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Speaking of Supply Chain: The Why, Who & What · Speaking of Supply Chain

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  You're listening to Speaking of Supply Chain, a Mebach 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. All right, so today I'm
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  going to share some insights about this podcast. We're going to do things a
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  little bit differently. We're going to talk about why we started it, what
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  we hope to accomplish, why I am in this chair, why you should
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  subscribe, and what you can expect from us going forward. All right,
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  First, I want to thank all of our listeners out there. We have
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  been making this content for about six months now, and our audience has grown
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  significantly in that time and that's fantastic. I love it. Some of you
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  subscribe and that's great. We are so glad that this program is relevant enough
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  for you to tune in and want to get more every couple weeks. And
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  if you just tune in when you see something interesting, that's great too.
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  That means that we're putting interesting content out there, and I hope you keep
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  checking in to see if we've got something else that kind of speaks to you
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  or that you'd like to learn more about. Either way, if any of
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  you out there have suggestions for something you'd like to hear more about, something
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  you'd like to learn about, or a guest that you'd like to hear from,
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  please let us know. You can always reach me at podcast atmeback dot
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  com. Just send a quick email, let me know your thoughts, let
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  me know who you'd like to hear from, Let me know if you would
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  like to come be on the podcast, and I will be happy to set
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  that up. This entire production is for you, guys. Help us make
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  it what you want to hear. So, first of all, I want
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  to address the elephant in the room. My notes are taped to the wall
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  up behind the computer, so that's why I keep looking up because I want
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  to make sure that I catch all of the things. So why did we
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  start this podcast? So I don't know about you, I'm busy. People
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  in the logistics and supply chain industries are busy. There's a meme going around
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  right now that stress generates electricity. And then there's this little picture of a
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  guy who's sitting down in a booth at a restaurant glowing, and it's people
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  in supply chain, and that is so relatable. We are all stressed,
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  we are all overworked, we are all stretched very thin. And the traditional
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  ways of trying to share information, like writing a blog or writing a white
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  paper, having an article, those things are great, even sending an email
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  with information about what you may need to know, but that takes time.
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  It takes time for someone to write, and it takes time for someone to
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  read and digest, and we just don't have that kind of time. We
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  don't have those kind of attention spans anymore. So podcasting is a really approachable
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  way to reach a number of people who are interested in learning about what we
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  have to offer. Considering the weight of the topics, it's rather lighthearted,
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  it's easy to consume and hopefully a little bit entertaining. I do my best.
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  We had originally planned on our first season being about ten to twelve episodes.
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  When we decided to start this podcast, and guess what, we have
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  hit that goal. So yay celebration. We have reached the end of our
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  first season, if you want to call it that. I don't know that
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  we're going to necessarily break it up into seasons. It'll probably just be you
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  know, that's historically our first twelve episodes. We don't plan on having a
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  break anytime soon. We're going to keep chugging along. So I'm just excited.
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  I'm excited that we have made it this far. It's certainly an accomplishment
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  and it's been a lot of work and a huge thank you to my internal
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  team who helps me to produce this content. What did we hope to accomplish
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  with this podcast? Well, I want to clarify one point in our intro,
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  the very intro, not what I talk about, but the little music
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  and the guy talking at the beginning, he said, this is for supply
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  chain professionals. All right, So what's a supply chain professional? Well,
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  I mean, clearly we have things like the chief supply chain officer or the
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  director of supply chain or the director of transportation or you know, the VP
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  of logistics and all of those types of titles. We've got you engineers and
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  analysts, and we've got network modelers, and all of those important people are
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  certainly supply chain professionals, there is no question. But those are not the
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  only supply chain professionals out there. Do you work in a warehouse? Do
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  you drive a forklift? Do you move palettes from one section of the warehouse
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  to another? You're a supply chain professional. Do you work in a production
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  facility? Do you make food or computer chips or furniture or toys or cars?
