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Turning Supply Chain Chaos into Strategy · Speaking of Supply Chain

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Speaker 1: These things have to work together really well.
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Speaker 2: I think that's the hardest thing for a lot of
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Speaker 2: folks is really breaking down these silos and helping these
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Speaker 2: applications work together better, or new technologies to really sort
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Speaker 2: of bring those things together to do those types of
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Speaker 2: things as an orchestrated platform.
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Speaker 3: Hello and welcome to Speaking of Supply Chain, where we
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Speaker 3: explore trends, current events, and innovations impacting the logistics and
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Speaker 3: supply chain industries. I'm your host, Ellen Wood. As we
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Speaker 3: look ahead to twenty twenty six, supply chain leaders are
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Speaker 3: navigating a world of relentless disruption, tariffs that reshape costs,
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Speaker 3: overnight rising pressures to reshore operations, and technology investments that
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Speaker 3: may or may not deliver on their promises. The challenge
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Speaker 3: isn't just reacting to volatility, but turning it into opportunity
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Speaker 3: through smarter planning and design. Today we're joined by Steve Shabuski,
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Speaker 3: Managing director for pre Sales Solutions at MCA Connect, to
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Speaker 3: explore how scenario planning, reshoring strategies, and AI driven inventory
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Speaker 3: accuracy can help organizations not just survive, but thrive in
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Speaker 3: this shifting landscape. Steve, Welcome, Thank.
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Speaker 1: You, Alan thanks to you. Thank you very much for
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Speaker 1: having me. Glad to be here.
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Speaker 3: It's great to have you here. Before we get into
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Speaker 3: our topic today, which is I'm sure on everyone's mind
1:20
Speaker 3: coming into the new year, our icebreaker for today is
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Speaker 3: what is a simple holiday tradition that you enjoy?
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Speaker 1: Well?
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Speaker 2: So, Ellen, you and I got to chat a little
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Speaker 2: bit before this, and we're from the same region here,
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Speaker 2: so you may even know a little bit about this.
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Speaker 2: But Mom, so my fan. I have two boys, one
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Speaker 2: is sixteen, one is fourteen, and since they were small,
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Speaker 2: we would like to get out of the house, as
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Speaker 2: you might imagine, during the holidays, and so every year
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Speaker 2: we go down to and do a stay Christmas station
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Speaker 2: at the Conrad, which is always been fun and they
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Speaker 2: got the Christmas stuff going down there. We do a
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Speaker 2: little shopping, stay at the hotel and so just something
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Speaker 2: we've always done and taste a little pressure off some.
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Speaker 1: Of the holidays sometimes. So that's something we've done for
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Speaker 1: about a decade.
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Speaker 2: You know.
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Speaker 3: That's that's a fun tradition I did that. I did
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Speaker 3: something similar it was two years ago for New Year's Eve,
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Speaker 3: where we went to a hotel and stayed up and
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Speaker 3: watched movies all night with the kids, and that was
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Speaker 3: it was a lot of fun. You got to play
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Speaker 3: in the pool, indoor pool, it was. It was just
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Speaker 3: a nice way to celebrate that holiday. Something that we did.
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Speaker 3: And I have boys who are similar ages. My oldest
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Speaker 3: just turned seventeen and my next one's thirteen, so very
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Speaker 3: close in age. But one tradition that we did, especially
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Speaker 3: when they were little, was we didn't put up a
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Speaker 3: Christmas tree. I mean, we celebrated Christmas, but we didn't
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Speaker 3: put up the Christmas tree. Santa brought the Christmas tree,
3:00
Speaker 3: and that was something that my parents did when I
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Speaker 3: was little, and it was it was so easy to
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Speaker 3: adopt because when you're in the midst of having very
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Speaker 3: very young children, you recognize that they get into everything,
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Speaker 3: and by not having the tree up, they weren't, you know,
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Speaker 3: looking at presents, they weren't getting into the ornaments, they
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Speaker 3: weren't doing any of that. And then of course Christmas
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Speaker 3: came and it was this big magical thing. In fact,
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Speaker 3: I remember my oldest when he was three years old,
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Speaker 3: it was his third Christmas. I remember hearing him wake up,
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Speaker 3: and I hear his little feet down the hallway and
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Speaker 3: he gets to the corner of the hallway and he
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Speaker 3: turns the corner and the Christmas tree is like down
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Speaker 3: the hallway at the end of the of the hall
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Speaker 3: and in that room, and it's all lit up and
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Speaker 3: all the presents are underneath it. And I hear him
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Speaker 3: gasp and he goes, Oh, it's magic, and then he
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Speaker 3: runs into our room to wake us up. And it
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Speaker 3: was the best tradition. It was so much much fun
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Speaker 3: because it brought a little bit more of that magic
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Speaker 3: and it kept a lot of the headaches off of
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Speaker 3: mom and dad in the lead up to the Christmas season.
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Speaker 2: And zegwe like must have required some serious logistics and
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Speaker 2: storage planning.
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Speaker 1: So that it did.
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Speaker 3: It did require a lot of planning. It required In fact,
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Speaker 3: one year I think he was it was when he
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Speaker 3: was four. You know, Santa always brought a present, and
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Speaker 3: that year Santa was bringing him or going to be
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Speaker 3: bringing him a little brother. So he got bunk beds
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Speaker 3: and the bunk beds were erected while he was asleep
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Speaker 3: in the bottom bunk.
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Speaker 1: So pressure it was.
