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Best of Year One: Five Most Popular Episodes · Speaking of Supply Chain

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You're listening to Speaking of Supply Chain, a meeboch 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. We don't have any guests today.
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Today we are just going to be doing a quick recap of the top
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five episodes of our first year. We have reached our one year anniversary of
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the podcast, and I'd like to go back and do a quick review of
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our five most popular episodes. Coming in at number five, we have It's
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all fun and Games in supply Chain Now. This was one of our earlier
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episodes with Alex Waterlinks and Hans Kramer from in Change and in Change is a
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company that has the Fresh Connection. The Fresh Connection is a business simulation game
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that helps companies kind of get a feel for what the other business units are
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doing in regard to the supply chain and how those business units interact with one
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another. So let's take a quick listen to the highlight from that episode.
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This game will be played by people who are somewhat familiar with a supply chain.
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It will be unlikely that this game is going to be played by the
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legal counsel of any kind of a company. On the other hand, there
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should not also be a perfect match with the current entity because one of the
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things that we very often recommend is that a person who is really vested within
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sales would now take on the role of the financial content of the fresh connection
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company and the other way around, so that you can actually put yourself in
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the shoes of someone else. As Alex pointed out in there, it's a
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good idea for businesses to kind of step out or for people in business to
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step out of their normal role and get that perspective on what's happening in other
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business units. You know, maybe the sales guy needs to go and sit
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in the finance seat and understand what those individuals are looking for and what they're
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trying to accomplish in their day to day work and vice versa for that C
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suite to come into the salesperson's shoes and understand what they're up against, or
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into that operations manager. It's just a great, great opportunity for these individuals
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who are making, you know, major decisions on behalf of their company to
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really get a better understanding of how they work together and how they're all trying
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to accomplish the same goals in their own little way within the organization, but
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having that understanding of what everyone else is doing and how they're trying to accomplish
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their goal so that everyone meets the same finish line at the same time.
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So if you are interested in the fresh connection, if you want to get
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in touch with in Change or with Henrik, you can go to inchange dot
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com and you can either request a demo or a free trial. It's just
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a great opportunity, all right. Moving on to number four. If you
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are not one of our followers on YouTube, you really should be. You
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get to see all of my craziness as I'm looking from screen to screen.
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I've got three screens going on today, not just the two. Coming in
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at number four is unveiling Global Disruptions. Mebo's risk management findings, and this
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episode was with Tim Wagner and Daniel Simon, and they were the authors of
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Meebox twenty twenty three. Risk Management or Supply Chain Risk Management Study is a
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study that we ran in twenty nineteen and then again in twenty twenty three,
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and obviously a whole lot happened in between those two versions of the study,
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and what they found was very interesting. Have a listen. In case of
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these last three years especially, we probably have to say none of us were
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prepared for what was coming. These risks that we've faced were some of the
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probably most unprecedented that we have seen in the last decades. And usually when
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you draw up a risk matrix where you have those that have low impact and
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low probability and you have those that have high probability and high impact. These
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were the ones that have low probability with high impact, so the ones that
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you don't expect, at least at this scale. So nevertheless, we found
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out that at least ninety four percent of the companies that took in this study
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latest now have a supply chain risk management process set up, so hopefully a
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lot of them were going in prepared so that not this was a follow up
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of the last three years building up this supply chain risk management, but it
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was already set up before that. And what we also see is that the
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importance of the whole topic has been recognized and is one of the top priorities
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in most companies. So it goes up to C level now that they are
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involved in this process, which is very important to make quick and decisive decisions
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once such risks break out. So one of the interesting things from the study
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itself, and I'm looking at the study report on my other screen over here,
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and that is that supply chains are forty percent more likely to have to
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deal with the disruption. Look at that statistic. Yeah, they're forty percent
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more likely to be disrupted after COVID. And I don't know that that is
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necessarily useful in terms of trying to fix it or prepare for it. Obviously,