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  You're also a supply chain professional. Do you drive a semi? Do
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  you move product from one place to another, across the country, across the
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  globe, across multiple geographies. You are a supply chain professional. Do you
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  have a side hustle as a door dasher? Do you deliver Uber eats on
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  your time off? Do you do instacart shopping and help someone with their daily
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  chores? You are also a supply chain professional. You're all important members of
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  this vast network that makes up the supply chain. It's huge, and if
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  you are interested in learning more about the impact that your work makes or other
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  things that are going to impact the work that you do, you should be
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  tuning in. This is a podcast for you. Yes, this podcast is
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  produced by the company that I work for me about consulting. But it is
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  not just a platform to let our people talk about how awesome they are.
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  They are awesome, but we want to share the information and insights that we
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  have gathered over the years, that we learn about in the course of our
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  work with clients, and we want to share that with you. We are
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  consultants and the work that we do, the information that we amass, and
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  the knowledge that we pull together and gather insights from all of that is what
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  we sell. We sell our expertise, we offer advice, and that is
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  that's how we our company makes money. So this show allows us to provide
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  all of that insight and a bit of that expertise to you and little soundbites
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  for free. We get to give back to the communities a little bit.
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  We want to share the information and insights that we learn about through the course
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  of our work, through the course of our supporting clients with our listeners.
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  We are consultants, after all, we are the experts. We have knowledge
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  and insight that we can offer to clients who need it, and that is
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  what we sell. We sell our time, and in these little podcasts,
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  we're able to give just a little bit of our time, a little bit
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  of our expertise out there for free, so that you can understand the value
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  of what it is that we do for our clients, but also so you
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  can learn something from it. We don't learn all of this just to sell
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  it. We want to share the information. If you have tuned into previous
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  episodes, you've listened to some of our experts, you've listened to some of
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  our guests, and they are all incredibly excited to be here and to share
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  this information with you. They're not asking you to pay for this information.
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  They want to share it. They want to tell you about the things that
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  they're doing and the things that they know. So we can introduce some of
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  the people that we work with and the experts in their fields to share their
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  insight as well, and that is super gratifying for everyone on this side of
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  the microphone. All Right, why am I the host? I often ask
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  myself the exact same thing. What brought me here? Now? If you
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  are someone who listens to our podcast on a regular basis, you may not
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  know this, but we also have video content of our podcasts that is available
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  on YouTube now. When you listen to our podcast, it's very professional.
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  Our producer does a fantastic job of making sure that I sound good, that
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  our guests sound good, that all of the content is very clear and easy
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  to listen to and uninterrupted edits out all of our mistakes. But the other
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  thing that we do is we take out some of the actual chit chat that
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  happens, a little bit of the getting to know you, a little bit
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  of the personality of the people who appear on this show, and that is
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  available in our video content. This is a secret that I'm going to let
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  you in on. We have full length videos that are uncut that have that
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  content where you get to know a little bit about me, you get to
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  know a little bit about our guests. We have some really lighthearted and fun
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  conversations, and that is only available in our video content. Now that it's
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  gated content right now, that means that you can't access it unless you subscribe.
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  Yeah, I know it's a cheap marketing trick. But what we do
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  is we make sure that you guys get access or if you subscribe, you
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  get access to that channel, that YouTube channel that's private, that only allows
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  those users to access that video content. Now, if you are only interested
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  in the professional produced podcast with all of the useful supply chain information, that
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  is great. I love having you as a subscriber and a listener, and
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  you can do that by subscribing in your podcast app, whether it's Spotify,
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  Google Podcasts, Apple, if you go directly to spreaker, you know you
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  can find our podcast in all of those and be able to follow it and
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  get new episodes downloaded, you know, immediately as soon as they're available.
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  But if you are interested in some of these little video chats, if you're
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  interested in getting to know us a little bit better, if you want some
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  of those behind the scenes MTV unplugged kind of thing, you need to subscribe,
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  and you can do that by going to podcast atmebach dot com and I
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  will make sure that you get access to those video content as well. But
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  to kind of take that a little bit further, let's back up a minute.