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Speaker 3: It was crazy logistical for me and my husband, but
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Speaker 3: it gave us something to do to make it fun
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Speaker 3: for the kids. For the holidays, but also it really
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Speaker 3: shortened that that season of having to have the decorations out,
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Speaker 3: so it was it was very very compact speaking of
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Speaker 3: some of you know, the disruptions and logistics that we're
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Speaker 3: facing today. You know, I don't have to put up
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Speaker 3: a Christmas tree on Christmas Eve anymore. Now the boys
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Speaker 3: are old enough. But you work with leaders every day
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Speaker 3: who are trying to make sense of these disruptions, figuring
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Speaker 3: out what the next few years is going to look like,
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Speaker 3: trying to plan some strategies. Before we get into specifics,
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Speaker 3: i'd like to get your perspective on, you know, big
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Speaker 3: picture things as we're heading into the new year. What
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Speaker 3: do you see as the major challenges that are influencing
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Speaker 3: supply chain planning at this point in time.
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Speaker 2: Well, I think if I was thinking about it, maybe
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Speaker 2: maybe three or four things. Obviously one of the most
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Speaker 2: obvious ones is trade volatility, and those types of things
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Speaker 2: are just you know, people and companies are really just
5:50
Speaker 2: trying to figure out, you know, what what is the
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Speaker 2: best strategy and how do I how do I create
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Speaker 2: some sort of flexibility and a bildy to pivot and
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Speaker 2: be nimble in this environment? You know, without necessarily taking
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Speaker 2: big steps back. So ultimately I think that that's probably
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Speaker 2: you know, front and center for for most you know,
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Speaker 2: which I work with manufacturers and distributors that I talked
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Speaker 2: to on a regular basis. I think another thing is
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Speaker 2: just the the labor and the skills sort shortages again
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Speaker 2: for me in manufacturing and distribution, it's front of mind
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Speaker 2: for everyone, and how do we, you know, how do
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Speaker 2: we continue to to grow and expand with a workforce
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Speaker 2: that's becoming more expensive and you know, not necessarily with
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Speaker 2: the skills and experience that you know they've had in
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Speaker 2: the past. You know, we've seen a lot of of
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Speaker 2: of technology sprawl and just different types of point solutions.
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Speaker 2: And so I think just data and connectivity of your
7:00
Speaker 2: own solutions, but also connectivity to your partners and really
7:06
Speaker 2: just being you know, you know, trying to figure out
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Speaker 2: how to to incrementally knock down the silos and get
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Speaker 2: data in a place so that you can use all
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Speaker 2: this fun new technology that's that's coming to bear.
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Speaker 1: So I think those are.
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Speaker 2: The the three or four big ones. Trade, labor, you know,
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Speaker 2: data and tech and and basically your you know, your
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Speaker 2: business applications and and silo and really bringing that stuff together.
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Speaker 1: It's what people are thinking of.
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Speaker 3: Absolutely, So let's start with the first one. And in fact,
7:38
Speaker 3: you mentioned we've talked before, so one of the things
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Speaker 3: that that you had mentioned was using tariffs or maybe
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Speaker 3: viewing tariffs reframing them into a catalyst for competitive advantage
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Speaker 3: instead of a cost burden. How does that work?
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Speaker 2: You know, in general, I think I think of things,
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Speaker 2: and I think we you know, this is something that
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Speaker 2: we just have seen in industry is if you think
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Speaker 2: about all of the various volatilities and impacts and things
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Speaker 2: that are disrupting supply chain.
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Speaker 1: If you reframe your mind of just trying to survive
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Speaker 1: those things versus how do I use those things to
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Speaker 1: propel the company to a competitive advantage over other folks
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Speaker 1: that made me did not plan as well?
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Speaker 2: Then you know, you start to get more excited about
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Speaker 2: attacking these problems because we know they're going to happen,
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Speaker 2: and when they do, it can create it can create
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Speaker 2: a competitive advantage for you, regardless of the financial impact
8:45
Speaker 2: at that moment in time. So I think when we
8:48
Speaker 2: think about tariffs and we think about trade volatility and
8:52
Speaker 2: really just you know, taking a look at your supply
8:55
Speaker 2: chain network and trying to figure out different ways to
9:00
Speaker 2: be able to be more flexible, have better and more
9:05
Speaker 2: diverse partnerships. Those types of things are certainly things that
9:08
Speaker 2: people are doing. We've I've worked with a company this
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Speaker 2: uh this year that was in the toy industry, and
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Speaker 2: toys are one of the big things that are being
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Speaker 2: that are being marked up from from China, which we'll
9:21
Speaker 2: all see here as we're talking about Christmas here very soon. Uh,
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Speaker 2: if things don't change, and really just being able to
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Speaker 2: to to even look at those things and be able
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Speaker 2: to bring portions of that manufacturing process, even some of
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Speaker 2: the assemblies to back here to the US.
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Speaker 1: From a reshore perspective.
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Speaker 2: You know, we've had a couple of companies be able
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Speaker 2: to really use some of their warehousing space, get creative
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Speaker 2: and come up with some of these solutions that you know,
9:50
Speaker 2: can can be able to be flex expand and scale,
9:55
Speaker 2: you know, and when things go back to what they
9:58
Speaker 2: were be able to to maybe you know, be able
10:00
Speaker 2: to roll back to how they were doing it so
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Speaker 2: that they have different options when these things come up.
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Speaker 2: So that's I think we're seeing a lot of folks
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Speaker 2: just thinking about how do we you know, how do
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Speaker 2: we position ourselves to jump ahead when it happens versus
10:15
Speaker 2: survive as it happens, If that makes sense.
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Speaker 3: My follow up question to that would be, you know,
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Speaker 3: how well do you think supply chain leaders are doing
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Speaker 3: that right now? Because what we see in the news,
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Speaker 3: what we see in the headlines is tariffs and politics,
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Speaker 3: and it's putting everyone in a negative frame of mind.
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Speaker 3: And you're saying, let's flip it and try and find
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Speaker 3: a positive outcome from this. But I feel like there
10:40
Speaker 3: are a lot of ingrained responses here that it's just
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Speaker 3: a knee jerk reaction to the situation and really pulling
10:48
Speaker 3: yourself out of that rut and looking at it from
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Speaker 3: that new perspective has got to be a challenge.
