Gartner’s Top 25 Supply Chain ranking was started 19 years ago to recognize the best supply chains in the world and to raise awareness about the impact a well-run supply chain can have on the overall health and competitiveness of a business.

Mike Griswold is the Vice President of Research at Gartner, specializing in retail with a particular focus on forecasting and replenishment. He is responsible for Gartner’s annual Top 25 Supply Chain ranking and joins Supply Chain Now on a monthly basis to discuss the latest in retail supply chains from an analyst’s perspective.

In this episode, Mike talks about the importance of learning from the best supply chains in the world with co-hosts Scott Luton and Greg White:

• What everyone can expect to hear and learn from the ‘big reveal’ of this year’s Top 25 Supply Chain ranking on May 24th

• The three macro-themes that serve as the focus for this year’s ranking: driving growth in an elevated risk environment, embracing the supply chain ecosystem concept, and investing in digitally facilitated connections with customers, suppliers, and employees

• Special bonus guest Donna Krache, Supply Chain Now’s Director of Communications and Executive Producer, also joined the stream to share the professional and life lessons she has gathered during her fifty years in the workforce

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 (00:31):

Hey, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are. Scott Luton and the one and only Kevin L. Jackson here with you on Supply Chain Now. Welcome to today’s show. Kevin, how you doing today?

Kevin L. Jackson (00:40):

It’s been a great week. I mean, I — I’m excited about a lot of things. But today’s show, I’ve been waiting for it. You know, I tell you, Lexmark is, one of my favorite companies.

Scott Luton (00:54):

Man, that’s high praise coming from Kevin L. Jackson. Well, Kevin, I am too. We’ve been looking forward to this excellent show lined up. One of our favorite repeat guests is back.

Kevin L. Jackson (01:04):

Uh-huh.

Scott Luton (01:05):

She’s an award-winning mover and shaker, doing big things out in global industry. And today we’re going to be talking about the critical intersection, I’ll call it, of manufacturing, supply chain, and technology. So, it should be a great show, huh?

Kevin L. Jackson (01:17):

Yes, absolutely. These are three key aspects of every business.

Scott Luton (01:22):

Today’s episode, we should make sure to mention it’s presented in partnership with our friends at Microsoft, who’s doing some pretty cool things in industry. Helping to move us all forward, for sure. We’ll touch on that maybe towards the end of today’s conversation. So, Kevin, are we ready to introduce one of my favorite guests?

Kevin L. Jackson (01:39):

Yes, I’m holding on. Let’s do this.

Scott Luton (01:40):

Hold on. Edge of the seat. OK. All right. So, as I mentioned, our featured guest today is an award-winning business leader. Our guest brings more than 30 years of experience in the high-tech industry and then some. In her current role, she’s responsible for product delivery strategy, which includes areas such as supply chain, manufacturing, hardware, and supplies development, and a lot more.

Scott Luton (02:03):

So, back by popular demand, please join me in welcoming Tonya Jackson, senior vice president and chief product delivery officer with Lexmark. Tonya, how you doing?

Tonya Jackson (02:12):

I am doing great. Thank you, Scott. Thank you for the introduction. Thank you, Kevin.

Scott Luton (02:17):

Well —

Kevin L. Jackson (02:17):

Yes, I’m excited.

Scott Luton (02:18):

We are too. Now, I’ve told Kevin, I’ve got Tonya Jackson under ruse. I’ve really — we’ve really enjoyed, our conversations. And, you know, apart from model lip service, Tonya, I mean, you’re doing it. You’ve been recognized by a variety of folks for your leadership and a lot of the innovations that you are doing at Lexmark. So, we’re going to dive right into all of that today.

Scott Luton (02:37):

But, Tonya and Kevin, before we get into all that good stuff, I’m looking out my window.

Kevin L. Jackson (02:42):

Yes.

Scott Luton (02:43):

And it’s raining a little bit today. It’s a little spring rain. But Tonya and Kevin, it is like been 72 degrees. Sun’s out. I’ve got some bluebird babies. I mean, it’s just been a gorgeous time of year. Farmer’s markets are about to open up, right? Next couple of weeks.

Scott Luton (02:57):

So, I want to start with a little fun warmup question, Tonya. I know you — and you’re originally from North Carolina, if I’m not mistaken.

Tonya Jackson (03:03):

Scott Luton (03:03):

You live in Kentucky now.

Tonya Jackson (03:04):

I do.

Scott Luton (03:04):

So, we’ve shared some of those stories —

Tonya Jackson (03:06):

Yes.

Scott Luton (03:06):

— and kindred spirits there.

Tonya Jackson (03:08):

Right.

Scott Luton (03:08):

What’s one thing, Tonya, that you look forward to this time of year, every year?

Tonya Jackson (03:12):

OK, Scott. So, thanks for that because the — this is spring in Kentucky, and I’ll give a shout out and a nod to Keeneland, which is the spring meet that we — it’s a — it’s the race — a horse race track that we have here in Lexington. So, last weekend I was actually at Keeneland and with some family and friends, and it was just a lot of fun. It is just a lot of fun to go out on a weekend and see the horses, see family, see friends, and just have a really good time.

