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Planning Ahead: Revolutionizing Supply Chain Business Decisions · Speaking of Supply Chain

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You're listening to Speaking of Supply Chain, a meboch podcast. This is a
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show for logistics professionals looking to learn more about the latest innovations in supply chain.
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Each episode will feature a conversation on topics such as mitigating supply chain disruption
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and reducing risk, current automation trends, sustainability initiatives, and more. Let's
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dive right in. Hello, and welcome to Speaking of Supply Chain, where
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we explore trends, current events, and innovations impacting the logistics and supply chain
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industries. I'm your host, Ellen Wood. Today we're excited to be joined
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by my colleague Michael White and ni Viswanathan from KOOPA, and we're going to
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be talking about supply chain planning and design tools. Welcome, gentlemen, Hello,
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Hello, welcome, Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.
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So this is an important topic, supply chain planning tools. It's a big
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deal right now in the industry. So we know that larger enterprise organizations have
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resources dedicated to supply chain, to procurement, to distribution, all these different
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departments, all these different business units. But at what point in a business's
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growth journey or maturity journey. Does it make sense to actually plan out supply
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chain things as opposed to just growing organically as the business grows. I mean,
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sometimes you have to make a plan and when is that the right decision
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to do? Maybe I can take that. I think when a company grows,
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you typically have someone like a chief executive officer or a chief operations officer,
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like they don't really have a dedicated supply chain organization. In my experience,
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the companies that are really done well, who have kind of grown out
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of that small medium revenue into becoming a more of an enterprise company reaching one
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billion, those people who are quite savy, especially if they have a physical
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supply chain. They have the manufacturing industry, distribution industry, The chief executives
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are quite supply chain savy. They don't quite talk about it as supply chain.
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It's to them, it's about business. Hey, I have demand,
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I have supply. How do I balance those two so that I can make
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money? That's really fundamentally how they think about it. They don't think of
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it as, hey, this is a supply chain issue, or is this
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a procurement issue? And so on. So I believe that it's only when
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you start expanding your company into multiple geographies and really start having these proliferation of
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SKUs that you are selling things that cannot be done in Excel. That's when
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you really need to start thinking about having a supply chain, dedicated personal,
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dedicated lead, and then of course tools to help support your planning processes.
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Prior to that, it's all kind have done ad hoc and companies which do
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a good job of it, they manage to cross that gap or cross that
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chasm become a loger company. Others who are not good at it, unfortunately,
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they end up not surviving. So with the plethora of design tools and
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digital capabilities that are out there aside from Excel, we know, we know
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that a lot of companies still use Excel. But aside from that, what
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are some important factors to consider when deciding which to use or choosing one of
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these tools that are out on the market. There are so many available.
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How does one go about looking for which one is best for them? How
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do you even make that determination? Nari, Yeah, sure, I would
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say it really boils down to the kind of challenges that your company is facing
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in terms of is your logistics the biggest opportunity for you is it your procurement.
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Is it your manufacturing? You know, if you look at the portal
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cost of good sold of the products that you have, where is your biggest
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low hanging fruit. If you look at it from that angle, I think
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you can really think about, Okay, what's the best way to undress this
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issue. Ideally you want to select a tool which is not limiting you to
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one small portion of your supply chain. You want a tool that's able to
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grow, Like you may solve a particular problem, a point problem, but
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eventually you want to solve a tool that can help solve the end to end
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problem. That will be the key to something that is something that can solve
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your problem immediately but also grow along with you. So something a little more
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comprehensive. Yeah, I think one of the biggest considerations that I've seen and
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things that consider is really the data and the data maturity of the organization,
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because you know, data is the heart is the oil of these of these
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models of the software that you're that you're going to be running in solving issues
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for and you know, if you're putting junk data into model, you're going
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to get junk out. So you really need to ensure that your quality of
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data, your access to data is quality enough that you can ensure that the
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results that you're going to get out of it are going to be sufficient as
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well. I think also the recurrence and how often you want to refresh these
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kinds of models or analysis. Is this a one time thing that you want
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to do once every ten years, or is this something that you have such
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fluctuations in your demand that you want to see refreshers on a daily basis.
