We pen this commentary at the beginning of day two of the Supply Chain World North America 2012 conference, sponsored by the Supply Chain Council.  The theme for this year’s gathering was Taking Supply Chains to the Next Level. As was the case last year, our speakers have been extraordinary and the messages have been fairly consistent. For the most part, speakers reinforced that current efforts toward transformation are focused more toward the ‘soft’ skills of managing required organizational and business change, and the recruiting of skilled supply chain professionals.

Donald Wirth, Vice President, Global Operations and Corporate Supply Chain delivered an insightful day one keynote, and providing some candid observations regarding supply chain transformation. One example was: “We spent way too much time on six-sigma efforts while never moving the needle on the competition.”  He then shared his council on leading transformation, which included:

• Leverage scale and skills of the entire organization.
• Focus on standardization and simplification.
• Align management practices, including shifting from functional execution to more collaborative based metrics.
• Continually build the culture and capabilities required to support the business.
• Link supply chain performance and plant excellence, which is a very important required learning and challenge for inexperienced supply chain professionals.

Wirth further shared his belief in visual management boards as a very powerful tool of communicating management commitments toward change.  His key takeaway for attendees was the statement that the business strategy is the supply chain strategy.

Lalit Wadhwa, Vice President of Global Supply Chain Operations for Avnet, Inc., a global high tech electronics distributor provided insights to continually changing high tech and consumer electronics supply chains and the critical importance of fostering multi-tier visibility to inventory, capacity and order activities. Avnet has the unique situation of having capabilities located at both the downstream design and upstream supply points of high tech supply chains.  Lalit also described for the audience Avnet’s current design principles and deployment of a supply chain control tower rollout.   Supply Chain Matters plans to follow-up with Avnet and provide further detail on this control tower deployment effort.

Other speakers stressed a variety of common themes that emphasized strategies for:

• Balancing globalization vs. regionalization
• Learning from other industries
• Importance of risk management
• Segmentation of supply chains
• Focus on required customer and business outcomes
• Understanding and paying attention to the power of analytics and business intelligence applied to areas such as cost to serve, anticipated product demand, or total landed cost analysis.
• Developing a flexible roadmap of transformation

Conversations at last night’s evening reception provided attendees the opportunity ample time to renew acquaintances and reinforce conversations related to supply chain transformation.

Stay connected for further commentary later this week.

Bob Ferrari

This is a brief reminder that there is but one week remaining to register for the upcoming Supply Chain world North America Conference, sponsored by the Supply Chain Council.  As in previous years, there is a great lineup of keynote speakers and concurrent sessions.

Supply Chain Matters via this author will be facilitating one of the conference’s premiere events, the  Pundits and Influencers panel discussion which will be held on the final day of the conference. The Supply Chain Council has provided a dedicated web page to introduce our panel. I was very fortunate in being able to assemble this panel, which will represent years of experience in observing and commenting on supply chain insights and future trends.  Knowing each of the panelists personally, I’m expecting a lively and information exchange.

After collaborating with each of the panelists, we have lined-up the following topics slated for panel discussion this year: (time permitting)

• How and why supply chains must be positioned to be driven by business strategy outcomes?
• Should organizations be revisiting the determination and assessment factors of supply chain risk?
• Will technology play a more instrumental role in transforming supply chains to required new levels of capability?
• Supply chain executives have been of the belief that continuous improvement programs that introduce gradual change are the means for implementing transformation. Will this approach suffice in this new era of constant business change and increased risk?
• What do you believe are the next logical steps for organizations in their S7OP journey?
• How do you observe current supply chain skill gaps being articulated and what do you view as the key management skills required to manage in the “new normal” of business?  Are universities and training organizations focusing on the right skill areas?

At this year’s conference, our panel will also be conducting a dedicated informal networking session with conference attendees, a day prior to our panel. This will be the opportunity to meet one on one with any panelist and provide other questions or exchange topics of interest.

Supply Chain Matters readers who plan on attending the conference are also welcomed to share topics that they would like the panel to address.  Send us an email: info <at> supply-chain-matters <dot> com.