Tonya Jackson (03:38):

So, Keeneland in — spring in Kentucky is — that April meet and —

Scott Luton (03:43):

Tonya Jackson (03:44):

— in Lexington, in particular, is Keeneland.

Scott Luton (03:45):

I bet there’s some good food there too.

Tonya Jackson (03:47):

Some great food.

Scott Luton (03:49):

Yes. Man.

Tonya Jackson (03:49):

Amazing food.

Kevin L. Jackson (03:51):

No.

Scott Luton (03:51):

So, Kevin, that’s maybe tough the top.

Kevin L. Jackson (03:52):

No.

Scott Luton (03:53):

Tonya set the bar.

Kevin L. Jackson (03:54):

No, sorry. I’m going to have to —

Tonya Jackson (03:55):

Uh-oh.

Kevin L. Jackson (03:56):

I’m going to have to throw a flag here.

Scott Luton (03:58):

OK.

Kevin L. Jackson (03:58):

I’m going to have to throw a flag.

Tonya Jackson (04:00):

OK.

Kevin L. Jackson (04:01):

It’s Louisville. I tell you. It’s Louisville, Kentucky, where spring is hot. OK. I see — I kept this as a surprise.

Scott Luton (04:10):

Yes.

Kevin L. Jackson (04:10):

I lived in Louisville when I was young. I went to Thomas Jefferson High School when I was in the marching band. I played at Churchill Downs. I saw —

Tonya Jackson (04:21):

Oh. OK. All right.

Kevin L. Jackson (04:22):

I saw —

Tonya Jackson (04:23):

That’s one upping me. OK now. OK. All right.

Kevin L. Jackson (04:25):

I saw —

Tonya Jackson (04:26):

Are we going to be like that? Is it — is this how this show is going to be like?

Kevin L. Jackson (04:29):

I played — we played when secretariat ran.

Scott Luton (04:35):

Wow.

Kevin L. Jackson (04:35):

That was one of the highlights of my life. So —

Tonya Jackson (04:39):

Awesome. That is fantastic.

Kevin L. Jackson (04:40):

— I’m going to have to say the Kentucky derby is something —

Scott Luton (04:43):

Wow.

Kevin L. Jackson (04:44):

— that I look forward to in this spring. But now that I live in Virginia, I’m looking for the first trip down to Virginia Beach where, you know, the water’s not — when it’s not too cold. Right.

Scott Luton (04:58):

Wow. All right. So, Tonya.

Tonya Jackson (04:59):

Yes.

Scott Luton (04:59):

I’ve knocked out, a couple hundred interviews and shows with Kevin L. Jackson. I learned something new. He plays — he played in the band. So, Kevin, what —

Tonya Jackson (05:09):

But, yes — What instrument though?

Scott Luton (05:10):

Yes.

Tonya Jackson (05:10):

That’s what he didn’t say. I noticed that he didn’t say. He said a lot about Louisville and traced it down —

Kevin L. Jackson (05:15):

I played — no, no, no. I played the flute, actually.

Scott Luton (05:19):

OK.

Tonya Jackson (05:19):

Really?

Kevin L. Jackson (05:20):

And I actually went on and played jazz flute and R and B when I was in college. And sax. And a little bit of keyboard. So, hey, come on. Come on, I’m ready.

Tonya Jackson (05:32):

I played the flute. But I can see —

Kevin L. Jackson (05:35):

You played the flute, too?

Tonya Jackson (05:35):

I — so, Scott, we’re approaching cousin status here.

Scott Luton (05:39):

Yes.

Tonya Jackson (05:39):

But yes. So — but my career ended in high school. I didn’t take it to college. I did all — I did all right. But I wasn’t that good.

Scott Luton (05:48):

All right.

Tonya Jackson (05:49):

I stopped in high school.

Scott Luton (05:50):

All right. Tonya and Kevin, we always talked about kind of getting the band back together. Supply chain jam band coming to a town near your road show. As much as I enjoyed that, we got to get to work, folks. We got a lot of stuff to get to. I can’t wait to get an update on all the cool things Tonya and her team went up to. Kevin, where are we starting here as we get to work with Tonya?

Kevin L. Jackson (06:08):

Well, actually, you know, aside from playing the flute, I’ve really enjoyed Tonya’s interviews in the past here on Supply Chain Now. As a refresher for our listeners, could you please briefly tell us a little bit about Lexmark and your role as chief product delivery officer, Tonya?

Tonya Jackson (06:29):

Yes, sure. So, we — let me start with Lexmark first. I introduced it a little bit that we are — our head — our headquarters are here in Lexington, Kentucky. We are a global organization and we basically work to provide our customers with imaging devices, as well as IoT technologies. And our long history has been one of, kind of, looking at an industry specific approach to printers and imaging. So, we set up, you know, kind of verticals in — whether it’s banking, government, healthcare, education so we can develop solutions that are very specific to solving customer’s problems.