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Speaker 2: It is, right, I mean, And you know, whenever you
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Speaker 2: get you know, challenges to the way of doing things,
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Speaker 2: especially when you you know you haven't necessarily spent the
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Speaker 2: time and effort to align you know, partnerships, platforms of collaboration,
11:17
Speaker 2: technology and people and process to be able to be flexible,
11:23
Speaker 2: then then certainly you know it's going to be create
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Speaker 2: sort of some negative reactions because it's going to be
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Speaker 2: really hard, right, I think for you know, for a
11:34
Speaker 2: lot of folks. Over the last few years, since pandemics
11:38
Speaker 2: and different things, we've seen a lot of companies be
11:41
Speaker 2: more strategic about you know this. We've seen some of
11:45
Speaker 2: the ports shutting down, We've seen labor strikes, we've seen
11:49
Speaker 2: other things that have you know, not maybe not to
11:53
Speaker 2: the same degree, but like I think we have, you know,
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Speaker 2: from my perspective, seeing a shift where you know, folks
12:00
Speaker 2: are really trying to figure out how to be more
12:04
Speaker 2: collaborative people, process, then technology, last to be able to
12:08
Speaker 2: bring some of those you know thought leadership going forward
12:12
Speaker 2: so that you know, some of those things are possible.
12:14
Speaker 2: So but you know, it's nature of people. So I
12:18
Speaker 2: think you know, you're always going to have have folks.
12:21
Speaker 2: It's also about having leaders and folks that that you know,
12:24
Speaker 2: try to lead from uh, you know, being a being
12:28
Speaker 2: in a place of looking for opportunity and turning negatives
12:33
Speaker 2: into positives. And I think that's also an opportunity for
12:36
Speaker 2: good leaders to emerge in these times as well.
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Speaker 3: So, oh absolutely, because you know that's when that's when
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Speaker 3: great leaders are forged. Is there in the breach? And
12:45
Speaker 3: so I guess scenario planning is one way that leaders
12:51
Speaker 3: can kind of mitigate some of that uncertainty. What are
12:56
Speaker 3: some ways that, you know, how does that help them
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Speaker 3: get through that uncertainty faster or more confidently in a
13:06
Speaker 3: way that you know, they're they're the leaders. They've got
13:08
Speaker 3: to get their teams on board too, and when they're
13:11
Speaker 3: uncertain and you know, this is this is a lot
13:15
Speaker 3: of change, It's it's a lot happening all at once.
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Speaker 3: How are they able to make those when there's so
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Speaker 3: much uncertainty and make sure that their teams are also
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Speaker 3: looking towards positive outcomes?
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Speaker 1: May answer this in a couple of different ways. I think,
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Speaker 1: you know, when you think about.
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Speaker 2: Scenario planning, and I've I've been working with companies for
13:39
Speaker 2: a few you know, three or four years now as
13:43
Speaker 2: this has sort of started to emerge with some of
13:45
Speaker 2: the technology capabilities of digital twin and different things that
13:49
Speaker 2: enable it. You know, one of the challenges with it
13:52
Speaker 2: is the people's uh inherent sort of approach. Is it
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Speaker 2: you start with an idea and it starts to grow
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Speaker 2: and grow and grow and.
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Speaker 1: Turn and tell. The scenarios so complex.
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Speaker 2: That it's you know, you're you've kind of lost sight
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Speaker 2: of the objectives. So I think you know, one of
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Speaker 2: the things that you know, I've I've found in this
14:14
Speaker 2: is is for for companies to start seeing benefit from
14:18
Speaker 2: this this type of ways of thinking is to think
14:21
Speaker 2: about small, very specific problems, uh and take them even
14:26
Speaker 2: if there's other factors that you would need to consider
14:29
Speaker 2: in the real world. But take those things all the way,
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Speaker 2: you know, through fruition of of of outcomes and measurement
14:36
Speaker 2: of you know, the different scenario plans to the end
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Speaker 2: of how you would measure it and then land and
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Speaker 2: expand and how you do that because.
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Speaker 1: You're going to learn a lot from that process.
14:46
Speaker 2: What happens when you try to make some of these
14:48
Speaker 2: things so complex is you you kind of get you know,
14:51
Speaker 2: stuck in you know, some of those complexities, and you
14:55
Speaker 2: don't get through the problem. So I think, you know,
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Speaker 2: the the role of scenario planning is going to become
15:02
Speaker 2: you know, more and more important as to even as
15:05
Speaker 2: technology enables those types of things more and where to
15:08
Speaker 2: do more with it. I think, you know, I think
15:12
Speaker 2: us as humans have to get our mind or minds
15:15
Speaker 2: around how we attack these things and you know, start small,
15:21
Speaker 2: get organizational buy in and confidence and outcomes, and then
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Speaker 2: land and expand and add more complexity to those to
15:29
Speaker 2: those plans.
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Speaker 1: That's what I've seen to have the most success.
15:33
Speaker 2: So, you know, aroundabout way of kind of talking through that,
15:38
Speaker 2: But like I do think the at the end, the
15:40
Speaker 2: role here of of those those types of tools and
15:44
Speaker 2: that type of.
15:44
Speaker 1: Leadership planning is going to be really key so.
15:47
Speaker 2: That you you know, you're doing a lot of that
15:50
Speaker 2: risk analysis, and you're making good decisions about what you're doing,
15:53
Speaker 2: and then you know, as things happen, you're able to
15:56
Speaker 2: quickly roll into different different outcomes.
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Speaker 3: Absolutely, Yeah, those those quick wins, the low hanging fruit,
16:04
Speaker 3: you know, those are those are easy ways to get
16:06
Speaker 3: your team on board. But you know, when it when
16:10
Speaker 3: it does involve this much volatility, it's almost making the
16:16
Speaker 3: business case that this is the right way forward, the
16:20
Speaker 3: right path. It's not even so much about the low
16:24
Speaker 3: hanging fruit. It's you know, let's let's ease into this cautiously,
16:28
Speaker 3: is what I think I hear you're saying.
16:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, cautiously. I mean it's it's like any of the
16:33
Speaker 2: you know, it's like any of the different technologies and
16:38
Speaker 2: capabilities and tools. Obviously, you know, AI being a thing
16:43
Speaker 2: that everyone's talking about right now.
16:45
Speaker 1: And even even even.
16:46
Speaker 2: When you think about some of those tools, I mean,
16:49
Speaker 2: you know it, it becomes so complicated to get started
16:53
Speaker 2: because you know, if you get a bunch of leaders
16:55
Speaker 2: in the room about AI thought green, Lad, you're gonna
17:00
Speaker 2: have one hundred and seventy eight ideas in six minutes, right,
17:05
Speaker 2: And so where do you start and like, how do
17:07
Speaker 2: we get some culture change to start using the tools
17:11
Speaker 2: see outcomes and benefit and then you know, create some
17:15
Speaker 2: centers of excellence to do that better versus everybody running
17:18
Speaker 2: around trying to figure out the you know, how to
17:21
Speaker 2: do this in in mass right, So I think whatever
17:24
Speaker 2: the technology is like and whatever the components are to
17:29
Speaker 2: getting to those end scenario planning is complicated.
17:32
Speaker 1: You know, you start adding different factors.
17:35
Speaker 2: You know, you can add all kinds of things to
17:38
Speaker 2: you to those plans of the what ifs, and you
17:41
Speaker 2: know it, it's gonna obviously make things, you know, more accurate,
17:48
Speaker 2: but it's going to take you longer to get to
17:49
Speaker 2: outcomes and maybe at what benefits. So I just encourage
17:53
Speaker 2: folks to like get started, you know, take things from
17:56
Speaker 2: beginning to end. Set some basic criteria is use the
18:01
Speaker 2: tools to help you get to the outcomes and you know,
18:04
Speaker 2: test them and then and then repeat and continue to
18:08
Speaker 2: grow how you do it, because you'll get better at
18:10
Speaker 2: it well.
18:11
Speaker 3: And the next item that you you mentioned that you
18:15
Speaker 3: think is going to be an issue here in the
18:18
Speaker 3: new year is reshoring regionalization of you know, some of
18:22
Speaker 3: these supply chains and you know, bringing back some of
18:25
Speaker 3: those components of manufacturing back to American shores. And you know,
18:32
Speaker 3: what are some steps that organizations can take when they're
18:36
Speaker 3: looking at reshoring. I know we've talked about reshoring and
18:40
Speaker 3: near shoring on the podcast before with a number of
18:43
Speaker 3: different guests, But but what's your take on it, you know,
18:46
Speaker 3: executing some of that smarter supply chain designed by you know,
18:49
Speaker 3: relocating different facilities or different aspects of the supply chain.
18:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think a lot of the same concepts here.
18:57
Speaker 2: I think number one is is I think just looking
19:01
Speaker 2: at you know, the landed costs modeling just not you know,
19:06
Speaker 2: just unit costs or terrorists, but transport later maybe some
19:09
Speaker 2: of the lead times like what what is that going
19:12
Speaker 2: to look like? What partners can you leverage? You know,
19:16
Speaker 2: those kinds of things are in what you know, you know,
19:19
Speaker 2: their their dependency and scale, so those those kinds of
19:23
Speaker 2: relationships will be key. So I think, you know, always
19:25
Speaker 2: starting there. You know, I talked about digital twin tools
19:30
Speaker 2: a couple of times. Uh, you know, there's some really
19:33
Speaker 2: nice tools out there for just basic at least some
19:36
Speaker 2: basic supply chain design tools around network scenarios and making
19:41
Speaker 2: sure that you start to to be able to to
19:44
Speaker 2: model some of this stuff digitally. And then I think
19:48
Speaker 2: like starting small is smart, right, Like let's you know,
19:52
Speaker 2: as we start to figure out as I was mentioning, uh,
19:55
Speaker 2: you know, with one of the clients I was working
19:56
Speaker 2: on that brought some of their their toy manufacturing here,
20:00
Speaker 2: bring the entire operation, but you know, start small scale,
20:04
Speaker 2: run some pilots before you know, making wholesale shifts you
20:08
Speaker 2: know would be would be prudent, right in terms of
20:11
Speaker 2: how how some of those things, and and then make
20:13
Speaker 2: sure it's it's flexible and scalable in the way that
20:17
Speaker 2: you're doing it. You know, going forward I think is important.
20:23
Speaker 2: I don't you know, I think for most folks, I
20:25
Speaker 2: think we're all I think it's you know, might be
20:28
Speaker 2: somewhat obvious, but it's like you know, reach, It's not
20:32
Speaker 2: like reshore or nothing. It's you know, it's about you know,
20:35
Speaker 2: creating the balance, right, uh, and so doing that incrementally
20:39
Speaker 2: it can help create some of that, you know, kind
20:43
Speaker 2: of create some of that, you know, the ability to
20:46
Speaker 2: to sort of understand how this is going to outcome,
20:48
Speaker 2: and then you know, scale it as as prudent.
20:52
Speaker 3: As we're reaching the end of the year, most budgets
20:55
Speaker 3: are already in place for twenty twenty six. But for
20:59
Speaker 3: those who might still have a little bit of wiggle
21:01
Speaker 3: room in what they're trying to accomplish and what they've
21:04
Speaker 3: what they've got planned for the new year, how can
21:08
Speaker 3: companies cut through some of some hype around the technology
21:12
Speaker 3: and really focus on the investments that that are going
21:16
Speaker 3: to deliver that ROI As you mentioned, you know, AI
21:19
Speaker 3: is huge. There's so many tools out there, and we
21:22
Speaker 3: could have everybody in an organization going in a different
21:25
Speaker 3: direction and looking at different possibilities and none of them
21:28
Speaker 3: could be wrong. They could all have some applicability to
21:32
Speaker 3: that organization. But we can't do everything all at once.
