Day one of the Supply Chain World North America Conference featured a variety of interesting and insightful presentation as well as the opportunity to renew old and make new acquaintances.

This morning’s keynote delivered by Tom Davenport, Professor of Information Technology and Management at Babson College was titled Competing on Supply Chain Analytics.  This was a very timely presentation given the messages we heard at last week’s SAP Sapphire conference regarding an upcoming era of in-memory computing and broader, faster analytical computing capabilities.  Key takeaways from Professor Davenport talk included messages that good data and executive leadership are the most important pre-requisites for meaningful analytics, insuring that all supply chain analytics are tied to specific decisions and desired outcomes.  Also emphasized was that organizations often tend to dwell more on descriptive analytics (what is occurring or has occurred) vs. prescriptive analytics (what’s the best set of probable outcomes).

Throughout the day we had the opportunity to attend different sessions that included Dow Chemical’s strategies and commitment toward driving social and environmental values across the supply chain, Lenovo’s efforts to segment its supply chain design and fulfillment outcomes, along with Motorola Mobility Division’s ongoing supply chain transformation.

This afternoon featured an executive panel discussing current challenges of the post-recessionary supply chain. Panel participants identified supply chain security and risk management, increased regulatory compliance, a growing gap in supply chain talent and transformation to the “new normal’ of business as common cross-industry challenges.  Dave Malenfant, Vice President, Global Supply Chain for Alcon Laboratories made a very astute statement.  Dave observed that after supply chains were ripped apart during the recession, many may believe that returning to previous structures and organizational norms are the path forward.  Dave emphatically declared that this is not going to work since this new era requires a far different set of organizational capabilities and supply chain process responsiveness.  All of the panelists also reinforced the growing gap in management skills in end-to-end supply chain management, particularly in the growing emerging market regions.

Day one concluded with the announcement of the 2011 Supply Chain Council North America Awards for Excellence.  Supply Chain Matters echoes congratulations to the 2011 award recipients:

For Operations Excellence: Celestica and their Project FireFox initiatives in dramatically improving inventory turns and ROIC.

For Academic Achievement: The University of Tennessee and performance based procurement initiative developed for the U.S. Air Force

For Technology Advancement: SAP and its efforts with Coca Cola to implement SAP Business Objects Supply Chain Performance Management for supply chain wide analytics.

For Defense Sector Operational Excellence: U.S. Air Force Global Logistics Support Center for its initiatives in supporting combat operations.

A very busy day indeed at Supply Chain World North America.

Bob Ferrari

Supply Chain Matters will be again out on the road this week.  Tomorrow we are off to Baltimore to attend the Supply Chain Council’s annual conference, Supply Chain World North America which is being held on Wednesday and Thursday.

This particular conference was on a bit of a hiatus during the global recession years of 2009-2010, and is now back.  This year’s theme of Building Supply Chain Capabilities for Future Success was designed to help attendees to focus and discuss the appropriate global supply chain business process strategies in this post-recessionary economy.  There is a great line-up of supply chain executive and other speakers speaking on very timely topics, with lots of opportunities for networking.

This author will be facilitating the Pundits and Influencers Panel Discussion being held on Thursday.  This year, the conference planning committee elected to alter the traditional industry analyst panel to include a broader lens on global supply chains.  We have assembled a panel consisting of influential industry analysts, consultants, influencers and of course, bloggers.

Readers can look forward to subsequent Supply Chain Matters commentaries reflecting on the conference as well as our panel discussion, so please keep this destination on your browser favorites listing.

Bob Ferrari- Executive Editor

In our Part One posting, we shared the initial three areas of interview discussions with John Sells, incoming chairperson of the board of directors for the Supply Chain Council. This part two posting will present the commentary from the remaining three areas of our interview discussions.

Question: How do you foresee the vision and mission of SCC changing within the next period of board leadership in terms of education, supply chain framework models, or other services that can be provided?

John was quick to point out that he does not view the vision and mission of SCC changing per se, but rather more depth to the vision of competitive supply chains.  He anticipates that member volunteer activities will drill down deeper to for instance include levels two and three of the current SCOR methodology, as well more broad based training needs that are tailored specifically for SCC member companies.  A noted success these past months has been the ability to deliver member training in either local, regional, or company-specific training venues.

Beyond the SCOR framework, John feels that members seek more assistance in their planning of post-recessionary recovery.  John noted: “We are not going to have a robust recovery unless you have robust supply chains.  It is going to be the supply chain that leads the way to a robust recovery.”

One other important example that John noted is that the U.S. Department of Labor does not currently recognize supply chain as a formal job category.  “Let’s help acknowledge that supply chain is a bona fide skills category that government and labor agencies can track.”

Often discussed is the shortage of supply chain management skills in the emerging market regions of the globe and John feels that a more consistent categorization of SCM skills across the globe can go a long way in helping to identify member companies, academia and governmental agencies to help identify required supply chain skill areas

Question: Can you comment on any ongoing or upcoming programs and/or major initiatives to which Council members can anticipate?

The council is a non-profit organization. One important initiative that John touched upon was the council’s efforts to establish a foundation within the SCC structure to support and fund further research and development activities centered on supply chain process excellence. These efforts would possibly involve the development or sponsorship of grants that would bring together academia and other institutions to further develop more practioner models needed for organizations to keep pace with the supply chain management process and management skills required to support and keep pace with business recovery.

John and the board want to insure that this supply chain related foundation is initiated and becomes sustainable. ‘While SIG’s (special interest groups) have their own unique contribution, more can be accomplished through foundational activities, rationalized across all global regions. It is a rather compelling story.”