Tonya Jackson (07:03):

So, that’s our, kind of, our core business. And as I said, we’ve always done managed print service — not always, but we’ve done managed print services a long time. And we — you would maybe appreciate it. We’d like to say MPS or management print services. That was the kind of original IoT before IoT was a — as a thing, right? Like, you know —

Kevin L. Jackson (07:21):

Right, right.

Tonya Jackson (07:22):

— we were phoning home to tell printer — tell — to tell — we would know when to send supplies, send service parts, send those kinds of things so that the customer wouldn’t have to deal with any of that. So, we were always in that business of putting sensors and devices and monitoring that portals and those kinds of things.

Tonya Jackson (07:39):

So, we’ve taken that technology that we’ve always used in printers and are developing another business to connect other things that a customer may have. Whether it’s office equipment, whether it’s hospital, you know, equipment. Things that need to be on some kind of service rotation so that we can deploy our same technology instead of with printers with other equipment.

Tonya Jackson (08:01):

So, that’s an emerging part of the business. Where I — my team, we are solidly in what we call the imaging business. And the product delivery group that we have is a — it’s a — it is a combined organization that has research and development, supply chain and service delivery all in. So — and sustainability.

Tonya Jackson (08:22):

So, it’s kind of end-to-end, from the product design development, making sure that we are developing something that we can source and manufacture for a very long time because our supplies last a very long time in terms of, you know, people continuing to replenish their devices. And we have, again, a strong sustainability group that is helping us, whether it’s recycle content of developing refurbishment models and those types of things so that we can — once the customer has the device and is no longer — wants to upgrade or whatever, we can get that device back, refurbish, remanufacture, get it back out into the field.

Tonya Jackson (08:59):

So, the cool thing is that the organization is feeding each other. So, you know, the service team is saying, these are the components or the modules that may be — development needs to focus more on, because I’m replacing these too much, right? And so, what do we need to do there from a design perspective? And I’ve talked about it, we’re not going to talk about the supply chain crisis on this one. I — it’s pretty — it’s still pretty traumatic. But the —

Kevin L. Jackson (09:22):

Yes.

Scott Luton (09:22):

Sure.

Tonya Jackson (09:23):

— but the fact that the design team works so closely now with the sourcing and the supply chain team, it’s just going to be a better — we’ll talk about resiliency a little bit, but we’re going to have — we are building resiliency because we are designing something with the manufacturing aspect of it in mind now.

Scott Luton (09:43):

So, there’s so much in there. Man, it’s like a series within a series. I — just a couple things before we move on, Kevin, not only was, it sounds like Lexmark was IoT before IoT was cool. But also customers experience, they were doing a lot of that stuff before that became such a big thing here, right?

Kevin L. Jackson (09:59):

Yes.

Scott Luton (09:59):

And the other thing, Kevin, before I get your comment maybe is, I loved the focus — one of the focuses that Tonya shared on remanufacturing and refurbishment. There’s so much we can be doing there that will help in some of our other efforts that we’re charged with as leaders. So, Kevin, your quick thoughts before I move forward.

Kevin L. Jackson (10:16):

One thing that really jumped out at me was the end-to-end approach, right? They have — organizationally they have positioned themselves to really provide the service to the end customer that they need. That’s important. That’s critical in any, any business. And I like their approach. You know, it’s — many companies fail to organizationally address that service that —

Scott Luton (10:44):

That’s right.

Kevin L. Jackson (10:45):

— to the end customer.

Scott Luton (10:46):

That’s right. I bet that helps with some of the silo busts that’s got to go on to get stuff done and get it done at a certain level. So, good call out there, Kevin.

Scott Luton (10:53):

Tonya, so much more to get into here today. I’m going to ask you about, when it comes in particular to manufacturing operations within global supply chain, what’s two or three topics or trends that are priorities or maybe, how on your radar, or call it to you and the Lexmark leadership team right now?

Tonya Jackson (11:10):

Yes, so a couple things here, Scott. It’s — some of it, I’m going to go back a little bit up the chain and then it ends up with manufacturing. One of the things that all of us have learned, and the focus is on simplification. So, it’s not — and it’s not just simplification in manufacturing, it’s what manufacturing is receiving. Whether that’s simplifying the portfolio, common parts, all those kind — back to, again, to the design phase so that the manufacturing process can really be more efficient instead of a, you know, a bunch of cross — changeovers and all of those kinds of things that have — that typically have to happen.

Tonya Jackson (11:45):

What can we do to minimize in through the design, through the portfolio management, working back with marketing sales? And the — and still — but still — you still want a disruptive and a differentiated offering. You could still do all of those things. You can’t have it all, you know, one way, but what are the key things, key functions, key features, and how can we design that so that we can make sure from a manufacturing perspective we have the response that we need at the cost that we need in all those kinds of things.

