forecasting that use historical data to predict their future market needs so they can optimize inventory and anticipate demand. Also, asset maintenance, predictive and uptime solutions that use data analysis to anticipate and prevent equipment issues, minimize downtime, and to ensure smooth production.

(26:10):

This also cuts costs. One of the third areas they refer to as a new term, I guess servitization. This is offering both products and services. So instead of just selling a thing, a widget, a product, you also create a service that goes with that thing. Now this fosters customer relationships and provides added value. So beyond selling these products, companies want to provide things like maintenance, insurance and connectivity because I mean, everything’s connected, right? So this generates sustainable revenues. And finally, mixed reality for things like remote inspections and commissioning, having it on the shop floor and for infield services to connect experts from various locations that can work together to address the customer’s need or requirements. This type of technology enables real time guidance and instructions resulting in enhanced training, maintenance and troubleshooting another one of those services servitization that go along with the product. So it’s really changing what manufacturing means.

Scott Luton (27:42):

Yes. So Kevin, I loved your commentary and it really speaks to the depth I think of this article, and I love their practical takeaways from the use cases in the manufacturing world. I just want to pick up on a couple things. You mentioned an article mentions in folks we dropped link in the chat, leveraging technology to include many more parameters in your demand. Forecasting is so important. Getting far, far beyond just historical data and tendencies, right? So we’re not all looking just in the rear view mirror, but that anticipation that Kevin is talking about, predictive forecasting. The other thing that I think’s really important, having been in a manufacturing environment through a big chunk of my career, leveraging data analytics to get out ahead and anticipate, there’s that word again, equipment and production line issues. Hey, let’s find every way possible to avoid those costly production line downtime penalties that are never fun conversations. Kevin? Oh

Kevin L. Jackson (28:34):

No. You never want to tell mama when she can’t get her Amazon port on time.

Scott Luton (28:39):

Oh gosh, man, you ain’t lying. I think this was in the article. I could be mixing up articles a bit, but this shouldn’t surprise anybody. Gartner finds that just 54% of AI projects move from the pilot phase to production and probably a lot less to outcomes of any kind, much less consequential outcomes. So Kevin, this may be too simplistic, but I want to get your response here. Sure. We got to be as leaders and we reference running around with a hammer, looking for a nail with AI a lot. I think it’s just so prevalent. We got to be asking these critical questions. Hey, what are our business goals? What do we want to accomplish? And then what is the right tool? Kevin, your thoughts.

Kevin L. Jackson (29:20):

Artificial intelligence is not artificial at all. It’s really giving you more efficient access to the information and data that humans create. Artificial intelligence can’t create something out of nothing that’s imagination and that’s purely a human skill. And you need imagination. The ability to conceive or visualize something that not only doesn’t exist but never existed and would never exist if it wasn’t for you. That takes real human intelligence. Alright, so artificial intelligence isn’t a panacea. It can’t create something from nothing. You need people to create something from nothing.

Scott Luton (30:14):

Well said Kevin. Well said. While we’re on the topic of ai, which I think it’s federal regulations that every business show these days have to reference it, this hit my radar. And Kevin, you may know a lot about this, I don’t want to surprise you with this, but Amazon’s working on a chat GPT competitor, which shouldn’t surprise anybody. It’s called Project Olympus. And what hit my radar a week or two ago, one of my friends on LinkedIn shared that I think the parameters that Project Lymph, first off, we got to stop with these dramatic names. Can they be brilliant names like Project Fred or Tiffany or I don’t know, Teddy Bear or something. But hey,

Kevin L. Jackson (30:52):

Project Dofu. No thank

Scott Luton (30:54):

You. Something I feel like when we go dramatic names, it just invites potential bad things. But anyway, this project Olympus, I think it’s 10 billion parameters. It is remarkable. Kevin, have you heard, is this at your radar yet?

Kevin L. Jackson (31:07):

Well, that’s why you need a prompt engineer. What type of prompt do you write to address that many different parameters?