21:36
Speaker 3: We have to prioritize. So where do you see cutting
21:40
Speaker 3: through some of that noise?
21:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, So definitely, Number one, the tech hype is in
21:46
Speaker 2: full effect this year for sure. And you know, like
21:52
Speaker 2: just to name them, name some things that you know
21:55
Speaker 2: we're seeing is obviously the AI, but led the other
21:58
Speaker 2: one that we were seeing a lot of just automation
22:03
Speaker 2: in the in the manufacturing plants, in the warehouse, robotics.
22:06
Speaker 2: You know, these are things that are on the major
22:09
Speaker 2: hype cycles of of like, you know, is everything going
22:13
Speaker 2: to be run by robots by.
22:15
Speaker 1: The end of the year.
22:16
Speaker 2: And I think you know, you know, but you know,
22:19
Speaker 2: it's it's important to take an approach on these things
22:24
Speaker 2: to to really understand.
22:26
Speaker 1: Just like we've been talking about. Let's take the Let's
22:29
Speaker 1: take the example of automation in a warehouse, right, you know,
22:33
Speaker 1: understanding your order profiles, your scut profiles of what you're
22:37
Speaker 1: doing now, you know, are you shipping small orders b
22:41
Speaker 1: to see large truckloads lt L. That mix matters in
22:46
Speaker 1: terms of the automations that you might choose. And then
22:49
Speaker 1: it's like where are we going? Where is our growth
22:51
Speaker 1: and are we creating more channels that will create more
22:54
Speaker 1: diversity and how that those profiles look, are we you know,
22:59
Speaker 1: moving towards whole sale where it's going to you know,
23:01
Speaker 1: move more sorts truckload shipping or whatever it is. Those
23:06
Speaker 1: those answers and those scenarios change the automations that would
23:12
Speaker 1: make sense and bring our OI to the building significantly. Right.
23:15
Speaker 2: So I think really kind of understanding like where where
23:20
Speaker 2: you're headed from the from a data perspective, be able
23:23
Speaker 2: to model it and then take the automation and folks
23:26
Speaker 2: that can help you understand the value of that. Does
23:29
Speaker 2: it reduce touches, improve accuracy, automate reduce labor at what level?
23:35
Speaker 2: And how do we how are we going to make
23:38
Speaker 2: h you know this work from from a payback perspective,
23:41
Speaker 2: Those are really key areas.
23:43
Speaker 1: Same same with I.
23:44
Speaker 2: Think when we think about, you know, on the on
23:47
Speaker 2: the flip side, we think about things like AI. I think,
23:51
Speaker 2: you know, there's there's a lot of hype to you know,
23:54
Speaker 2: like I think about you know, we have some some
23:57
Speaker 2: data scientists that at MC connect that are very very smart.
24:02
Speaker 2: They're building machine learning models for demand planning, been doing
24:07
Speaker 2: it for a really long time. It's an established science.
24:09
Speaker 2: They know all kinds of wild technology stuff that I'll
24:13
Speaker 2: never come close to understanding. But you know, when you
24:17
Speaker 2: think about the AI that's being presented to the everyday person,
24:21
Speaker 2: you know, whether it's just you know, copilot helping you
24:25
Speaker 2: summarize information, or you know, being able to have an assistant,
24:32
Speaker 2: you know, be able to look at your company's data
24:35
Speaker 2: and extract things quickly for you, or the ideas of
24:39
Speaker 2: agents where you're doing a lot of manual tasks and
24:43
Speaker 2: how do I automate those things and free up people's
24:46
Speaker 2: time to make better choices. I think if you kind
24:49
Speaker 2: of shift towards some of those more basic use cases
24:53
Speaker 2: of the technology, specifically around agentic AI and some of
24:57
Speaker 2: the larger language models, and really again focus on how
25:01
Speaker 2: is it reducing you know, touches time, people's time. How
25:06
Speaker 2: does it you know, help my really smart people spend
25:10
Speaker 2: more time on making better decisions than pranking through spreadsheets
25:14
Speaker 2: for instance.
25:15
Speaker 1: Those types of use cases.
25:16
Speaker 2: Are the ones that can bring really high value and
25:19
Speaker 2: sort of sort of again try to start small and
25:22
Speaker 2: then you know, evaluate the out the the the potential
25:27
Speaker 2: outcome of that, and then you know, rinse and repeat
25:31
Speaker 2: and make sure you have a center of excellence that's
25:33
Speaker 2: managing managing the chaos.
25:36
Speaker 1: So those are some of the things that come to mind.
25:38
Speaker 2: I think I think you know, another last big one
25:41
Speaker 2: I'll just mention is just you know, we're seeing a
25:44
Speaker 2: lot of manufacturers and distributors really get pressured into many
25:49
Speaker 2: more channels than they ever have. Like you know, where
25:52
Speaker 2: I just used to as a manufacturer ship to my wholesalers,
25:56
Speaker 2: Now I'm in you know, Amazon and other marketplace is
26:00
Speaker 2: and I've i stood up a website for bwo C.
26:03
Speaker 1: And you know, we're.
26:04
Speaker 2: Doing other things to to to to engage the market well.
26:09
Speaker 2: Order management and really sort of managing those those orders
26:14
Speaker 2: and who's getting what inventory when.
26:16
Speaker 1: And how much does it cost to ship it?
26:19
Speaker 2: Uh and orchestrating all those things are becoming more and
26:21
Speaker 2: more important to our customers, and so evaluating those types
26:25
Speaker 2: of opportunities has been a thing that we see a
26:29
Speaker 2: lot of folks investing in, especially as the as the
26:32
Speaker 2: holidays are coming up.