Tonya Jackson (12:10):

So, it’s not per — it’s not — what’s happening on the manufacturing floor, but it’s the things that we need to do upstreaming to get manufacturing a fighting chance to do what they do well instead of having to make a lot of adjustments. And the other thing is more, perhaps more broad as well, and that’s just the manufacturing footprint. And where do you the hold diversification? And we’re looking at like everyone else. What do you want your manufacturing footprint to look like? Where do you want it to be located? What — how many partners do you want? How — you want really long-term partners now because those are some of the lessons, again, from the crisis. It’s just some of the best results for people that you’ve been working with a long time. And that just kind of helped you — you just worked together to get through it.

Tonya Jackson (12:52):

So, trying to make sure that we have the right partners and that we are working with those partners to grow their capabilities. And then also looking at really from a global perspective, where do we want to manufacture what and how do we want to set up what we call, regional manufacturing in some places. You want a base in one country maybe. But you have customers over a large customer base in another region, and do you want a regional, you know, kind of hub there?

Tonya Jackson (13:17):

And then I talked a little bit about sustainability, again. I think as we get into, and you’ve probably done some podcasts on the whole, the greenhouse gas reporting scope three. And most people can do scope one and two.

Scott Luton (13:32):

Right.

Tonya Jackson (13:32):

But when you get into the scope three with that value chain that long — where you have lots of manufacturing. So, trying to just start to understand what we’re measuring, get a good baseline on the value chain. On our own operations, I think we’re in good shape. But on everything else is, is working with the partners to make sure that we’re understanding what their challenges are, what their goals are. And then we talked a little bit about supply chain transparency and the auditing our suppliers because we’re ultimately responsible. So, what’s going on from a social perspective there? So those are some of the things that we’re working on as well as, and we’ll talk a little bit about it, how to be more efficient from, in terms of, what we’re doing to digitize some of the operations and of course automation.

Tonya Jackson (14:13):

We’re — with automation, we’re — I think we’re getting smarter about what to automate because you can over automate and then you’re — you just, you know, you, you got a lot of equipment that you can’t do anything with. So, what part of the processes should we automate and making sure even then that we’re designing for automation because you don’t want to design something that you’re building and then go automate it. It’s — you can do it, but it’s just not as efficient.

Tonya Jackson (14:37):

So, that’s a little bit on the digital side. We — I know we’re talking a little bit about that, but for us it’s about simplification and then diversification, and then a large piece of sustainability. And one thing I didn’t say, and I think it’s understood, you know, sustainability, remanufacturing, recycling, reusing all of that while people — it is definitely good for the environment. It is the right thing to do. It is in cost savings. When you can reuse something, you don’t need to do a bunch of business cases for it. It’s common sense. And I think sometimes people get tied up with, well, is there a business case for that? And that if you can’t save money by reusing something, you just — you’re doing it wrong.

Kevin L. Jackson (15:15):

There’s a problem.

Tonya Jackson (15:16):

So, you don’t need to spend a bunch of time trying to, you know, figure, you know, argue internally about, you know, the benefit. It is going to save you money. And the more you do that, and the more the whole team gets jazzed and excited about it, it just — it gets the — everybody’s creative juice to start to flow. Back from the design again, what can we, you know, that you’re going to design a part? How many times can I reuse this? And in manufacturing, they’re sitting there trying to figure out all of the things that they can do to reuse things.

Tonya Jackson (15:44):

So, sustainability is real — it is obviously important from a social perspective, but it is good business from cost savings. And customers are asking more and more for it for sure. But don’t think that it’s a — well, it’s going to cost me something to recycle.

Scott Luton (15:58):

Right.

Kevin L. Jackson (15:58):

Right. It seems like, you’re dealing with trying to find that balance between onshoring, offshoring and nearshoring. Many companies are trying to deal with that because it affects all of those other aspects that running a business that you mentioned, including sustainability. One question I had, however, is data. How does data help you in understanding the decision space, right? Between onshoring, offshoring and nearshoring? How do you make that decision? Do you have any comments on that?

Tonya Jackson (16:38):

Yes, so data’s a few different forms and we can hopefully talk about. I’ll try to answer it and if I’m missing the data question, come back to me. That — so, what we would look at is a, what we call a landed cost, right? And to look at the data — we would start — the data crunching starts with the complexity of the supply chain and where are the components come. Not just where the tier one where you’re assembling, right? But where all of these components coming from? And we’ve built a tool, we’ve talked about it before our period is heavily using power BI to understand where our center of gravity is from first of all our customer set. But also, all of the data that’s going back and forth with the suppliers, because the supply chain is pretty complicated, tier one down to tier, you know, X.

Tonya Jackson (17:28):

And so, how do we — where are all of those, you know, components coming from? And then also, what’s the geopolitical state that’s going on with the various countries that we may be looking for? What’s the cost associated in those countries? And then looking — working with — we work closely with our finance team also to take all of our, kind of, operational data with all of the financial data than with the, of course, the sales team because that’s where the customers are, you know, what matters.

Tonya Jackson (17:54):

And then where should we — if we look at all of those things, what’s the — what are the options? And it starts with options and you iterate from there. I mean, if you have the data and roughly in one place, you can just start to, you know, pull levers and start to run some scenarios without digitally, right?

Kevin L. Jackson (18:14):

Right, right.