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when it comes to big disasters like a global pandemic, there's not a
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whole lot that we can do to be prepared because you can't prepare for every
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eventuality. You have to be prepared for the ones that you have some hope
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of being able to mitigate or work through and focus on those things. Those
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areas where you do have some control over the situation, or you do have
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at least control over your reaction to the situation. When it's something that globally
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disruptive, no one is ever going to be prepared enough. It's just not
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possible. You can't get on with day to day business if all you're doing
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is worrying about the sky falling. So there's a balance that has to be
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struck there in terms of being ready for a disruption, whether it is whether
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whether it is a geopolitical issue, whether it is a new law that's coming
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into effect. We've talked about all of these different types of disruptions in various
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episodes, but when it comes to this risk management and what supply chains and
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what organizations can do in order to kind of prepare and be ready to handle
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those types of things, there's only so much you can do, and we
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are glad to help companies out with that, but it's definitely something that is
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more prevalent in conversations in terms of what companies are doing to prepare their supply
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chains for a potential disruption. Risk management is a much bigger topic than it
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was in twenty nineteen. That is for certain, all right, on to
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number three on our list. And this episode is actually again following in that
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risk management and this is our due diligence legislation that is coming into effect and
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the EU Due Diligence that is also coming along with it. And this episode
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with anaesthesia was incredibly interesting. How listen, the only way forward for us
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to tackle all those environmental and general sustainability problems that we've got, we have
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to make that legislation more and more strict, and we have to go further
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and further. Right So this if you look at the general problem of the
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social inequality or climate change, this legislation is kind of the job in an
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ocean. So it's only the beginning. And I think the companies, I
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don't want to say to have to put up with it because maybe it's negative,
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but they have to change their awareness and change their perspective here because there
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should be more legislation like that, and this is the first step to it.
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So right now they're asked to implement risk management system. But we know,
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for example that in the European Union there are already discussions about having much
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more strict environmental legislations. For example, in the fashion industry, control and
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what kind of fabric is used in the garment, Is it polyester, is
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it cotton? Can you which fabrics can you combine so that they are more
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recyclable and so on. So this is a lot stricter already, all right.
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So one of the things that I found so interesting about that conversation with
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Anastasia was the way that companies are approaching and just really reacting to having this
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legislation put in place. So in a number of areas, companies are very
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forward with their sustainability initiatives. They're very forward with their with their governance,
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governance internally in terms of human rights, in terms of sustainability, in terms
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of environmental impact, and all of those things are our wonderful qualities to be
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concerned about and to have, I think, in this age of cancel culture
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and consumers having a much broader awareness of the companies that they interact with,
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the companies that they purchase from, it's become a larger issue where companies are
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doing this in a proactive manner rather than a reactive manner. And Estciam made
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a very good point that if we say they have to do it, there's
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a negative impact When we have to legislate these things. It's not because we're
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telling people that you have to do something, although it is. I mean
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that is the ultimate consequence of having something enacted as a law is that then
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everybody has to follow it, and there are consequences for not But the other
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aspect of having this written down and aligned upon among the various geographies is that
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we're all bringing each other up. So the companies that have done a great
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job of being proactive about this in the first place, they're able to share
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those best practices and be the lead to be the trend setter when it comes
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to having some of those things in place. They're going to be the model
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that we look to to say, Okay, yes we need to improve our
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sustainability, Yes we need to improve some of these human rights issues. We
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need to make sure we're treating our people appropriately, that they're earning a wage
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that they can live on, that we're building a society and not just a
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business. So I love that some of these companies that have been in the
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forefront of this movement are now able to be our trend setters. They're able
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to be our benchmark for what companies can achieve and how much further, they
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can improve their supply chains even within the constraints of you can't do anything and
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everything that you want. You can't be a bad steward of our environment.
