Supply Chain Now

“To me, the most important thing that often gets lost to the public or lost in the narrative, I suppose, is the fact that in any successful negotiation, nobody gets exactly what they want, and that is okay.” Nadia Theodore, Consul General of Canada in Atlanta   Media coverage of international trade details is typically reduced to oversimplified news headlines to the point that the actual meaning is lost to the average person. Ensuring that the intended outcomes are represented by and captured in the supporting legal documents is a highly complex and nuanced effort that must be actively managed by lead negotiators from all sides. When those negotiators sit down at the deal-making table, they have multiple responsibilities to tend to in parallel. They have to represent the big picture objectives and intentions of their country, and they have to understand the relevant context behind any agreements that are currently in place. As she prepares to leave the public sector for a role in private industry, the Consul General shares her perspective with Supply Chain Now Co-hosts Greg White and Scott Luton about: · The fact that businesses need to operate in an environment that emphasizes stability and predictability…

“Companies will look at their supply chain, and in addition to looking at cost they’ll also be looking at the risk and the diversification and the resiliency and the ability to pivot in particular situations.” – John Paxton COO and CEO Designate of MHI   John Paxton is the Chief Operations Officer and CEO Designate of the Material Handling Industry Association (MHI). MHI is a trade association made up of member companies that focus on products and services in the material handling, warehousing, distribution, and manufacturing spaces. Professional associations have always been one of the most important ways for people to continue learning and growing from their peers, but as John points out, that is only the beginning. Associations such as MHI provide professionals with an opportunity to volunteer, showcasing their leadership abilities, and setting themselves apart. In this interview, recorded live at MODEX 2020, John Paxton shares his perspective with Supply Chain Now Co-hosts Greg White and Scott Luton: The cutting-edge best practices and technologies being developed and tested within supply chain The availability of data that can enable the integration of various levels and types of supply chain solutions The enormous potential of supply chain talent, especially as…

“I see automation everywhere. I see technology everywhere. Everybody has the hardware at this point; the key is the software.” – Daniel Studdard, Principal Planner at the Atlanta Regional Commission   No one in the business would expect to change a system without supporting the associated people and processes, and the same is true for freight and traffic. Atlanta, GA is one of the most heavily congested traffic cities in the U.S., and yet it is also a supply chain and manufacturing hub. For every policy or regulatory change in the Atlanta metro area, there are associated infrastructure and planning requirements. Daniel Studdard is the Principal Planner at the Atlanta Regional Commission. He and his team work with federal, state, county, and local governments to study traffic congestion and anticipate the long range infrastructure needs that will ensure the safety of drivers and the general public. In this interview, Daniel Studdard points out the magnitude of the challenge associated with traffic congestion to Supply Chain Now Co-hosts Greg White and Scott Luton: The power of data analytics for identifying constraints such as where drivers are supposed to stop for mandated breaks Anticipating the unintended consequences of well-meaning regulatory changes that…

“Development, hiring, and retention. You have to be excellent at all three if you really want to be truly successful.” – Rodney Apple, Founder and Managing Partner at SCM Talent Group   Despite the global business infatuation with software and automation, talent remains in high demand at industry-leading companies. In fact, Rodney Apple, Founder and Managing Partner at SCM Talent Group, describes it as a full-fledged “war for talent” – a war that he has been on the front lines of for decades. Every supply chain is unique, and so is the company it serves. In order to place the right talent in the right role, recruiters have to look beyond lists of desired skills and intended responsibilities. They have to ask the right questions and understand the importance of matching culture and experience. In this interview, Rodney Apple shares the depth of his recruiting experience with Supply Chain Now Co-hosts Greg White and Scott Luton: How (and why) professionals from one discipline are interested in careers in supply chain Which industries have enough in common that professionals can easily transition from one to the other The importance of deliberate “direct sourcing” for talent as opposed to “posting and praying”

“We are [the] eyes and ears in the supply chain.” – Jan van Niekerk, Vice President of Engineering and Innovation at SpotSee, on SpotSee’s package monitoring   Everyone has likely seen a box at some point with a sticker on it that reads, “This side up” – hopefully pointing up. Given the volume of packages and freight being moved today, it is not feasible to have someone visually monitoring them all. That is where the innovations from SpotSee come in. They manufacture precise but inexpensive vibration, shock, and temperature monitors that can be put on each item in a load so that shippers can monitor the conditions of sensitive product during shipment. According to Jan, a consistent 2% of all shipped goods are damaged on an annual basis and their products can help minimize the risk and cost of that, allowing packages that are moving outside of a product’s tolerance range to report those conditions instantly. In this interview, Jan van Niekerk speaks with Supply Chain Now Co-hosts Greg White and Scott Luton about: The brand damage that is so often associated with product damage and poor customer experiences How innovation has driven down the costs of RFID connectivity to…

On this episode of Supply Chain Now, Scott and Greg cover the top news in supply chain for the week of May 11th.

“The thing is, when you get an opportunity to really partner with your customer, and you see their workflows, you see where the bottleneck is.” – Robert Bova, President and CEO of AccuSpeechMobile   Voice directed picking is nothing new – employees follow prompts from a device or application to select and put together orders. But voice automated workflows present a much bigger opportunity. They can increase the productivity of the workforce, minimize human errors, and save significant time by directly altering the workflows themselves. Robert (Bob) Bova is the President and CEO of AccuSpeechMobile. Their solutions are device based, meaning that people can interact with their solution through either spoken commands or push button controls. It is also possible to integrate their solution with intelligent scanners, and network connections are not required to use the solution. In this interview, Bob Bova speaks with Supply Chain Now Co-hosts Greg White and Scott Luton about: The sheer impact to be gained when increasing capacity and throughput – even incrementally – on each order that has to be picked The ability to onboard seasonal employees via technology, rather than pairing them with permanent employees The advancements he continues to see, both in…

On this episode of Supply Chain Now, Scott and Greg cover the top news in supply chain for the week of April 13th.

“We want to keep associates safe. We want to keep the inventory safe. We want to protect the system from needing to be shut down so it can be disinfected. Making changes is very difficult because of the fixed nature of the infrastructure, but we can get higher throughput through the same operation, increasing redundancy and flexibility.” – Mark Messina, COO of Geek+   It is impossible to deny that the coronavirus pandemic and resulting shutdown have changed consumer habits and patterns in significant ways. Everything from shopping to entertainment has gone online, and many companies, industries, and supply chains and scrambling to keep up. The current volume of eCommerce shipments truly resembles Christmas in April. Mark Messina is the COO of Geek+ Americas and Rick DeFiesta is their Director of Business Development. Like everyone else, they are looking at the current business environment and can see disruption as well as the opportunity for different types of companies in the supply chain. In this interview, Mark and Rick speak with Supply Chain Now Co-hosts Greg White and Scott Luton about: · How cross-generational consumer behaviors and demand patterns are shifting overnight in ways that will have a lasting effect on…