Tonya Jackson (18:14):

Without having to do a bunch of pilots, right? Just — you just start to model some things and put some best case, worst cases in whatever format that people are looking for. Because some people are looking for, you know, customer impact. Some people are looking for the bottom-line cost. Some people are looking for how much inventory do you have to pile up. All of those things that we can get there if we’ve got a reasonable handle on data.

Tonya Jackson (18:38):

It’s not perfect. It is not. But in general, we’ve — we have worked really hard to take the data that we have, which is abundance of data in anybody’s supply chain. But to figure out what is it telling us and how can — what is the answer that is giving us and then how can we put that toward an outcome, right?

Tonya Jackson (18:56):

So, it’s a bit of an ongoing battle. And, you know, one of the things I wanted to put a plug in here is we’ve — I have a peer, his name is Bashal [phonetic], he heads up our technology group. And when we talk about data, it’s really interesting because we date — we have a group that does, you know, data analysis, right? What we — what he’s done is partnered with North Carolina State and they — we are training data analysts internally. Because it’s —

Scott Luton (19:24):

Love that. Wow.

Kevin L. Jackson (19:24):

Wow.

Tonya Jackson (19:25):

— really hard to go hire a bunch of data analysts. But you don’t — the cool thing is that we have supply chain people that are getting this certification. So, it’s — the — because that way they’re getting the training to handle this data, but they understand the business, right? Because sometimes you get a data analyst and they don’t — they —

Scott Luton (19:43):

Have the context.

Tonya Jackson (19:44):

— they’re great with the data but the context is just hard, right?

Kevin L. Jackson (19:46):

All about the context, sure.

Tonya Jackson (19:47):

It’s just all about the context. And what that does for us is it gives us this expert — several experts that know the business. They love what they’re doing. But now, instead of doing things the way we’ve always done and they come at it from a digital and a data perspective. And they can help us take all of this stuff that’s been sitting in files and, you know, whatever. And we don’t — and actually, you know, make it something that’s much more, you know, usable.

Tonya Jackson (20:14):

And so, I — it’s — and it gives them career growth. And I’m sure we’re going to talk about one of the big things, obviously, is making sure that you don’t do any of this that I’m talking about without really great people.

Scott Luton (20:24):

Right.

Tonya Jackson (20:25):

And people want to continue to grow and learn and be challenged. And so, we have people that grew up in supply chain that are now, you know, getting — they’re data scientists. And they come back, they take the training, it’s pretty intense, they come back and they apply that in our organization, which is —

Scott Luton (20:42):

I love it.

Tonya Jackson (20:42):

— which is really fantastic.

Scott Luton (20:44):

All right.

Kevin L. Jackson (20:44):

Yes, I always say that, you know, digital transformation is about the people.

Scott Luton (20:48):

Right.

Tonya Jackson (20:48):

Yes.

Kevin L. Jackson (20:48):

And that’s what you’re showing.

Scott Luton (20:50):

He does. He says that. He says that. Hey, I’m going back upstream to those horse races you all both are talking about because I’m chomping at a bit in the conversation.

Tonya Jackson (21:00):

I’m not — you know, I’m not sure I want to go back to the horse races. He totally destroyed me with Churchill Downs. So, he win.

Kevin L. Jackson (21:07):

Well, that was my first job — that was actually my first job. I was an usher at Churchill Downs.

Scott Luton (21:13):

OK. Man, you never know. You never know what Kevin’s going to bring to the table here. Tonya, there’s so much in what you shared there. And I just want to call a few things out for our listeners, what’s old is new again, and powerful simplicity. You know, I was talking with the chief supply chain officer of one of the country’s largest nonprofit healthcare organizations. And we were talking about what got them through the crisis and the pandemic. And a lot — a big theme of his answer was reducing variants, right, and eliminating waste.

Scott Luton (21:42):

And those are — we’ve heard of those thousands of times. We’ve done — we’ve acted on that millions of times. But they are extremely powerful. You mentioned the ecosystem and how you’re responsible. Lexmark is responsible for the — for what goes on in the ecosystem. It’s not within the four walls. And I loved your statement there because that’s — more and more, I’m hoping more leaders across supply chain and, really, across global business, really accept that responsibility because we’ll be eliminating a lot of bad actors and bad things.

Scott Luton (22:12):

And then lastly, on a lighter note, you mentioned common sense and how everything doesn’t have to have a business case. Well, I would argue that a million things are short in supply here these days, still. Common sense, unfortunately, it’s still one of them, Tonya and Kevin. So, we’ll see if that changes. But Kevin and Tonya, I want to move this into — Kevin, do you want to comment on any of those things before I move this forward?

Kevin L. Jackson (22:32):

Well, I think I really appreciate their holistic approach that Tonya is outlining. I mean, it’s not just about inside the four walls. They actually understand and appreciate the importance of their partners across the ecosystem and that’s good. That’s really good.

Scott Luton (22:52):

Absolutely, absolutely. And we talked — touched on that great NC State program, creating opportunities for folks, learning opportunities and credentials and more. OK. So, for the sake of time, I got to move us forward. Tonya, we want to talk about — and maybe you touched on some of these in your early responses, but what else would you consider a couple of initiatives that Lexmark has rolled out in recent years to move your digital transformation forward?