26:33
Speaker 3: Well, and I can certainly attest to because it's it's
26:37
Speaker 3: one of our credos as well. At Meboch you were
26:41
Speaker 3: talking about, you know, automation and making sure that everything
26:44
Speaker 3: you know, your people, and your processes are in place first,
26:47
Speaker 3: because you cannot, and you should never automate a bad process.
26:51
Speaker 3: It's not going to fix the problem. You have to
26:54
Speaker 3: have the people and the processes first.
26:57
Speaker 1: The problem it does, it.
26:59
Speaker 3: Just makes the problemiger and faster. I think of I
27:02
Speaker 3: think of the old uh I Love Lucy where she's
27:05
Speaker 3: got that automated thing and she's trying to pack the
27:07
Speaker 3: chocolates and she just starts shoving them in her mouth
27:09
Speaker 3: cause they come faster. I mean, that's what happens when
27:11
Speaker 3: you automate a bad process is all of a sudden,
27:13
Speaker 3: it gets bad fast, and that's it. But you just
27:17
Speaker 3: touched on inventory and how that is becoming a strategic differentiator.
27:23
Speaker 3: So what types of things are a I doing to
27:27
Speaker 3: reshape that particular challenge.
27:30
Speaker 2: Well, as we know, like inventories the heartbeat of supply chain.
27:36
Speaker 2: It's the thing right that we're all whether we're trying
27:40
Speaker 2: to make it, distribute it, move it, assemble it, whatever
27:43
Speaker 2: it is. And so I think, you know, at the
27:47
Speaker 2: end of the day, you know we've we've talked about
27:49
Speaker 2: for years. I'm you know, born in born in the
27:53
Speaker 2: warehouse and you know, moved into manufacturing over the years.
27:57
Speaker 1: But you know, my my.
27:59
Speaker 2: Core is like, hey, inventory accuracy is the is the thing,
28:04
Speaker 2: you know, But it's not about just that anymore. We
28:06
Speaker 2: have to be better. Uh, and we're using the technology
28:09
Speaker 2: to get better. So things like you know, let's having
28:14
Speaker 2: having the technologies help us look at trends and detecting
28:18
Speaker 2: anomalies uh in real time and so and to help
28:22
Speaker 2: people see through the data and and really elevate those things.
28:27
Speaker 1: So again, your folks can make better choices.
28:30
Speaker 2: Uh. Is a is a huge, huge thing we're seeing.
28:33
Speaker 2: You know, we've we've seen some adoption. We put together
28:37
Speaker 2: some of our own smart sourcing kind of agents that
28:41
Speaker 2: are helping automate and look through processes of best vendor
28:46
Speaker 2: for this particular shipment based on these factors. You know,
28:51
Speaker 2: it takes folks a lot of time to get through
28:54
Speaker 2: that analysis and really being able to teach the tools
28:57
Speaker 2: to to learn the business this to make those choices
29:02
Speaker 2: or at least those recommendations uh and save save a
29:06
Speaker 2: lot of time.
29:06
Speaker 1: It's been huge. I think again, like you know, I
29:10
Speaker 1: think about the warehouse a lot.
29:13
Speaker 2: We were spending a lot of time on you know,
29:16
Speaker 2: we think we can solve a lot of issues around
29:20
Speaker 2: what we like slotting, so the the act of putting
29:24
Speaker 2: the right product in the right place in the warehouse.
29:27
Speaker 2: And it's like you know, teaching the technology to understand
29:31
Speaker 2: size of product, size of location, you know, the the
29:35
Speaker 2: profile of the orders in the in the past, what
29:39
Speaker 2: are they going to be when they're you know, in
29:40
Speaker 2: the future. Putting all that math together and say, you know,
29:44
Speaker 2: if my objective is to replenish less, you know, to
29:47
Speaker 2: these forward locations, ultimately, you know, help me reslot for
29:53
Speaker 2: the next week, the next month to to have the
29:56
Speaker 2: best benefit, the most through pro the least amount of
29:59
Speaker 2: waylabor uh to to put things in the right spot
30:03
Speaker 2: to do fulfillment as an example. So I think there's
30:06
Speaker 2: things like that. You know, I always think about the
30:09
Speaker 2: you know, the age old problem of again coming up
30:12
Speaker 2: on the holidays. It's like, you know, you're a B
30:14
Speaker 2: two C shipper and you're shipping toys that have got
30:17
Speaker 2: to be there before Christmas, and you're falling behind, and
30:21
Speaker 2: you're got to upgrade from ground to two day to
30:25
Speaker 2: one day, and you got human beings trying to figure
30:27
Speaker 2: that out. I mean, these are things that the tools
30:30
Speaker 2: can help you do now as they learn the business
30:33
Speaker 2: to go look through, Hey, this this order has got
30:36
Speaker 2: to you know, go five zones out the California We
30:39
Speaker 2: got to either get it out today or upgrade it
30:42
Speaker 2: to you know, a high level of service to make
30:46
Speaker 2: sure we're meeting customer needs.
30:47
Speaker 1: So I don't know, those are a few examples.
30:49
Speaker 2: I think there's some just some things that that are
30:52
Speaker 2: you know, when you think about inventory.
30:54
Speaker 1: And and the tools and looking at.
30:56
Speaker 2: The trends and UH and then teaching it to do
31:01
Speaker 2: the math that we've always done in all of our
31:04
Speaker 2: Excel tools and just do it live and give us
31:09
Speaker 2: the answers as we ask for it or tell us
31:12
Speaker 2: even when we don't ask for it, I think are
31:14
Speaker 2: huge opportunities.
31:15
Speaker 3: So I hear a lot of plans in what you're
31:19
Speaker 3: talking about when we're talking about you know, whether it's
31:22
Speaker 3: inventory or the processes of you know, getting shipments out.
31:27
Speaker 3: So there's a lot of planning involved, clearly there has
31:30
Speaker 3: to be. But execution is a different story entirely. So
31:37
Speaker 3: where are those gaps between the planning that you're seeing
31:41
Speaker 3: today and the execution And is there something that data
31:46
Speaker 3: can do to close that divide?