Readers can easily register for the conference by double-clicking on the icon located in our Upcoming Conferences panel on the right-hand panel of this blog.

Bob Ferrari

On April 2^nd thru the 4^th, the Supply Chain Council (SCC) is conducting its annual Supply Chain North America 2012 Conference, which this year is being held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Miami Florida.

This year’s conference has as its overall theme: A Shift to Integrative Thinking, and will include sessions that address needs in the areas of customer delight, supply chain operational excellence, people and talent, and the need for resilience. Last year’s conference garnered highly positive feedback from attendees and this year’s event has similar potential.

The lineup of speakers includes timely keynotes from Donald Wirth, Vice President, Global Operations-Corporate Supply Chain at DuPont, and Steven A. Melnyk, Professor of Operations and Supply Chain Management at Michigan State University. Other conference speakers include senior supply chain managers representing Anheuser Busch Inbev, Avnet, Inc., Cienna Communications, Dell, Land O’Lakes, and SAP, among others.

I’m delighted to announce that I will once again be moderating the Pundits and Influencers panel discussion which is scheduled on Wednesday, the final day of the conference.  This will be my second year of panel moderation for the annual conference.  The panel itself is designed to provide attendees the latest perspectives of upcoming business, process and technology trends impacting global supply chains.  We broadened the format last year to provide the audience with more diverse perspectives, hence the name changed from the traditional industry analyst panel to an influencer’s panel.  The change was well received by last year’s audience.

The panel will include perspectives involving recognized supply chain thought leaders representing academic, consulting, social media and industry analyst perspectives. Panelists thus far confirmed include:

• Steven A. Melnyk, Professor of Operations and Supply Chain Management, Michigan State University
• Roddy Martin, Senior Vice President, Global Supply Chain Practice, Competitive Capabilities International (Former Vice President at AMR Research/Gartner)
• Matthew Davis, Research Director, Supply Chain, Gartner Inc.
• Bob Parker, Group Vice President, IDC Manufacturing Insights and IDC Retail Insights
• Yours truly

My goal is to have the panel discuss and interact on current top-of-mind topics including what integrative supply chain capabilities equate to, the impact of a rather tumultuous 2011 across global supply chains and other topics.

More detailed information regarding the conference, including detailed agenda and registration information, can be accessed by clicking on the conference graphic located on our Conferences panel on the right-hand side.

Please consider joining me at Supply Chain World North America this coming April.

Bob Ferrari, Founder and Executive Editor

On the second and final day of the Supply Chain World North America conference, sponsored by the Supply Chain Council, I was privileged to be asked by the conference planning committee to moderate the Pundits and Influencers panel discussion.

This year, we wanted the panel to include broader perspectives and viewpoints on what is occurring across global supply chains, perspectives that span industry analyst, consulting, blogging and academia.

We were fortunate to secure a stellar group of panelists which included:

Simon Ellis, Practice Director, Supply Chain Strategies, IDC Manufacturing Insights

Brad Householder, Partner and Director, Supply Chain Management Practice, PRTM

Noha Tohamy, Vice President, Supply Chain Research, AMR Research / Gartner

Nick Little, Assistant Director, Executive Development, Eli Broad Graduate School, Michigan State University

I asked each of our panelists to articulate the one capability area they believed will be the most important for supply chain organization’s to focus upon in this post-recovery era.  The capabilities mentioned were:

• Responding to demand volatility
• Strategic alignment of the supply chain with the company’s business goals
• Supply chain managers possessing the skills to not only master their function, but more importantly, the soft skills required to sell ideas and innovation.
• Filling the pipeline for new supply chain talent by offering more opportunities for entry-level talent to gain needed cross-functional experience, and for educational institutions to perform a ‘supply-demand’ analysis relative to preparing students for the different skills required in managing globally extended supply chains.