Tonya Jackson (23:17):

Yes, I’ll just — for the sake of time, I’ll talk about one in a broad way. So, we have a — offered — as I said, we’ve taken our learnings and our expertise in IoT in general. And our use — we’re using that in a — we’ve developed a commercial offering, it’s called Optra, that’s our trade name, which goes back to our heritage, our first laser printer was branded Optra. And so, it’s kind of a cool but it’s called Optra Edge. And so, we’re using the edge technology and we are looking at — from a manufacturing — in a manufacturing setting of when you have things sitting, what — things can be anything. It could be, you know, you have things that come into your factory and they sit then they get moved. It could be a line that’s running and how fast at tac time, those kinds of things.

Tonya Jackson (23:59):

But — and so, what we’re doing is installing visual or cameras. And to monitor some of these stages — when things — where things are being staged or inspections. And we have — there’s always inspections that anybody’s — in anybody’s manufacturing operation. And a lot of times they are — they’re sometimes — with cameras, sometimes they’re people or whatever. But we’re getting smarter with using what we call Optra Edge which is really our IoT device and we’re using the edge technology so that we can — we get the information quick and we can respond to it.

Tonya Jackson (24:33):

And what we’re looking for are variances. Things that are — or things that are not moving, why are they not moving? And then you can do your regular manufacturing process in terms of lean and continues improvement. But you have the data to, you know, the data there to say, OK. This is — I see — I’ve had these pallets sitting here for this long. Why haven’t they moved? And you can actually start to act on that. You have the data to go act on it.

Tonya Jackson (24:58):

So, one — so again, this is a — we do a — we work with our technology team to do some product development to say they have customers that are asking these questions. We have similar questions, not exactly the same, maybe the same process, same questions. They use our manufacturing facilities to build the skills that are — the AI skills that are needed to go and then they can go back and offer and explain to the customers, hey, this is what we do within our manufacturing facility.

Tonya Jackson (25:26):

We get a benefit because we are improving our operations. And at the same time, they get real data when customers are saying, yes, I see what you say you could do, but can you actually do it? And we could go back in and say, this is what we’re doing. So, we’re working closely with our internal team. And it’s really about anything that is — needs inspection, something needs to be moved, things are not moving. You got bottlenecks and all those kinds of things. The only difference is it’s digital now. And then we can look at the — we can look at that data and act on it.

Scott Luton (25:55):

Yes.

Kevin L. Jackson (25:56):

Oh, yes.

Scott Luton (25:57):

Kevin, I’m going to come to you for your quick response in a second.

Kevin L. Jackson (25:59):

Uh-huh.

Scott Luton (26:00):

I want to add one of the phrases that Tonya shared there and her response was getting information quickly. That reminded me of a really well-known food company, well-known for, like, iconic pickles. And one of their long-term CEOs and chairman of the boards, one of his mantras was, give me good news fast and bad news faster, you know. And you know, so we laughed cause it’s kind of a cliche but it is really so important. And, you know, Tonya’s kind of — was kind of sharing some of the reasons why. But, Kevin, respond to some of the things they’re doing to drive their digital transformation forward there at Lexmark.

Kevin L. Jackson (26:36):

Well, one of the things I heard was is — a trend across manufacturers. And that’s using cameras backed by artificial intelligence to do improve quality assurance. Inspections is a big area where this can be very helpful. And observing the line, the manufacturing line, if you have these hiccups or delays. And it really improves the end product. So, two thumbs up on that one. So, that’s a great move. And you seem to be ahead of the curb in that area.

Scott Luton (27:19):

We’re back to Siskel and Ebert in supply chain. Kevin, we’re talking about this other day. Tonya, you’re getting two thumbs up from Kevin L. Jackson from Digital Transformation.

Tonya Jackson (27:27):

That’s a flash from the past there. OK.

Kevin L. Jackson (27:28):

Yes, absolutely. And one of the things — I mean, I guess it probably helps in some other areas in your business because you recently shared a perspective on supply chain resilience. So, what are a couple of the key factors that you consider to be critical for optimizing that resilience of your or any organization?

Tonya Jackson (27:57):

Yes, appreciate that. So, we — everybody in supply chain is talking about resiliency now. And we’ve — I think we’ve talked about it before. It doesn’t mean — and maybe this is a me statement, but it doesn’t mean that you’re not — there’s not going to be a disruption, right? Because things happen. But what we are trying to do is build — take as many — take all of the lessons learned from what we’ve been through and the decisions that we made and the risk that we took and the speed. All of those things were so good because we — what — we had no choice.

Tonya Jackson (28:26):

And so, we want to — what we call institutionalize all of those learnings. But we did it because I — we had to. But now we want to do it because, OK, we know how to do it. Everybody’s comfortable making those decisions, and we’re going to be smarter about some of our decisions that we made. And —

Kevin L. Jackson (28:40):

It’s good business.