31:50
Speaker 2: You know, the gaps between planning and execution in my
31:55
Speaker 2: experience is most of the time with the company that
32:00
Speaker 2: I work with, it it can be pinpointed to something
32:04
Speaker 2: we talked about earlier, which is you know, these siloed
32:08
Speaker 2: business systems.
32:09
Speaker 1: And you know, really integrating.
32:11
Speaker 2: So if just as an example, if I have an
32:14
Speaker 2: order management solution, a warehouse management solution, a transportation management solution,
32:20
Speaker 2: I mean, those are three things that have got to
32:22
Speaker 2: work in beautiful orchestration, right like in the in a
32:26
Speaker 2: perfect state. You know, you're constantly evaluating your order from
32:31
Speaker 2: an order management perspective, your transportation systems looking at what
32:34
Speaker 2: orders are coming in and planning and replanning. You're you're
32:38
Speaker 2: putting strategic things to the warehouse to ship and be
32:42
Speaker 2: picked and staged at the right time when the appointment's coming.
32:45
Speaker 2: So you can think about all these things like in
32:47
Speaker 2: order to do that really really well from an execution perspective,
32:51
Speaker 2: these things have to work together really well when right.
32:55
Speaker 2: And so I think that's the I think that's been
32:57
Speaker 2: the hardest thing for a lot of folks is really
33:00
Speaker 2: breaking down these silos and helping these applications work together
33:03
Speaker 2: better or you know, new technologies to to really sort
33:08
Speaker 2: of bring those things together to do to do those
33:12
Speaker 2: types of things as an orchestrated platform. So I think,
33:16
Speaker 2: you know, and then data is the enabler you mentioned data.
33:20
Speaker 2: You know, I've been doing this this a while. I think,
33:22
Speaker 2: you know, one of the things I'll say in general is,
33:27
Speaker 2: you know, data companies and their commitment to data is definitely.
33:33
Speaker 1: Improved over the years.
33:34
Speaker 2: I remember doing these projects a long time ago and
33:37
Speaker 2: trying to solve various supply chain problems, and the maturity
33:41
Speaker 2: of data is always our hindrance.
33:44
Speaker 1: I think data is getting better.
33:46
Speaker 2: I think there's still you know, when you think about
33:48
Speaker 2: siloed systems and legacy systems, and you know, obviously the
33:55
Speaker 2: evolution of products and the innovation and products themselves constant
34:00
Speaker 2: only changing. There's obviously lots of new complexities with data.
34:04
Speaker 2: But data is you know, your planning system will only
34:07
Speaker 2: ever be as good as the data that you have
34:09
Speaker 2: to feed them, right there, So all.
34:11
Speaker 3: System is only as good as the data you put in.
34:14
Speaker 1: That's right, and everyone knows that.
34:15
Speaker 2: And so you know, like I think, you know again,
34:19
Speaker 2: leveraging some of these new technologies to bring data together.
34:23
Speaker 1: Uh, you know, on on a on.
34:26
Speaker 2: A data strategy, having a data strategy in general about
34:30
Speaker 2: how you you maintain, you centralize, UH and you improve
34:36
Speaker 2: your data, whether it's the master data or transactional UH.
34:40
Speaker 2: Is is a huge part of overall strategy for and
34:44
Speaker 2: planning for any company to be able to be successful
34:47
Speaker 2: because as you just mentioned, it's the foundation.
34:50
Speaker 3: Right absolutely well. And one thing that we we haven't
34:53
Speaker 3: touched on in a couple of minutes is the labor
34:56
Speaker 3: portion of this. So when we're when we're looking at
34:59
Speaker 3: some of those apps, how many of those are a
35:01
Speaker 3: gap because of not having either enough people or the
35:06
Speaker 3: right people or the people with the right skill set.
35:09
Speaker 2: Well, to answer your question, I think that is a
35:13
Speaker 2: big challenge, is being able to have you know, the
35:17
Speaker 2: right people, the the trained people to do the jobs
35:23
Speaker 2: that we you know, we continue to make need them
35:26
Speaker 2: to be able to do. I think you know, when
35:28
Speaker 2: we look at manufacturing plants, you know it's the the
35:33
Speaker 2: leaders in plants are are aging and we're not seeing
35:38
Speaker 2: you know, young folks come in and learn all the stuff.
35:41
Speaker 1: You know, lots of lots of lots of manufacturing plants.
35:44
Speaker 2: I go in today and walk through today run because
35:48
Speaker 2: you know, Jim and Jen know exactly how everything works.
35:51
Speaker 2: And they've been building this product for twenty five years
35:55
Speaker 2: and every problem that has ever come up, they've they've
35:58
Speaker 2: learned how to address and they know how to do it,
36:01
Speaker 2: and so you know, like how do you digitize that
36:05
Speaker 2: experience is a big, a big problem, right folks are
36:09
Speaker 2: trying to solve because you can't just bring in more
36:12
Speaker 2: people to make to to cover that sort of experience gap.
36:19
Speaker 3: So no, absolutely, And it's it's the same as automation.