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  Why am I the host? Now you know that we have this content
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  available that's a little bit more personal on I'm going to tell you something personal
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  and it's going to be part of the podcast today. It's not going to
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  be gated content. So when I was a child, my dad worked in
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  food production. It's a company that is still in in operation today, although
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  the company's changed ownership a few times. It's called Alpeat Meats. And what
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  he did was he ran the production facility. They produce fritters, pork and
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  chicken fritters, they produced nuggets, they produced breaded cauliflower, breaded mushrooms,
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  breaded things that you fry, and for our more German centric listeners, a
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  fritter or pork fritter is very similar to schnitzel. And so he did the
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  food production. And one thing I did when I was very small is on
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  Sundays, before the week started, before the work week started, we had
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  to go and go to the production facility. It's a you know, medium
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  to small facility. It's just a regional producer, and we had to receive
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  the semi truck bringing the mushrooms in for that week. Apparently mushrooms were the
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  first thing they did on Mondays. I don't know, maybe it was alliterative
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  and that was their reasoning. I'm sure that they had, you know,
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  semis dropping off product throughout the week, but on Sundays was when the mushrooms
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  came, so I would go with him on Sunday afternoons to go receive the
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  mushrooms at the plant. And I don't know how many of you have ever
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  been inside a semi trailer of unwashed mushrooms. It was it was impactful.
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  I didn't eat mushrooms for a long time, but I got to watch them.
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  You know, they'd get the palette jacks and pull the you know,
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  the palettes of mushrooms out of the truck and put them over into the walk
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  in refrigerated cooler. And you know, there's paperwork to deal with and things
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  to move around to make sure that the loading dock was was free and ready
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  for this, and you had to move the palettes of the packaging and the
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  cartoning around and Dad would let us sit on an empty palette and he'd elevate
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  the palette jack up and down, and it was it was so much fun.
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  We got to see the um that the stacks of the packing materials,
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  we got to see the conveyors. We got to watch the washing process for
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  the mushrooms. We got to watch the breading process, we got to taste
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  the food. UM. I got to listen to the sales guys if they
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  happened to be, you know, in the office when I'd visit and they'd
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  talk about, you know, the companies they were selling to, the restaurants,
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  the schools, you know, all the places where this this food would
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  be consumed and um, and I got to see it in the store.
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  You can still see it in the store. These these pork fritters and chicken
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  fritters are still produced today, and every once in a while, I get
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  nostalgic and I go to the store and I buy a box just so I
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  can have them again. We used to be the taste testers for all of
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  the new products that they had. Anytime they were trying to come up with
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  something new, my dad would make a batch and you'd bring it home,
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  and you know, we were school aged kids, so he'd say, either
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  they're going to eat it and you can sell this to a school, or
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  this is this is not something that's going to go over well, so maybe
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  we sell it somewhere else, or maybe we scrapped this product idea. I
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  was part of the research and development team, and supply chain has always been
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  a part of my life. I didn't realize it at the time. I
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  certainly didn't realize it as a child, and it took me a while as
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  an adult to realize that I had been a part of the supply chain.
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  I was experiencing it, and if you'll look closely, you'll probably notice something
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  similar. If you know, no matter what your background is, you have
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  interacted with the supply chain. I mentioned it earlier. It is a vast
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  network and we are all a part of it in some way, shape or
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  form. And I'm sure you've been a little bit more involved at some point
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  in your life than others. But it's pervasive in our global economy and we
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  couldn't do without it. That's how important supply chain is. So as business
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  people were constantly under pressure to do things better, to do more with what
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  we have, to do it more efficiently, and to do it with less,
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  so supply chain helps us accomplish those goals. And I am very passionate
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  about it. I don't know if that comes across I don't know if I've
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  managed to make you feel that way during this conversation or monologue I should say,
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  but I'm interested in all areas of the supply chain, and I love
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  learning more about it, and I am every day able to do that,
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  and I thought that the energy, or I guess my company thought that the
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  energy that I have and the excitement that I have and the enthusiasm that I
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  have for learning more about supply chain and talking about it and letting people tell
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  me about it made me the perfect person to sit in this chair and interview
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  people and talk with them and get to know the topics that they are experts
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  in and learn a little bit more about it so that I can use that
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  information to help you learn a little bit more about it. All right,
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  why should you subscribe? Well, first of all, I need the numbers.