Tonya Jackson (28:41):

It’s good business, yes. And the organization that we have, I think there’s a lot more collaboration about what we are designing and how that can be — we can design to withstand some — to avoid some of those disruptions. Meaning, more common parts. Meaning, more do dual sources out the gate. All of those kinds of things at how we we’re trying to do, you know, to avoid that disruption. And then there’s the, well, something happens. And then it’s kind of, OK, how do you kind of fight through it? We have a — everybody in Supply Chain Now has a better playbook on how to do that. And a lot of that — and I would be — I want to make sure I say that it includes when you’re fighting through a disruption is that you’re taking care of the people.

Tonya Jackson (29:23):

And that the people have been and continue to be amazing. And so, making sure that from a leader perspective, we, you know, my job is to support and listen and all of those things, because the people are going to come forward with great ideas and it’s going to — it’s a matter of offering that support.

Tonya Jackson (29:39):

And then what we are trying to really embrace is stuff’s going to happen. How do we come out stronger? What’s our recovery like? Let’s talk about, OK, we’re going to — this has been a blow. How fast can we get through it? And can we be stronger? Again, going with what did we learn and can we be stronger? So, it’s not about never having a disruption, that’s just not going to happen.

Kevin L. Jackson (29:58):

Right. It’s not possible.

Tonya Jackson (29:59):

It’s not possible.

Kevin L. Jackson (29:59):

Yes.

Tonya Jackson (30:00):

Because a lot of people initially were saying, you know, never wants to happen again. It’s — stuff happens, right? But it’s just, what are you learning from it? How do you develop that muscle to just take the blow, figure out real quick, this is the action plan. Make sure your listing have the right people working on things and then come out even, you know, recovering come out stronger. I’d say that’s kind of our philosophy of what we’re — of how we’re approaching it.

Kevin L. Jackson (30:22):

Oh, I love that. Organizations don’t need to be brittle. They have to be ductile, right?

Tonya Jackson (30:27):

Yes.

Kevin L. Jackson (30:27):

They have to be able to take the hit and still operate. So, that’s a great, great approach.

Scott Luton (30:33):

Stuff is going to happen. And acknowledging that, as simple as it may sound, acknowledging that, it’s a — it goes a long way towards becoming more anti-fragile, right? Maybe.

Kevin L. Jackson (30:44):

Yes, yes.

Scott Luton (30:44):

And then, the other thing you mentioned there, Kevin, everybody’s talking about AI. But a few people are really doing truly practical bottom line, impactful things with it, right? We’re making lots of progress. And it reminded me the way she said that, Kevin, remind me the old phrase, I don’t know who said it first, but everybody talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it.

Tonya Jackson (31:06):

Yes.

Scott Luton (31:07):

Right?

Kevin L. Jackson (31:07):

Can’t do anything about it. Right, right, right.

Scott Luton (31:09):

So, what an outstanding overview. I hate that we’re kind of coming around the — well, should I continue the horse themes coming around the final turn? I don’t know.

Kevin L. Jackson (31:18):

The final stretch.

Tonya Jackson (31:19):

That works. It works.

Scott Luton (31:20):

That’s right. Coming down the home stretch. So —

Tonya Jackson (31:23):

We’re going to have to get you down to Kentucky.

Scott Luton (31:24):

Yes, Tonya. We’ll do this in person at the track next time. OK.

Kevin L. Jackson (31:28):

Yes, absolutely.

Scott Luton (31:29):

How’s that sound? Keeneland, that’s right. Keeneland first.

Kevin L. Jackson (31:33):

Oh, OK. I’ll let you slide on that.

Scott Luton (31:37):

Hey, Kevin’s spiting [phonetic] that. OK.

Tonya Jackson (31:39):

OK, Kevin. OK. You still got Churchill Downs.

Scott Luton (31:42):

That’s right.

Tonya Jackson (31:42):

I can see you. I can see you.

Kevin L. Jackson (31:43):

I got the twin spires coming [phonetic].

Scott Luton (31:46):

So, Kevin, kidding aside, what a great conversation we’ve had here with Tonya Jackson. And we’re not quite done. We’re going to make sure folks know how to connect with her in the — all the cool things that her and the Lexmark team are doing. I look forward to that. Microsoft has helped bring this conversation to our global audience. And as I mentioned on the front end, the company’s doing some really cool things in the industry as well. What’s one thing that Microsoft’s doing that comes to mind, especially in like the manufacturing supply chain space, Kevin?

Kevin L. Jackson (32:13):

Well, you know, Tonya talked a lot about data, and how much data they are collecting throughout their entire process. And they have to crunch the numbers, OK. They have to analyze that data so they can actually listen to the data and know what the data is telling them. And in today’s world, Cloud platform is really how you crunch the numbers. The power of the Cloud is being able to bring all of that computational resources when you need it and not paying for it when you don’t. And that’s one of the things that Microsoft Azure is really doing well in the manufacturing community. Because, historically, manufacturers have a lot of on-premise IT. They don’t want to let go of that IT.