36:22
Speaker 3: You can't just throw more at it. It's it's not
36:24
Speaker 3: going to help it. You have to have the right people,
36:27
Speaker 3: not just a quantity of people, and they have to
36:30
Speaker 3: have the right skill set. It can't just you can't
36:32
Speaker 3: just fog a mirror, so I mean, and in a
36:37
Speaker 3: lot of areas, yes, that is sufficient. We need a
36:40
Speaker 3: warm body here to be able to you know, get
36:43
Speaker 3: this this process to function. And that is fine because
36:46
Speaker 3: there will always be a need for you know, every
36:49
Speaker 3: individual's skill set level. But I was listening this morning
36:53
Speaker 3: to something on the news and something I don't even
36:56
Speaker 3: remember where it said that, you know, the millionaires of
36:59
Speaker 3: our era, in the way that we had the tech
37:02
Speaker 3: millionaires back in the nineties, the millionaires today are going
37:05
Speaker 3: to be the AI, the people who get AI and
37:08
Speaker 3: how to make it work. I hear, okay, yeah, And
37:14
Speaker 3: I thought that was really interesting and that it's going
37:16
Speaker 3: to come so much faster than it did back during
37:19
Speaker 3: that boom. And I see that happening today because we've
37:24
Speaker 3: got you know, AI really hit mainstream for most people
37:29
Speaker 3: to see it. I want to say, what two three
37:32
Speaker 3: years ago? Maybe? Maybe? And now there's an AI solution
37:36
Speaker 3: for almost anything and everything, and even Google is using
37:41
Speaker 3: an AI to help deliver results. So looking ahead, what
37:46
Speaker 3: capabilities mindsets should leaders be prioritizing to be ready for
37:53
Speaker 3: twenty twenty six and beyond.
37:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean one thing that I always you know,
37:59
Speaker 2: tell leaders is that you know, being in the supply
38:02
Speaker 2: chain and technology space, you know, trying to bring those
38:06
Speaker 2: things together is.
38:07
Speaker 1: Like, don't don't panic.
38:10
Speaker 2: Uh the you know, we always see the tech hype
38:14
Speaker 2: you know, many many years ahead of the reality of
38:17
Speaker 2: business right and and the competitive nature of things. So
38:22
Speaker 2: I think, you know, taking taking the time to build
38:26
Speaker 2: a strategy and do it right is super important and
38:30
Speaker 2: not think that you're you know the whatever, the fomo
38:35
Speaker 2: or whatever effect of trying to to jump in here.
38:39
Speaker 2: I think, but you do have to change the mindset
38:42
Speaker 2: of like you know, digital first, Data's core, it's it
38:47
Speaker 2: is the foundation. And if you want to leverage any
38:51
Speaker 2: of these tools, you know, like and I think you
38:54
Speaker 2: know this has been a common drum beat from most
38:58
Speaker 2: AI folks and leaders out there, is you know it.
39:02
Speaker 2: You can't predict things on bad data. You can't automate things,
39:08
Speaker 2: as you said multiple times today, automate things on ad data.
39:12
Speaker 2: So number one is just invest there on a data strategy,
39:18
Speaker 2: and as you build that out, you know, so many
39:22
Speaker 2: things will start to be become easier, especially if you
39:26
Speaker 2: do that in a strategic way, uh, in in in
39:29
Speaker 2: the cloud and on these various platforms. I think, you know,
39:35
Speaker 2: it's one of them, one of my mantras just as
39:38
Speaker 2: a human being, and I bring it to everything I do,
39:41
Speaker 2: which is, you know, I try.
39:43
Speaker 1: To, you know, do as.
39:45
Speaker 2: Many things as I can uh fast, fail fast, understand
39:51
Speaker 2: where we failed, and repeat. Uh And I think you
39:55
Speaker 2: can overthink these things to the end degree. I think
39:58
Speaker 2: keeping it small learning uh see what see what didn't
40:02
Speaker 2: go well, what did go well? And comparing to land
40:06
Speaker 2: and expand so you know, don't have to be perfect
40:09
Speaker 2: with all of this stuff. But you know, foundations first, agility,
40:13
Speaker 2: uh and you know it's.
40:15
Speaker 1: Going to be super important. We talked about leaders in
40:18
Speaker 1: the beginning investing great leaders and people that are going
40:22
Speaker 1: to help you with change management and helping people. We
40:26
Speaker 1: have a whole myself included workforce to train to do
40:32
Speaker 1: things in a different way, and that's going to take
40:35
Speaker 1: great leaders to help organizations adopt a digital mindset first. Uh,
40:42
Speaker 1: these data platforms and these tools that we're building out
40:45
Speaker 1: to leverage them in a way that's still human in nature.
40:48
Speaker 1: It's going to be super important.
40:51
Speaker 2: And you know, I think prioritizing agility, flexibility and resilience
40:57
Speaker 2: data with visibility is really the keys. And then really
41:02
Speaker 2: knocking down the silos of applications and bringing them together.
41:06
Speaker 2: Those are the key components of what you know I
41:11
Speaker 2: would be focusing on twenty twenty six here in the
41:14
Speaker 2: near future.
41:16
Speaker 3: Absolutely well, thank you Steve so much for joining us
41:20
Speaker 3: today and a pleasure. As Steve shared, the supply chain
41:24
Speaker 3: challenges of twenty twenty six are already taking shape, and
41:27
Speaker 3: the companies who act now will be the ones best
41:29
Speaker 3: position to adapt. By embracing scenario planning, designing smarter networks,
41:33
Speaker 3: and leveraging AI for real ROI leaders can turn today's
41:37
Speaker 3: uncertainty into tomorrow's advantage. To our listeners, If you've found
41:42
Speaker 3: today's episode valuable, be sure to hit that subscribe button
41:44
Speaker 3: so you never miss an episode. And if you're interested
41:46
Speaker 3: in being a guest on our show, you can reach
41:48
Speaker 3: me at podcast at meboch dot com anytime. Thank you
41:51
Speaker 3: for listening to Speaking of Supply Chain.
41:58
Speaker 4: Meeboch Consulting is one of the largest and most globally
42:01
Speaker 4: recognized supply chain consulting, engineering and advisory firms. For nearly
42:06
Speaker 4: fifty years, we've helped clients achieve supply chain excellence and
42:09
Speaker 4: sustainable competitive advantage across the entire spectrum of the supply
42:13
Speaker 4: chain by delivering improvements and innovation strategically, tactically, and digitally.
42:19
Speaker 4: To learn more, visit meeboch dot com. You've been listening
42:23
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