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
Mary Kate Love (00:32):
Welcome everyone to a special episode of Supply Chain. Now we’re super excited. Today we’re going to cover a really fun topic, national Supply Chain Day, and you’re joined here by a few women from the supply chain now team Catherine and Amanda. So I’ll introduce myself and then Catherine will go and Amanda will go, but I’m Mary Kate Love, I’m VP of Marketing here, and also a co-host on the supply chain. Now team.
Katherine Hintz (01:00):
Hi everybody, I’m Catherine Hints. I am the creative manager and a producer here at Supply Chain now.
Amanda Luton (01:06):
And hi everybody. I’m Amanda Luton, the VP of Production at Supply Chain. Now it’s fun because Catherine and I are usually behind the scenes so we can be on the podcast today. We’re taking over.
Mary Kate Love (01:18):
Yeah, it’s a takeover. I love that
Amanda Luton (01:20):
Supply chain takeover. Anyway, we’re here today to talk about a day that we’re really looking forward to celebrating coming up on April 29th, which is National Supply Chain Day. But before we get into national Supply Chain Day, let’s chat just a second about all these new holidays that are being added to the calendar. You cannot go a single day without a fun holiday that are on the calendar. Some are created for fun and celebration, summer for recognition. Days of appreciation and gratitude for those people are things that may otherwise go.
Katherine Hintz (01:57):
Yeah, just like you said Amanda, some are fun like National Ice Cream Day talk like a Pirate Day. If you’ve listened to any of our live streams that there are a lot of National Food Days, national Siblings Day, but we wouldn’t be able to celebrate all of these national days without our supply chain. So Mary Kate had the great idea that it was about time that we had a national supply chain day too.
Amanda Luton (02:21):
I love that. And some of these days are totally fun. My favorites are absolutely the national food days, but some are meant to be taken a bit more seriously. International Women’s Day, that was just last month, a LS Awareness Day, world Refugee Day, and I think National Supply Chain Day is one of these fun holidays. It’s fun, but it is something that we need to take maybe a little bit more Morely. So let’s kind of get into why we’re here today to talk about National Supply Chain Day, what we’re doing to celebrate as supply chain. Now, the number of voice of supply. So Mary Kay kind of give us some information about the background of National Supply Chain Day and why we’re here doing this.
Mary Kate Love (03:06):
So I’ll go through some of the basics and Catherine will too, but you guys just made me think of some people might wonder how do you create a national day? And it is really, really easy. You just kind of have to submit online while you’re creating the day, while you’re the right person or entity to create the day. And the team will review and they’ll kind of designate it as the National day of X. I know we just celebrated the National Day of Oreos or something recently.
(03:36):
Exactly a plethora of days, but this is going to be the National Supply Chain Day. Every year is on April 29th, so that falls on a Monday this year. So we’ll be celebrating at noon Eastern time and there’s a link to register. Go to supply chain now.com/ns cd. I had to say that a few times before the show, but you’ll see everything there about joining our live stream. A few fun things you can do in advance, but this is really a day that is meant to shine a spotlight on the incredible people who keep our rural connected, right? Supply chain is really how the world is connected. They’re the unsung heroes behind the scenes, making sure everything from your morning cup of coffee to lifesaving medical supplies get where they need to be. So I think every single person in the world is, I think, more aware of supply chain. Now after Covid and everything that happened, I was working at a company that produced toilet paper. So that was really,
Katherine Hintz (04:40):
Yeah,
Mary Kate Love (04:41):
That was the one time in my life that people were like, oh my gosh, can you hook me up with toilet paper? So crazy times. But I think right, that really highlighted how important supply chain is and how apparent it is in our everyday life. So make sure you join us this year again, Monday, April 29th, but join us every year, April 29th, mark it on your calendar so you know exactly when it is.
Katherine Hintz (05:06):
And you might be wondering, who is this for? Who’s invited to come to this? And this kind of ties back to why Amanda and I are here too. National Supply Chain Day is for all supply chain professionals, enthusiasts, whether you’re a practitioner, a solution provider, a truck driver or a marketer, there’s something for everybody on the day to celebrate and just kind of learn more about the impact the supply chain has on everyone’s day-to-Day life. We’re really excited this year that Vector Global Logistics, who’s a long time partner of Supply Chain now is sponsoring the session. So tune in to social and come to our event to hear more about it. But if you are looking to be a sponsor and want to participate in the celebration in any capacity, really feel free to reach out to us via email. At NCD stands for National Supply chainDay@supplychainnow.com. The whole celebration is really inspired by National Manufacturing Day and that’s used as an opportunity to inspire the next generation to look into careers in modern manufacturing. So much has changed in the past few years, let alone the past decade. So really opening people’s eyes to what it looks like to work in these industries. And that event is hosted by the Manufacturing Institute and National Association of Manufacturers. But I’m going to pass back to MK to speak a little more about these holidays and what it means.
Mary Kate Love (06:35):
Yeah, so National Manufacturing Day, October 4th, I believe every year I was working at a facility where we actually hosted an event because it’s open and the idea is that National Manufacturing Day shouldn’t just be celebrated in one spot. People should host students, they should host young professionals in their career, they should really showcase manufacturing of the future. And so we hosted a group of students at our facility in Chicago, and it was really cool to see how their perceptions of manufacturing shifted positively through their experience. And so we literally had, it was like 20 students come on our manufacturing floor, sit with us, learn about manufacturing of the future, and they left completely jazzed about manufacturing, which that’s not typical of students. Young students know, Hey, there’s all these really cool jobs in manufacturing. And I feel the same way about supply chain too.