Scott Luton (31:17):

Right? Well, Kevin, on our fourth article, we want to cover a neat read from Supply Chain Connect focused on how to navigate that critical transition from manual to automated. So Kevin, tell us a lot more. So

Kevin L. Jackson (31:30):

Really we’ll, talking a lot about digital transformation in its simplest form, a digital transformation can be understood as the transition from a manual process to a digital process. However, this can, and it should be much, much more than that. Digital transformation goes well beyond establishing just a connection. It really doesn’t have, as I say, a binary qualification that you’re either transformed or you’re not transformed. Rather, an organization can anticipate needing to go through a journey. They to go through stages of technological growth and development from manual to digitized to assisted automation, partial automation, and then eventually make it to fully automated processes. This article highlights some real insight from Steven Ette from Digital Key. He compared it to a car’s cruise control system. You can’t have a cruise control if you don’t digitize the speed of the car and you can’t have adaptive cruise control if you don’t digitize the distance that the car is from the car in front of you.

(33:05):

Digital is the first step. It’s not the only step, but once you’re digitized, you can automate and then fully digital transformed means that you’re digitized, but you’ve also moved forward with automation. In the automotive world, they have a level from zero where there’s no driving automation all the way up to level five, which is full driving automation. So in the context of that’s the context of operating on the roadway. But the same thing goes when it comes to your organization’s digital transformation. We actually have a graphic that sort of visualize this. Level zero is where humans are doing everything and you have to do gradually transition to where you are digitizing the information and data. You can on demand take that data, you can go to digital assistance all the way to fully automated operations and business processes at level five. So it’s a journey and it’s probably a continuous journey, right?

Scott Luton (34:31):

Yes. I think there’s a parenting analogy somewhere around here. Kevin, what a great one. But I want to go back for a second to the author that references the

Kevin L. Jackson (34:41):

Cruise control. Yeah.

Scott Luton (34:42):

Yes, the cruise control. In a greater scheme of things, perhaps Kevin, I’m not sure if you did this, but back in the day, my first car was a 1992 Honda Civic, I believe. A little four door, I got about 300,000 miles to the gallery.

Kevin L. Jackson (35:00):

That’s when your feet was sticking out the bottom right?

Scott Luton (35:05):

Might as well be, but bring that up because my dad taught me how to change my own oil and I would save at the time, you’d get an oil change back then for 10 bucks it seems like maybe 15 bucks. So cheap,

Kevin L. Jackson (35:18):

Most useless skill ever.

Scott Luton (35:20):

Well, you know what though?

(35:23):

I used to save because as any high schooler, when you’re on a budget, I think I made 60 bucks a week from my local grocery store. 15 bucks was doing the math, 25% of that. So to save that 15 bucks or whatever that was, I think my dad would even buy me the oil filter and stuff and I would learned how to change ’em on oil. Now, fast forward some 30 years later where cars have gotten, it seems like so much more complex. We had different constraints on our time and budgets and all this other stuff. And Kevin, I bet I could not change my own oil to save my life here today. And I bring all this up because I think we have choices. We have choices. Whether you’re like Sauer or you lean in some cases, it really behooves you to develop certain skill sets, especially technical skillsets.

(36:11):

So you can use that to move your way up the career ladder or Yeah, absolutely. Or maybe to launch entrepreneurial initiatives. And in other cases you may bring in experts in this case is the folks that saved me from these complex vehicles these days. So you can use that bandwidth to lean into what you’re talking about will create more, right? Do those innately human things that create other opportunities and free up other parts of your journey. Kevin, I’m not sure if that analogy makes sense to you. So my first question is, how long has it been since you changed your own oil in your car?

Kevin L. Jackson (36:44):

Yeah, never. But no, I mean it used my first car. I would do maintenance on it all the time because all you needed was tools maybe and Chilton’s guide, right? Right.

Scott Luton (36:59):

You didn’t need to plug it in tools.

Kevin L. Jackson (37:02):

You can do anything today. You can’t even start without rolling in a computer and connecting it to the appropriate terminals so you can get the failure code.

Scott Luton (37:14):

I’m with you.

Kevin L. Jackson (37:15):

So it’s so complex, but that actually will give you more time so that you can drive down the interstate and enjoy your life. So there are balances.