Kevin L. Jackson (33:11):

But more and more, since everything is being data driven, they are transitioning to a hybrid environment. Yes, they have on-premise components like the Azure stack, but it’s connected to the Cloud so that they can reach out and get that power when they need to crunch those numbers. And I think that’s really critical across manufacturing and supply chains.

Scott Luton (33:38):

Kind of the best of both worlds there.

Kevin L. Jackson (33:40):

Yes.

Scott Luton (33:40):

I love that. Power on demand, huh. OK. And I got to throw this last thing in, Tonya. We’re going to — I’d love to make sure folks know how connect with you. But hey, we’re talking AI a second ago and I want to — one of the things that Greg White likes to say, there’s no guarantee that artificial intelligence is actual intelligence. And I think that’s some directional knowledge we got to keep in mind.

Tonya Jackson (34:03):

Yes.

Scott Luton (34:03):

OK. So, Tonya, you’re illustrating why you’re back by popular demand here at Supply Chain Now, really, a breath of fresh air. I love how simple you keep because you’re really talking about some really complex things, some really tough challenges that any organization’s fighting through right now. But I love the altitude that you keep it at. So, for folks that want to learn more, they want to connect with you. I know you do keynotes and stuff and those are some fortunate audiences. All the cool things Lexmark is doing that you described some of which here. How can folks learn more?

Tonya Jackson (34:31):

You can, I can be reached at, tonya.jackson@lexmark.com. If you want to learn more about, you know, Kevin did a great job talking about the Cloud enable. We have Cloud enabled, print. You can visit Lexmark, just lexmark.com. A lot of that information is out there about what we do to help our customers move to the Cloud from a print perspective. And then the Optra offering that I talked about. There’s a lot of good information about Optra offering for manufacturing on our website, lexmark.com as well.

Scott Luton (35:03):

Outstanding. Now, Kevin.

Kevin L. Jackson (35:05):

Right, right.

Scott Luton (35:05):

She’s fearless, she dropped the e-mail out there.

Kevin L. Jackson (35:08):

Absolutely.

Scott Luton (35:10):

I love how Tonya also mentioned, you know, because Kevin wrote the book on Cloud. I’d say I learned a lot about the Cloud by rubbing elbows with Kevin every so often. Tonya, big thanks to what —

Tonya Jackson (35:21):

Thank you.

Scott Luton (35:22):

— you spend some time with us sharing some things you are doing to navigate through some innovative things. And really just from a — just a leadership standpoint, you know, some of the ways that you sprinkle in some of your approach to leadership as you shared that. Big breath of fresh air. And I really appreciate your time here with us here today, Tonya.

Tonya Jackson (35:40):

Thank you, Scott. Thanks for having me again. And thank you, Kevin, it’s been a great day.

Kevin L. Jackson (35:43):

Thank you, really, really.

Tonya Jackson (35:44):

Appreciate the time.

Scott Luton (35:45):

You bet. All right. Big thanks to Tonya Jackson with Lexmark. Make sure you connect with her and tune in to some of the things they’re doing there and really learn from her leadership and Lexmark’s innovation. Big thanks again to our collaborative partners over at Microsoft as well.

Scott Luton (36:01):

Kevin, always a pleasure to knock out these conversations with you. I learn a ton. And we have a lot of fun. But hey, kidding aside, you, you’ve set the world on fire with Digital Transformers, amongst other things. How can folks connect with you and tune into that series?

Kevin L. Jackson (36:17):

Well, first I have to say Tonya is definitely a Digital Transformer. She highlighted all of the reasons why it’s critical for your organization to digitally transform. So, thank you. Thank you, Tonya. You are — you — you’re going to be — they may renew me for another year. But Digital Transformers at Supply Chain Now. And you could, reach out to us @digitaltransx on Twitter or Digital Transformers with Kevin L. Jackson on LinkedIn, and you can get me on LinkedIn as well. And Twitter, it’s Kevin_Jackson. So, just hit me up anytime.

Scott Luton (36:59):

He’s everywhere. He’s everywhere, folks. But hey, also you can get Digital Transformers and Supply Chain Now wherever you get your podcast from. So, a lot of great work there, Kevin. Appreciate your thought leadership and helping folks navigate this digital transformation air that we’re all fighting through.

Kevin L. Jackson (37:12):

Yes.

Scott Luton (37:13):

All right. To our listeners, hey, I hope y’all enjoy this conversation as much as I did. We had a blast from talking springtime and horses and horse tracks and comparing some of the numbers there, all through a variety of shop talk, you know, global supply chain, manufacturing technology a lot more. So again, big things to our friends over at Microsoft. Big things to all of our listeners out there. but we got to challenge you with one thing here, right? You know, we learned a lot from Tonya and Kevin. I like to do all these shows all the time. But it’s all about putting these thoughts and these ideas into action. Deeds, not words. That’s where the road meets road. So, with that said, Scott Luton challenging you to do good, to give forward, and to be the change. And we’ll see you next time, right back here at Supply Chain Now. Thanks everybody.

Intro/outro (37:57):

Thanks for being a part of our Supply Chain Now community. Check out all of our programming at 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.