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Do you want to connect to live data sources or is this a static excel
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that you want to plug in? So I think there's ellen, Like you
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said, there's so many different options on the market, but with data being
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the sort of the lifeblood holding it all together and making it run, and
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that's really one of the biggest considerations that I can think of. Well,
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and you mentioned ten years, you know, doing a single optimization or running
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a model. I know we used to use ten years as kind of the
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benchmark for when that needed to happen, if that was the way you were
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going to go about doing it. But I was speaking with a colleague not
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too long ago and we were going over this and one thing that she had
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come up with was that past COVID, especially now it's every three years,
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so that timeline has shortened significantly. Now. Obviously, if you're using an
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external data source and updating daily, that's a different animal entirely. But is
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ten years still the benchmark or are we to a much shorter planning horizon where
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it's three to five years that you need to be really looking at this data
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and determining what needs to happen. Yeah, So I believe it depends on
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the decision that you want to make, and it doesn't have to be either
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or you could still have a plan that is a lot more accurate for the
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next one year, less accurate for year two to three, and then between
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year three to ten it's more directional because some of the dictions that you have
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to make if you're a semiconductor manufacturer, if you have to build a plant,
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or if you're a roofing manufacturer you have to build a plant, it
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could be a multi year process and the amount of capital that you need to
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budget for could be significantly high. So for those dictions, you still need
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a ten year horizon, and then for more tactical decisions dealing with hey,
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I need to build a relationship with a new supplier. That could be a
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decision that's happening within like the one to three year kind of time frame,
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and then between now and the end of the year, it could be things
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like, hey, how do I increase a capacity in one of my plans?
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Can I get contract labored to cover for additional demand? So I think
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the decision that we are making, the intelligence that we need to make that
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decision if the tool can provide that is really what is needed for our business
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executives. That's a great point that it really the decision you're trying to make
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determines how long that planning horizon needs to go out. So I know that
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our dedicated modeling team of which Michael you are a part of at Mibach,
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has supported a number of clients using the Koopa app studio. When does it
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make sense for the end user to internalize that functionality and use the tool themselves
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versus working with a partner to support them, Because I mean yes, having
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external experts come in to support the business on very technical things like this is
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good. When your maturity is lower you don't have the dedicated staff, it's
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a big lift to do this. So at what point do businesses typically say
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Okay, I've got this, I can do this on my own. What
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do you think nri So in terms of I think it boils down to what
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stage of maturity they are in, Like I think the initial stage when they
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are not aware of or they don't have the process set up for being able
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to do supply chain design and planning. Folks like yourself from Mibak are critical
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for them to get over that thump. It's like having a personal trainer in
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a gym that muscles are not yet developed. They need a coach to be
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able to train them and get that discipline. Once they understand that well and
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they have been able to make it as a habit, then we can take
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a step back. Of folks like Miba can take a step back and let
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the customers go on that journey. But I think still what's going to happen
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is when they go on that journey, they will face hurdles and they might
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revert back to a poorer process. So having an ongoing checkpoint of being able
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to collaborate with them and act as an advisor, I think that's a very
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important role that I love that analogy that is fabulous. What do you think
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Michael, Yeah, no, I think that's uh. I've never heard that
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analogy, but it's definitely very accurate. I guess looking back, we do
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act as sort of a personal trainer for you know, getting someone in shape,
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whipping them, whipping them into shape in the gym, sort of as
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they're on their first journey down the supply chain design road map, or on
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their life span of that. But you know, once you kind of start
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doing it a little bit more, you kind of learn how to do things
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your own way. You don't need as much guidance. I think there it
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starts to you start to develop those capabilities. You start to to see other
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areas that you can improve. You know, you've got a we're just a
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coach, but you now see there's nutrition areas that we can work on.
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I might need to work on different aspects there. It's also about the recurrence.
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Is this something that we want to work on continuously or is this,
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you know, a marathon that I'm training for once every couple of years,
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or is it really I want to bulk up my supply chain if you will,
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and really have more of over your's plan. So yeah, I like
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I really like that analogy all right, So what success stories do either of
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you have about this and being that personal trainer or helping a client along their
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supply chain maturity and getting them to that place of being able to self sustain
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their planning. We ideally want all of our customers to be able to go
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through that process. Oftentimes it doesn't end up that way because of various reasons.