Scott Luton (37:26):

There are balances. And what one person chooses is their journey shouldn’t be other persons and shouldn’t be other persons. I mean really it’s fascinating. The rate of change related to our automobile, our technology, it is all fast. Okay, what a fun episode of the buzz here. The digital Transformers edition. Yes.

Kevin L. Jackson (37:44):

This? Yes. Great. I really enjoyed this.

Scott Luton (37:48):

It’s kind of like the Baskin Robbins episode today. We had all kinds of flavors here today. But Kevin, first off, I want to bring up, this is a really cool graphic. I think this really gives you an illustration of what this process looks like from manual to automation and all the different steps from here to there. So y’all check that out and I want to make sure we give proper credit supply chain connect with our friends that published that last article that prompted all of this oil change talk, how to navigate the transition from manual to automated. So y’all check that article out. Alright, so Kevin, if folks want to lean into digital transformers or lean into all the other from cloud to other aspects of global technology and leadership that you share and help educate and inform folks about and give your expertise and been there, done that perspective on how can folks connect with you, Kevin?

Kevin L. Jackson (38:39):

Yes. Always on supply chain now, right where we have a monthly show and we’re right here on the buzz the second Monday of every month and next month on digital transformers, I’m going to interview an executive from SES satellites. In fact, they just launched on a Falcon nine yesterday that they completed their constellation of six mid earth orbit satellites, the power of their global O three B Mpower system, which provides high bandwidth globally over 98% of the world, including the oceans. So that’s going to be on next months digital transformers. And you can always catch me on Twitter or X at Kevin Jackson and on LinkedIn, Kevin L. Jackson.

Scott Luton (39:38):

Outstanding. And to make it really easy for y’all as well, check out the simple link in the comments to the last episode that we referenced about halfway through the show. So going back to the SCS satellite story, I love that the digital divide is so real and it impacts global society on so many different levels and especially our kids. So I really am looking forward to getting an in-depth view of their great work. And I’ll add this, Kevin, one morning and since you let the cat out of the bag on the front of the show, when Ben and I woke up one early morning, we were staying in Idaho. You’ve got the Tetons, right, the mountain range, and then just another side, you got Jackson, Wyoming. We woke up one morning, we’re drinking our cup of coffee. And right at sunrise, the sun hadn’t quite crested the Teton ranges, but it was up on the other side. You could tell, well there was a rocket launch of some sort and you could see it come straight up right over this mountain range. And it was a bit under reported, Kevin, I went on x, I went on social media chat, what am I missing? But I couldn’t find any news. So who knows, it could be maybe

Kevin L. Jackson (40:46):

They were leaving, they didn’t come, they left.

Scott Luton (40:49):

They were so disappointed in what they found Kevin, so disappointed. But hey, all that kid aside, it was a majestic view and I look forward to sharing a lot more of Ben and my adventure together from last weekend. But Kevin, always a pleasure speaking to of adventures. Thank you. Appreciate what you do and appreciate how you help educate and amplify and inform and help folks navigate through these really uncertain and anxious times. There’s always a better way if we go looking forward and leaning into the collaboration that you mentioned on the front end. So Kevin, a pleasure to have you here on every second Monday. I

Kevin L. Jackson (41:18):

Just enjoy what I love. Audience, this is just awesome. Thank you for your opportunity.

Scott Luton (41:23):

I agree, I agree. Alright, so big thanks to Kevin. Big thanks to Catherine and Amanda behind the scenes help makes the buzz happen every single week. Again, every Monday, 12 noon time, join us here for the live walkthrough of some of the leading business headlines from around the globe. Now we’ve got our holiday schedule coming up, but more to come on that you can always find us across social as well. So with that said, folks, I’m challenging you to take at least one thing of the truckload of brilliance that Kevin dropped on us here today. Take one thing, put an end to action. Deeds not words. That’s where the outcomes come from. Your team will appreciate you for doing it. And on that note, Scott Luton challenging you to do good, to give forward and to be the change that’s needed. And we’ll see you next time right back here on Supply Chain now. Thanks everybody.

Intro/Outro (42:08):

Thanks for being a part of our supply chain now, community. Check out all of our programming@supplychainnow.com and make sure you subscribe to Supply Chain now, anywhere you listen to podcasts. And follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. See you next time on Supply Chain. Now.