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You need to improve yourself, You need to be better. We need to
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elevate everyone together. And if for those who have done great job, share
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your secrets and I know that we have some additional information. This is not
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a one time conversation that we're going to have about sustainability, about some of
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these more social issues. These are becoming everyday topics in boardrooms across the globe,
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and so the more we talk about them, the more we will be
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able to bring some of those best practices, some of those really big things
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that move the needles significantly and can have those big impacts on supply chains,
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not just in terms of adherents with legislation, but also in terms of being
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that global trendsetter, being that company that people want to do business with because
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they feel good about the way that that company maintains their supply chain, maintains
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their operations or even their products. All right. Top two our second most
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popular episode in the first year of speaking of supply chain, and this is
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getting innovation and technology AI and changing material handling in the supply chain. Let's
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have a listen. We have many suppliers for different for all the parts and
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also some of in stock. So that's one of the biggest advantage. We
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only have one key element and it could be applied for many many applications,
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for many many products and also for many many industries and normal companies or traditional
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companies have specific products for specific applications, and our specification or customization is the
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software. So basically it's a software product at the moment, it's not it
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looks. It looks, but it's it's The main part is a software.
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The hard and software is on different areas. You have in the communication protocol
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between the cells, you have intelligent control software, and you have an application
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software, and you have this IAI part recognizing the parcels, make a control
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and making corrections in the movements or changing the path of the parcels. It's
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all together. It's a robotist looks like as a convey that's the robot,
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all right. How innovative is that? So as a recap Henrik Thamer is
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the founder of Salumation and they have one of my favorite conversations the upside down
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soccer robots. Isn't it amazing how innovation can spark, you know, from
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the most innocuous of places. He was out having a beer and looking at
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these, you know, soccer robots and thought, what if we turn it
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upside down? And all of a sudden, now he's got this amazing innovation
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for material handling and parcel handling inside facilities, and it's it's a soccer robot
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turned upside down. I love it. It's hilarious. But some of the
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amazing things about these these innovative designs are their applications. And as he mentioned,
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you know, yes, there is a physical component to these, these
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sellumation tables, these these movers that are able to move the parcels wherever they
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want. But the brains and really the effectiveness and what takes this to the
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next level is all the software programming that's behind it, that is able to
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gather data from what it's doing in the moment, and using AI, it's
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able to move that package to wherever it needs to be based on whether it
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was a scan from a a sticker or a marking on the side of the
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box, whether it's information on the weight of the box. And because this
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particular product from Sealumation is such it's like Lego bricks. You know, you
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can customize it to whatever size, to whatever field is necessary. But it's
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so simple in its design and so powerful in its application that it can be
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utilized in any number of different situations and provide value for that company that's trying
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to move all this information or move all this product, I should say,
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with all of this information and increase their their productivity. Even when you know
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these these large conveyance systems wouldn't fit into some of these facilities. I know
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we've talked about, you know, micro fulfillment centers in some other episodes,
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and we've talked about, you know, getting into urban areas and into buildings
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that weren't necessarily designed for material handling. So having this buildable and customizable option
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for material handling and that has the AI behind it that enables it to make
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some more intelligent decisions based on the business need, I think is just a
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fantastic innovation. I love talking with guests that bring some of this innovation to
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the table. It's so cool. It's one of the best parts of this
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job. And sitting in this chair, all right, we are down to
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the final one before we get to our most popular episode of Speaking of Supply
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Chain season one, year one, I did want to call out again if
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you are not one of our listeners or one of our followers that follows on
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YouTube, you really should go and check out some of that video content.
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So all of our audio episodes are of course available on your favorite podcast platforms,
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whether it's Spotify, Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, we're available on all
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of those. But if you were to go to our YouTube channel and view
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some of the video content, you get not only that final podcast episode,
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but you also get some behind the scenes information. You get some behind the
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scenes banter and conversation that takes place that does not make it to our final
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audio cut. One of the things that we do on those episodes as we
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have an icebreaker question where I get to know our guests a little bit better.
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I don't want to just jump into a conversation about supply Chain. I
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mean, yes, it's interesting, but the people in supply Chain are what
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make it really interesting. Just like Henrick and coming up with these ideas while
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he's out having a beer, I want to know what drives people, what
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makes them interested in supply Chain, but just as individuals, so we do
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an icebreaker question. I never make our guests answer this question on their own.