Our discussion and panel interchange  time flew by quickly, but the panel was able to respond to questions directed at the current occurrences of supply chain disruption, including the implications of the recent devastating earthquake and tsunami that effected Japan and multiple industry supply chains. Other questions were directed at what specific general management skills are required in supply chain management, as well as the impact of the organizations in the emerging markets making future impacts on supply chain management.

As we concluded the panel, Noha Tohamy provided a rather interesting perspective.  She noted that some attendees were asking her earlier, what was the next ‘big thing’ that AMR Research/Gartner was declaring for supply chains in the coming months.  Her response was, “there is no new big thing.” “The challenge for supply chain teams in this next era is to continue to work and improve on all the required capabilities of demand response, agility, integrated planning and other declared competencies.”

To summarize our overall experiences and takeaways from this year’s conference, we close with some quotations captured throughout the two days.

“The unthinkable does happen- who would have thought that both an earthquake and a tsunami would occur at the very same time.”

Don Weintriitt, Global Supply Chain Director, Dow Chemical Company

“The planets are aligned for deeper supply chain analytics”

Tom Davenport, President’s Distinguished Professor of Information Technology and Management, Babson College

“Supply chain organizations cannot just return to the former ways of doing business. This new era requires far different means for fulfilling customer and supply chain needs.”

Dave Malenfant, Vice President, Global Supply Chain, Alcon Laboratories

“Once you figure out that something has gone wrong in the supply chain – the response is critically important.”   “Globalize what you can- localize what you must.”

Lalit Wadhwa, Vice President, Global Supply Chain Operations, Avnet Inc.

“Deep collaboration with suppliers and customers is never wasted”

Don Esses, Vice President, Supply Chain Operations, QCT Division, Qualcomm

Supply Chain Matters again thanks the North America Leadership team of Supply Chain Council for the opportunity to participate in this year’s annual conference.

Readers can view our other previous conference commentaries at the following links:

Dispatch One

Dispatch Two

Bob Ferrari

The second day of the Supply Chain World North America conference  was just as informative as the first, and the highlight was a presentation from a supply chain grounded CEO.

Readers can view our day one commentary at this link.

The morning keynote was from Alan D. Wilson, the CEO and President of McCormick & Company, Inc., who’s corporate headquarters were but a few blocks from the conference venue in Baltimore.  CEO Wilson’s presentation was insightful from two perspectives. First, Wilson comes from background and grounded experience in supply chains, having served in the military as a logistician, and having contributed in supply chain roles at Procter and Gamble.  He clearly understands and can relate to supply chain management strategy and importance.

More importantly, Wilson provided a live demonstration on how supply chain professionals can speak and relate to the language of the executive suite.  In his articulation of the shareholder and business goals for McCormick, he was able to clearly map these top level goals to required metrics in material conversion, supply chain and process reliability areas, all within a single, cascading slide. McCormick also has unique supply chain challenges in that its business model of spice and flavor products requires a high level of SKU’s, as well as the need to source inbound materials from over 50 countries.  It was great to observe a CEO who could also clearly articulate these challenges to an audience dominated by supply chain professionals.

Another important strength brought forward was McCormick’s strong emphasis and reinforcement of corporate culture being the fabric of the company.  This culture includes an obsession with quality and firm and demonstrated beliefs in respect, inclusion, recognition and collaboration. McCormick believes that taking care of employees will lead to employees taking good care of customers and suppliers. A noted example, during the darkest days of the past global recession, McCormick continued to invest in people and in benefit programs. Wilson firmly believes that this strategy, although counter to the prevailing industry norms, paid enormous dividends in commitment and performance. There is also a strong linkage between desired outcomes in business performance with organizational design and individual employee incentives.  The management tenet of measure and reward what you want to change is alive and well at McCormick.

McCormick is not immune to ongoing supply chain challenges in the area of sourcing risk, exploding commodity costs or overall improvement in inventory turns. However,  listening to Wilson, one gets a clear sense that the entire organization is aligned and focused on these challenges and remedial plans.

It would be great if every major supply chain conference could have a CEO guest speaker with the DNA of Alan Wilson.

Bob Ferrari