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One of the common reasons happens to be the fact that it's a harder
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challenge to get talent talent who are focused on supply chain design, supply chain
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modeling, analytics related talent. So if a modeler is there, we have
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trained a modeler and they are at a company, if they leave the company,
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then it becomes harder to get somebody trained, get them up to speed,
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and things like that. So that's the challenge that we face commonly.
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But for many of our customers who have realized importance of supply chain design and
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planning, realised the value of analytics, release, the value of using optimization
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capabilities and artificial intelligence capabilities to make decisions, they have invested. They've invested
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in infrastructure, working with like a coach like Miebok, having in house talent
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brought in set up centers of excellence in charge of managing these long term processes.
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Those are the companies are really successful. So one example that I recently
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talked to is a very large high technology manufacturer of network equipment. They are
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working in an environment where there are sixty different business units. Each business unit
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has their own sales and operations planning processes. This group who are utilizing the
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KUPA capabilities for supply chain design, they are plugged into that asonopy process and
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they act as that expert the center of excellence for able to take a step
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back and run quite critical scenarios where to build facilities, what kind of products
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to launch in the market, Being able to run those kind of scenarios,
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business scenarios, and to be able to make those critical decisions which will set
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the company along in that strategic direction. That's a critical role that they're playing,
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and we see many examples of those in other industries as well. But
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it's not a surprise that they came to that stage. It did not happen
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overnight. It had to take place over several months because, as we discussed
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in the previous question, you'd really build up your book, built up your
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infrastructure to be able to reach that level of maturity. What about you,
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Michael, Any customer success stories of helping clients through that transition of training to
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on their own. Yeah, there's one I can think of kind of off
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the bat, and it's a it's a fashion and apparel retail or that it's
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a pretty long standing client in the box. So there was prior to the
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engagement that I was on, we had helped them from end to end from
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a strategy to an implementation piece. So they were only in operations on the
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West Coast, they had grown pretty rapidly in terms of sales growth and new
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customers across the country, and we helped them identify a locale to set up
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operations in from a strategic standpoint. We also helped them set up automation and
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whatnot in that facility. But where we came in on the engagement that I
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was involved in was post COVID and they were really struggling with being resilient and
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trying to fulfill all the orders and all of these new customers that they were
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having coming out of COVID. So they really wanted to identify a more strategic
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plan to supplement and mitigate all the growth and change within their supply chain.
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So we helped them again sort of we copy pasted again, taking all the
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new considerations, all the new data pieces, all the new customers, and
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really put together a model that identified new regions to grow into new locations and
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how to supplement and split that their inventory and whatnot. But after that project,
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we really helped them use this data that we were using for these strategic
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models and use more of the software is within the four walls of the facilities
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and really understand, you know, some of the issues that they were facing
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within the four walls as well using process mining and out in there. So
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I think, let's say, it's a very unique client that we worked on
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and it was very good to see that we're able to help solve them.
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Well, okay, my last question here, it's a shameless plug for both
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meboch and COOPA. Can't help it. So talking about these client success stories.
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The major event for COOPA every year for their clients, for their users
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software users is Inspire and that's taking place in April in Las Vegas. And
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one of the biggest things about this particular conference is the training portion of the
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conference. So yes, there's the conference where you can meet with different vendors
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like Meeboch who support these tools and support their client's use of these tools.
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But there's also training that takes place for this at the conference. And I've
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been to Inspire. It is a wonderful conference. Let's talk a little bit
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more about what's going to be happening there, and I think Nri you are
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the perfect person to jump in and tell us a little bit more about what
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to expect in April in Las Vegas. Thank you Ellen for talking about Inspire.
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We are extremely excited about this year's event. It's shaping up really really
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well. We are seeing a lot of interest from our customer base. Many
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of them are joint customers with having speaking sessions, panels, individual sessions from
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really good brand names. In fact, there's going to be one session where
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Neebok is going to be coordinating or moderating a session along with craft Tigns,
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dan On and group of Bimbo looking forward to that. That session is going
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to talk about building resiliency will in supply chains. In addition to these breakout
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sessions, we're also going to have other areas where we can interact with customers.