Final Question: Lately, SCC has been expanding its outreach to other supply chain management oriented professional organizations such as APICS.  Do you foresee this activity continuing in the coming months?

John noted that these broadened relationships have increased and that the board anticipates further activity in the coming months. As other supply chain oriented organizations approach SCC, there will be openness toward discussion of mutual activity that can benefit members.

John specifically noted that the Reverse Logistics Association has already approached the council.  As DOD related supply chain organizations continue to embrace SCOR, there may be other broadened opportunities related to training and professional advancement in these organizations as well.

We would like to sincerely thank John Sells for taking the time to speak with Supply Chain Matters and wish the SCC great success in its future initiatives.

Bob Ferrari

Disclosure:  The author of this posting, Bob Ferrari, serves as a volunteer on the SCC North America Leadership team.

Supply Chain Matters had the opportunity to chat with John Sells who is the recently elected Chairman, board of directors for the Supply Chain Council (SCC).

John’s day-to-day responsibilities involve his role as Senior Manager, Logistics and Sustainment at Lockheed Martin Corporation, focusing on corporate engineering, technology and performance based logistics.  We have had the opportunity to interview the chairs of SCC in the past, and wanted to also check-in with John regarding the thrust of SCC in the coming months.

For those readers unfamiliar with SCC, it is a global nonprofit organization whose methodology, diagnostic, and benchmarking tools help nearly a thousand organizations make dramatic and rapid improvements in their supply chain processes.  SCC is most associated with the creation and ongoing maturity of the Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR®) model which helps organizations determine and compare the performance of supply chain and related operations within their company or against other organizations.

In our interview, we touched upon a number of different areas. Because of the length of content, we divided the output of this interview into two separate postings.  This part one posting will share our interview exchange covering the first three questions.  Part two will share the remaing three questions.

Question: Could you briefly describe your past history with the Council and what led you to seek a board leadership role?

John’s involvement started some time ago and was specifically focused on the unique supply chain process challenges that are prevalent in aerospace and defense-oriented supply chain processes.  John joined with others to form a special interest group focused specifically on these unique industry needs, and worked with the team to develop a SCOR curriculum that was tailored to this industry.  An important consideration was incorporating concepts of performance based logistics within the SCOR framework.

John later became a SCOR certified instructor and remains focused and actively involved in Aerospace and Department of Defense (DOD) oriented supply chain process environmental frameworks.  John is quick to note how the SCOR framework can crack the code toward understanding certain industry unique needs of supply chain process as well as helping to uncover unnecessary complexity. These special interest group efforts have now been instrumental in shaping DOD policy and guidance to shape the concepts of performance based logistics contract metrics.

In his SCC tenure, John became more involved in SCC board level activities and is now the elected Board chairperson.  In our interview, John noted that his appointment is an indication that SCC is broadening to include a broader industry perspective beyond manufacturing focused supply chains.

Readers should also note that John’s appointment represents the first DOD industry representative to assume the chair position of SCC.

Question: What benefits and services will the Council continue to provide for its members?

John noted that the SCOR methodology continues to evolve and be improved upon through broader training, benchmarking and added process perspectives.  The SCOR model has recently been broadened to incorporate product design, product lifecycle and customer chain processes.  SCC is also finding ongoing success with more geographic focused training and events which allow each geography to incorporate unique supply chain process needs of the particular region.  Europe and Asia based chapters conduct their own unique events and the North America chapter will be hosting both its annual SCOR Users meeting in February, as well as the Supply Chain World North America conference in May of this year.

Beyond the SCOR methodology itself, John noted that SCC is broadening its perspective into other supply chain related needs.

Question: What role will the geographical regional chapters play in carrying out the mission of the Council?

John noted that it has become all too apparent that council members exist in a global economy, and that the fundamental baseline is what supply chain management looks like across the globe.  The board is of the belief that as more global efforts are supported, the more the benefits will accrue to all. John expressed this as a “force multiplier effect”.  Along with this comes a high reliance on the local regional chapters to identify the unique needs for their region.

Feedback among the various geographic regions has been generally positive and the regional chapters are growing.  There are more activities now being sponsored within regions and the pride of ownership is increasing.

One metric noted was the level of SCOR model awareness across the globe. And that SCOR-P certification is catching on internationally. The geographic chapters of SCC  have further increased their efforts to provide more localized awareness and training opportunities.  Today, the SCOR methodology, along with training related to the model, is delivered in multiple languages.

The SCC board is also facilitating more local feedback by scheduling ongoing board meetings in conjunction with local regional events. With this board meeting schedule, local member companies now have the opportunity to be able to directly meet and interact with SCC board members on overall needs of the council.  John feels that this has allowed feedback to bubble-up more quickly and is working out quite well.

This concludes this part one posting.

Bob Ferrari

Disclosure:  The author of this posting, Bob Ferrari, serves as a volunteer on the SCC North America Leadership team.

We want to again alert our readers that The Supply Chain Council (SCC) will be hosting its annual Executive Summit on October 13-15 in Houston.

The event offers senior supply chain executives a well recognized forum for discussing key emerging challenges in business and supply chain strategy.  It also offers an opportunity for executives to network with other industry peers through panel discussions, roundtables and other networking events. The theme of this upcoming summit is “Boom & Bust: The New Realities for Supply Chain Excellence”.  Summit attendance will be limited to 100 executives.

You can view further information and registration details at the SCC Executive Summit web site.

It is also my pleasure to announce that I will be in attendance during the summit and Supply Chain Matters will be providing live blog and social media updates during the three days of meetings.

Bob Ferrari

Disclosure: Bob Ferrari is an elected member of the North America Leadership Team (NALT) of the Supply Chain Council, but has no monetary interests in regards to promoting this upcoming conference.