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I also answer it as well, so you get to know a little
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bit more about me. But there's some great content, some great behind the
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scenes conversations with some of these guests that I'm meeting for the first time as
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part of the podcast, and also some of those guests that I have known
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four years in my career here in supply Chain and with me Bach and there
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are some fantastic individuals out there. But not only that, do you get
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to see all of that information. You can view our micro video content,
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you can view the full length videos, but in addition to that, you
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get to see some of these amazing people. And if you are also one
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of those amazing people that has some great innovations, that has some great ideas,
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that's doing some big things in your own company, supply Chain, I
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want to invite you not only to follow us on your podcast and subscribe to
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our podcast, not only to follow us on YouTube and have access to that
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video content that you get to know us a little bit better, but reach
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out to me, Come be a guest on this podcast, Come talk to
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me about whatever it is that's going on in your supply chain, what's going
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on in your organization, those innovations that you've got going on in the background
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that are making a difference in your company's supply chain. We'd love to have
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you on the show. The best way to do that is to shoot me
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an email podcast at meboch dot com. It's as easy as that. You
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send me the email, I will send you a meeting request and we will
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get you behind the microphone. All right, we are down to our number
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one episode and it is no surprise that this is the top episode for the
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year. It was also one of our earlier episodes, so that may have
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something to do with why it's so popular. As we gain new listeners and
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they go back and listen to some of the content. But our most popular
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episode has had over two hundred and fifty downloads, which is a lot for
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a podcast in its first year. That's that's significant. But this episode is
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supply chain forecasting with advanced analytics. Have a listen. We don't have like
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this crystal ball, right, I mean, no one is going to be
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a magician and tell you like hey, in two months, there's going to
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be happening, but at least to me, let's say that we are going
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to be creating this kind of mechanism, like, for example, prescriptive tools,
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right that could tell us like, hey, when this happens, how
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we should be reacting and which kind of decisions we're going to be taking,
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right, Because to me, it's like not even planning, but actually planning
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to be covered to minimize the risks that we're going to be having with any
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kind of like potential disruptions that we're going to be in the future, all
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right. In that episode, which was really interesting, but it touches on
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some of the other episodes that we've already covered today that have resonated with so
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many individuals working in supply chain, and that is dealing with risk, dealing
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with information that we need to understand in order to avoid some of those risks
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and plan around it. But when it comes to forecasting and planning, it's
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not just looking at what has historically happened and what's going to happen, but
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trying to uncover some of the additional information the insights that can be gained through
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that data, and that is going to be so huge going forward as Gustavo
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and Jillian. We we're talking in that particular episode about how that data comes
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together, how we're able to look at that data and understand it and mine
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for all of the insights that can be gleaned from. It's not just about
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you know, what do we do next, but what do we do next?
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And what happens if something else comes into play? What is plan B,
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what is Plan C? And how can we build a program or a
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plan for this forecast that is going to be resilient enough to weather the storm
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Because we know that storms happen, We know that those risks take place,
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We know that there are going to be disruptions, We know that there are
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going to be outside forces, you know, causing us to act or react
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in certain ways. When it comes to sustainability measures that need to be implemented
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or anything like this. We know that there is going to be changed.
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It's the one constant we can count on. So the more we can look
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into our own data and understand what that's going to mean for the future,
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the better prepared we can all be. All right. That brings us to
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the end of our top five. Speaking of supply chain episodes of three I
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hope you have enjoyed listening and tuning in to Speaking of Supply Chain. I
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enjoy producing this content and being able to sit down and talk with all of
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our guests learn something new every single time I get behind this microphone and really
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get a better feel of what is going on in our industry. I hope
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that's the same for you. If not, you know what, you probably
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need to call me and tell me what's going on in your neck of the
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woods. So as always, thanks for tuning in and listening to Speaking of
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Supply Chain. Follow us in whatever podcast platform you prefer, whether it's Spotify,
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Google Podcasts, or Apple podcasts and tune in next time. Meeboch Consulting
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is one of the largest and most globally recognized supply chain consulting, engineering and
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advisory firms. For nearly fifty years, we've helped clients achieve supply chain excellence
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and sustainable competitive advantage across the entire spectrum of the supply chain by delivering improvements
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and innovation strategically, tactically, and digitally. To learn more, visit meeboch
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dot com. You've been listening to Speaking of Supply Chain a Meeboch podcast,
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