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One of them is the user training. We want to use this opportunity
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of our customers coming to Inspire and make sure that they are trained on both
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the fundamentals, in fact, real focused training on modeling utilization of capabilities such
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as data Guru, supply chain Guru, supply chain Modeler, making sure that
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they understand the basics, and then also talk about some of the new product
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innovations that we are doing, new capabilities that we are adding in the area
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of artificial intelligence and so on. There is also going to be a Customer
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Advisory Board session where some of our customers will be able to interact with our
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product team and to be able to shape the roadpack of the capabilities that will
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be building to the future. So lots to look out for and look forward
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to collaborating with Mibak on that absolutely. Michael, I don't know are you
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attending Inspire this year. I think that's still to be determined. I have
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been in the past. You said you're you're most excited for the trainings.
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I thought you're going to say you're most excited for the concert at the end.
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I know that's been some of our favorite events, our favorite parts of
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the conference in the past, but no, to your point. I think
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I benefited the most from these trainings when I've gone prior and actually speaking to,
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you know, the people we either developed the programs or really have guided
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sort of these new pieces of the software of the tools, and being able
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to interact with the team and kind of generate different ideas of how we think
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we can use these new tools that are rolling out, it seems on a
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daily basis. And seeing how we can increase the services that we offer to
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our end customer, to the end customer that's that's going to be using Koopa
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as so beneficial and seeing how it's gone from just this sort of small supply
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chain design tool modeling tool, and how it can really connect into all the
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other facets that Koopa hads, so you can take this small, relatively supply
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chain model and actually connect it to pieces of coupon and use that for procurement
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and sourcing of the outputs of the recommendation of that model. So I think
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that's been some of the most eye opening and beneficial pieces from attending its fired
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the past. I agree the concert was a lot of fun, it always
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is, but in the conferences that I have gone to, I'm never a
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part of the training because I'm not one of the modelers, but I do
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speak to a lot of the individuals there at the conference, and all of
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the feedback I've ever gotten is that it is so so useful and beneficial to
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have that training there to really I mean, it's not that Koopa doesn't offer
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the training when someone purchases the tool and is ready to use it, or
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that they don't have a company like Mebak that's able to to help with that
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onboarding and integration and training of how to coach and be their trainer on how
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to use this tool, but being able to come together with other users from
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other industries or the same industry and see what some of those best practices are,
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how other people are utilizing it, and really just have that sense of
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community to be able to increase your own capabilities within the tool. With some
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of the feedback that I had gotten and always always positive feedback on the conference
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and what that couple days of training beforehand offers. So looking very very forward
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to April. Yeah, So, Ellen, I think one very important point
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that you made was this camaraderie and the collaboration that you can see with other
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companies who are out there so if somebody is starting out as a modeler,
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imagine having a chance to talk to somebody who is fifteen twenty years experience in
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a particular industry where business processes really really well, and to hear from them
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about how they're able to model some of their capabilities. I think that would
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be very beneficial for those who are earlier in their careers. So I do
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think that a forum where you're able to interact with companies across different industries,
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across different stages of career, I think that's invaluable in my opinion, and
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we have heard a lot of feedback about that absolutely all right, Well,
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that brings us to the end of this episode, gentlemen. I had a
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fantastic time discussing this tool and what capabilities it opens up for all of these
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users. I hope our listeners enjoyed the topic as much as I did.
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If any of our listeners out there have a suggestion for another topic or would
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like to be a guest on the show, we'd love to hear from you.
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You can reach out to me at podcast at mebok dot com. As
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always, thanks for listening to Speaking of Supply Chain. If you enjoyed our
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show, Please rate and review us on whatever podcast platform you prefer. We're
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on Apple, Pop Podcasts, Google, Spotify, or iHeartRadio. Be sure
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to tune in next time. Meeboch Consulting is one of the largest and most
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globally recognized supply chain consulting, engineering, and advisory firms. For nearly fifty
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years, we've helped clients achieve supply chain excellence and sustainable competitive advantage across the
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entire spectrum of the supply chain by delivering improvements and innovation strategically, tactically,
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