[00:00:07] Good morning, Scott Luton here with you live on Supply Chain Now Radio, welcome to the show. In today’s show, we are continuing our Supply chain Buzz series, a brief weekly look at some of the top news and trends across the global. In Supply chain community. All in 50 minutes or less. Today’s episode of the Supply chain Buzz on Supply Chain Now Radio is brought to you by Verusen, an innovator in materials, inventory and data management technology.

[00:00:35] Berenson’s cloud platform uses artificial intelligence to harmonize and provide visibility into materials, inventory data from ERP and other systems. You can learn more at verusen dot com v e r u s e in dot com. It’s Monday, November 11th for our listeners in the United States. It is Veterans Day, a time when we offer gratitude to those who have served in our country’s military forces. I serve proudly as a member of the United States Air Force, having completed my time in August 2002. I was afforded the opportunity to meet some of the finest people that one could ever work with. We looked after each other through good times and bad times, all while working together to carry out the greater mission. Hard to believe it’s been over 17 years since I completed my time, the Air Force to each of those incredible men and women that I served with. Bruce gillean. Troy Boozer. Hylan Wong. Julie Miller. Vincent James to name a few. Thank you for your service and your camaraderie and prayers and best wishes to the family of the late Jeremy Krall’s who we lost just a couple of years ago, and to our veterans everywhere.

[00:01:49] Thank you for your service. Now let’s get to the news first today. It up first today is also Singles Day in China, a holiday that got its start in the late 1990s at named Gene University, where those without significant others are encouraged to indulge themselves and by themselves something nice. It’s also known as Bare Stick’s holiday in China, coming from how the date 11/11 appears on paper, similar to Black Friday or Cyber Monday in the United States. Singles Day has become the largest online sales event in the world. In 2009, e-commerce giant Alibaba got behind the holiday and made it a huge campaign. And when we say huge in 2018, Alibaba did 30 billion dollars in sales on Singles Day. Consider that all e-commerce sales in the United States on Black Friday and Cyber Monday totaled fourteen point one billion dollars in 2018. And in early reports, Alibaba has claimed that in the first hour of Singles Day 2019, sales were already at 13 billion dollars. Wow. And can you imagine the Supply chain team hard at work fulfilling those orders?

[00:03:13] Speaking of e-commerce, our second story focuses in on Amazon. One of Alibaba’s chief rivals, according to an article in Supply chain div-, Amazon announced plans last week that it was investing 40 million dollars in a new robotic innovation hub in West Burrow, Massachusetts. The company will be three hundred fifty thousand square feet in size and is scheduled to open in 2021. The company plans to make the facility its headquarters for all things robotics with a plan to design, build, program and ship the robot to wherever needed. All under one roof, according to the article, Emma. Amazon already uses caillebotte’s and dozens of its warehouses and fulfillment centers, people and COBOL to work together to pick SORTE transport and stow packages earlier. Earlier in 2019, it was reported that Amazon began implementing packing robots into its facilities. These robots pack at four to five times the rate of the average human packer. Amazon has also implemented robots in its sauteed urban centers there. The robots have helped to reduce the number of missed sorts when it comes to delivery. The company has been developing a six wheeled autonomous bot named Scout to help with the final mile final mile. A recent Amazon patent application shows that the Scouts ability to use onboard sensors so that it can cross streets. Clearly, there’s no slowing down in Amazon’s quest at using robotics to fuel its light speed supply chain operations. And congrats to the fine folks over Westborough for landing the robotics center.

[00:05:00] Maybe they can arrange for us to tour the facility because I bet that would be fascinating. Third store today, we’re gonna be talking automotive once again on the heels of a labor deal between the UAW and General Motors. No time is being wasted to carry out one of the clauses of that deal. General Motors has sold Lordstown, Ohio, assembly plant to Lordstown Motors Corp., a manufacturer of electric pickup trucks. Lordstown Motors Corp. plans to kick off production in late 2020. Of the trucks, which are targeting business and government customers, the startup company plans to use union labor but employ far fewer workers. Battery powered vehicles typically require fewer parts and aren’t nearly as difficult to assemble. Lordstown Motors will face stiff competition from groups like Revision, Automotive and Electric. Truck maker that recently landed in order for 100000 vehicles from Amazon revision has also drawn significant investment from the likes of Ford and Amazon. In store number four, we talk blockchain. Our friend Eric Johnson over at J.O. Seek.com is reporting on an interesting use case involving the innovative revolutionary technology. One of the big areas across Supply chain where blockchain utilization has been targeted is that of freight invoicing. In July twenty nineteen DHL Global Forwarding and Hewlett Packard started testing a shipment invoice system backed by blockchain. The system’s chief focus, you ask, eliminating invoice in accuracy’s for one off shipments. Those that fall outside of standard freight contracts. In a statement released last week, DHL stated that this system, quote, simplifies the approval process and clearly identifies the shipment quotes that are approved by whom and when, all in an immutable risk records all end amenable records, end quote.

[00:07:06] Kim Asone Vise, president of Global Logistics at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, when asked about the project’s benefits thus far, said, quote, 100 percent invoice accuracy and paid Owen agreed terms and little to no manual intervention in a quote. One other benefit was said to be fewer days of payment aging by the shipper, which certainly makes their suppliers happy. Mizone also said that HP plans to expand its use of the system globally. Both companies also cited a key benefit was just how much time it saved for its employees on both sides. On a side note, if you haven’t already. Be sure to check out GSC dot com. It’s an excellent source of news, insights and much, much more in Supply chain and many other industries. We were really pleased to have Eric Johnson own as a previous Supply Chain Now Radio podcast guest when he was in Atlanta at an industry event. You can check that out that it’s episode number 1 0 7. Story number five focuses on a remarkable achievement for one hundred of the Supply chain industry’s leaders, consulting firm BTD B to G. Recently released a remarkable list of what it is calling the 100 Most Influential Women in Supply chain. And it is a who’s who of supply chain leaders that are doing big things in industry B to G states at just 7 percent of Supply chain leadership positions in 2016 were occupied by women.

[00:08:39] That number doubled to 14 percent of Supply chain C-suite jobs by 2018. Progress is certainly being made, but it’s long overdue. Of the very impressive list of 100 women, we’d like to congratulate two of our former guests for making the list. Sandra McQuillen, Executive Vise President and Chief Supply chain Officer for Mondelez Corporation, and Sarah barnes’ Humphrey, podcast host and founder of Let’s Talk Supply chain. Also, our dear friend Sheri Harnish was also named a.k.a. the Supply chain Queen. Sherri serves as an executive Isar with JDA. All three women are absolute inspirations, incredible leaders. Congrats, each of them and all 100 of the recognized individuals. And that’s a wrap for today’s episode, several of the leading Supply chain news stories, trends, developments, you name it, right here on the Supply chain Buzz. Supply Chain Now Radio. You’ll find links to each of the stories on the show, notes for your convenience, including a few additional resources. Big thanks once again to today’s sponsor of the Supply chain Buzz. Verusen. Check them out at Verusen dot com b r u s e in dot com. To our listeners. On behalf of the entire Supply Chain Now Radio team, this is Scott Luton. Thank you for joining us. And we wish you a very successful week. Thanks everybody.