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  Sorry, I'm a marketing person, and if if we're going to justify
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  me having this microphone, I need to have some data to back it up.
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  Now, I'm kidding, that's not why. That's not why you should
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  subscribe. That's my reason for doing this, and that's something that I look
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  at. That is not why you should subscribe to this podcast at all.
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  Let's see, we have topics that very widely and so one week we'll be
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  talking about networking, the next week we're talking about IVP, the next time
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  we're talking about you know, a cool new robot that's turned upside down.
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  Talk a robot. Maybe not always what you're interested in, but we'll get
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  there, I promise, So speak up and we'll get your topic lined up.
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  Let's just be an active part of that vast supply chain network and learn
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  more about the topics and the facets of everything that is pulling together the supply
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  chain. Let's do it together. That is why you should subscribe to our
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  podcast, so that we can be a part of this journey together and learn
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  more about it and be a part of this community. All right, what
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  is coming up that you should tune in for it? That's a great question.
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  So we've got more guests lined up for the remainder of this year from
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  various companies that are helping to make the supply chains work. And I can't
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  wait to hear what they have to share and some of the things that they
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  are going to tell us about in their respective industries and their respective companies and
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  what things that they see from their perspective. We're going to have more experts
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  in their fields breaking down those complex concepts and helping us understand the implications for
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  the work that we do. And we're going to have more innovative technologies that
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  are changing the landscape, of automation, of robotics, of digitalized data.
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  All of these things are changing the supply chain functions and industry in ways that
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  we don't even realize how impactful they're going to be yet. All we can
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  see is that they are new and super cool, and I want to know
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  all about them and more chances to get to know the people in the supply
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  chain industry. Again, we have that gated content that you are able to
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  subscribe to and get to know us a little bit better. And that's really
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  what this is all about. We are people and we are trying to connect
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  and that way, when you have a need sometime in the future, you
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  may think back, I listened to that podcast once and that was really interesting.
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  They had a great technology, or they had a great solution, or
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  this guy really knew what he was talking about, or this lady is the
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  one who's going to get me to the answer that I need. That is
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  my ultimate goal to make sure that all of that information is out there and
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  available so that when one of our listeners has a need, or has an
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  interest or has a question, they have someone where they know that they could
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  go and ask here's how you do it? Podcast at mebach dot com.
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  I will spell that podcast podcast at me bock m i ebacch dot com.
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  That is how you get in touch with me to let me know what topics
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  you would like to hear, what people you want to hear from, what
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  companies you'd like to learn more about, what technologies are interesting to you.
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  That is how you tell me, and that is how I get them on
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  this show by telling them, Hey, my listeners want to know, you
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  need to come talk to me. As always, thank you for listening to
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  Speaking of Supply Chain. If you enjoyed our show, please rate it on
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  whatever podcast platform you prefer. If you are interested in subscribing to the podcast
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  to get that additional content only available to our subscribers, email me at podcast
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  at meback dot com and I will get you on that list vip list.
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  It's very important, all right. Be sure to tune in next time.
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  Thanks you've been listening to Speaking of Supply Chain, a mebox podcast. Keep
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  connected with us by subscribing to the show in your favorite podcast player. If
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  you like what you've heard, please rate the show that helps us to keep
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  delivering the latest in supply chain information. Thanks for listening. Until next time,