Amanda Luton (07:38):
Well, and I think a lot of people, you don’t know what you don’t know. So there’s a lot of students that may have an idea of what manufacturing is, but they don’t really know that so many different types of sectors are in manufacturing. So many types of different sectors are in supply chain. I feel like a lot of people probably understand the basics of manufacturing that’s been around, of course a very, very long time. So is supply chain, but I think part of National Supply Chain Day is the same as National Manufacturing Day. It’s educating people on what the people that work in the supply chain actually do. There’s so many sectors and roles and responsibilities and like Mary Kate was saying before, the pandemic people understood what manufacturing was, but nobody knew what supply chain was. Scott has worked in manufacturing, or I’m sorry, in supply chain for the last 20 years, and honestly up until, I don’t know, a couple of years before the pandemic, I even didn’t exactly know what he right.
Katherine Hintz (08:39):
Me neither.
Mary Kate Love (08:40):
Yes.
Amanda Luton (08:42):
But now in the four years, if y’all can even believe it, it’s been four years, like this week, four years ago. This week is when Covid shut down schools across the country. So it’s been four years since schools were first shut down due to Covid and grocery store shelves were bare. We were all trying to find toilet paper, Mary Kate, like you’re saying. Yes. But it’s only been in these four years or so that people have really gotten a grasp of what supply chain is and understood it and how it really affects our life. So I think National Supply Chain Day is a great opportunity to give people a glimpse into what the real heroes and the real change makers in the supply chain industry really do, and let’s celebrate them because truly the world moves because of the people and the professionals that work in supply chain.
Mary Kate Love (09:35):
Agreed.
Katherine Hintz (09:36):
Absolutely. Yeah, and I think something that I’m really looking forward to about National Supply Chain Day is the opportunity to really dig into the stories and breakthroughs and all of the technology that we have in global supply chain and recognize those people throughout it. I mean, just getting to hear some of the technologies that people use now in warehousing and manufacturing is just crazy. It feels like we’re living in the future in a lot of ways.
Amanda Luton (10:04):
Absolutely. And I think there are some really cool things that we can share about supply chain. One of my favorite things, supply chain statistics and information. But if you like online shopping and if you like two day shipping, same day shipping, you can thank your friends in supply chain E-commerce sales are projected to hit 6.5 trillion in the next couple years with supply chains playing a pivotal role in managing this digital shopping surge.
Mary Kate Love (10:33):
I’m playing a pivotal role in that too.
Katherine Hintz (10:35):
I feel like
Amanda Luton (10:41):
Some other fun statistics and cool fun facts about,
Katherine Hintz (10:46):
On a slightly more serious note, red Cross and other disaster relief organizations literally cannot function without the hardworking supply chain professionals. And supply chain agility was so key in delivery in the 200 million units of essential supplies during those first months of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Amanda Luton (11:06):
That’s very true and very important. Supply chains are vital for healthcare delivering. This really blew my mind when I read this statistic. 95% of medical products are delivered to their destinations on time because of the hardworking people in supply chain. And you think about it, medications or emergency tools and things like that, they’ve got to get there on time. There’s drugs that can expire, things have to be refrigerated, and they have to get to their locations in a timely manner when the healthcare professionals need them. So making sure that they arrive on time, I mean, what a logistical miracle that those things can get where they’re going 95% of the time.
Katherine Hintz (11:52):
That’s amazing. I can’t even arrive on time to have
Mary Kate Love (11:54):
95.
Katherine Hintz (11:55):
I have to get to serious and I’m not lifesaving materials.
Mary Kate Love (12:00):
That is a great stat. I love that one. And it kind of feeds in perfectly to this next stat that I love, which is supply chain professionals employ over 44 million people worldwide. So that just really lends its hand to all the different careers that you can have in supply chain, right? There are so many different careers. So if you’re looking for a job, you should probably check out the supply chain industry for that. And you should probably join us at noon eastern on Monday, April 29th because we’re going to be talking about those things. We’ll be talking about what the workforce of the future looks like for supply chain. We’ll be highlighting some of the unsung heroes of supply chain today, and it will start to get you thinking maybe a little bit different about supply chain, but it will also allow you to celebrate the people of supply chain who make up all of these stats that we just read out. So don’t forget to join. It’s going to be myself and Scott co-hosting on the date, and we’ll bring in some other people and we’ll hear from Be Global Logistics our sponsor on that date as well.
Amanda Luton (13:05):
And the really cool thing is audience member, yes, you listening to this podcast right now,
(13:11):
You can also participate in National Supply Chain Day with us. You can submit a picture or video on the role that you play in the global supply chain, whether you’re a data analyst, a doc worker, a planner or forecaster, you name it. Send us a picture or a video of you and your team in action and what role you play in the supply chain. You can submit your photo or video to N scd@supplychainnow.com. You can email it to us. You can also post it to Social Tag Supply Chain now on any of your social platforms. And we will also just an FYI include all of these links and information in the show notes today, but we would love for you to participate. So send us an email or add a post to social and let us know the role that you play.
Katherine Hintz (14:03):
Yeah, that might be one of the things I’m most excited to see is learning all the different facets of supply chain and being able to share that with our global audience. Absolutely. Because even just yesterday, we were learning about the oyster and lobster supply chain, the buzz, and it’s just so wild that everything we have has to get to us somehow. And there’s a lot of very hardworking men and women behind the scenes making sure that I can get all of the books off of Amazon that I order and get all the things I buy at Sam’s Club and Costco. So I’m really looking forward to it. But if you guys want to learn more about National Supply Chain Day, you can check out our website@supplychainnow.com slash ns cd, or you can email us at n cd@supplychainnow.com. And we are so excited to celebrate with you all.
Mary Kate Love (15:01):
Thanks everyone. I hope you enjoyed this special episode and takeover from the Women of Supply Chain now about National Supply Chain Day.
Intro/Outro (15:10):
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.
