Day 2 of the 2017 Supply Chain Global Summit was packed with fabulous speakers, discussions, and insights. The day started off with an enlightening (though perhaps a bit gloomy) keynote address from Robert J. Gordon, Professor of Social Sciences and Economics at Northwestern University. Dr. Gordon discussed the decrease in productivity growth in the U.S. since the first industrial revolution. He was not optimistic about the future of productivity growth in the U.S. either, due to reasons such as the low unemployment rate unlikely to get much lower. He talked about the polarization of available jobs, with the mid-level jobs…

Today the Supply Chain Insights Global Summit officially began! After some great morning ice-breaker activities (hiking group picture below!), Lora kicked the summit off with a keynote address. She discussed more of her findings from the Mining for Supply Chain Insights report, including interesting correlations she found between survey results and the financial results of the companies represented by the people who took the surveys. Hikers at the top of Stone Mountain! As Figure 1 shows, she actually found an inverse relationship between when survey respondents thought they had clarity of inventory targets and inventory turns and cost of goods…

I was lucky enough to sit in on the Shaman’s Circle today, unofficially kicking off the Global Summit! The Shaman’s Circle is a small group of supply chain professionals who join a conversation facilitated by Lora Cecere to discuss current and future supply chain issues. Today’s conversation centered a lot around the frustrations that many supply chains are facing with the large amount of data available but not knowing what to do with it. For example, many companies, including past companies I’ve worked for, have customer sales data or customer inventory level data available. This data may have been obtained…

Observers tend to agree on several things about the supply chain of the future. It will be more real-time, it will be more digitally integrated and “smart”, and it will adapt more flexibly to changes in demand, desired channels for fulfillment, and supply-side risk. Less is heard about exactly how these things will come to pass. And, lagging behind even that, is a vision of how people will lead the way and not become casualties of or impediments to progress. We aren’t thinking hard enough or far enough beyond technology, and that needs to change. It’s people that are the…

The 2017 Supply Chain Insights Global Summit is in less than ONE WEEK! I cannot wait to discuss the issues supply chain leaders are facing and to imagine what the future will bring for supply chain. I took a look at some of the initial survey results from the summit registrants, and one particular chart stood out to me. In Figure 1, you can see that the summit registrants find that both lack of organizational alignment and traditional supply chain thinking are top barriers to driving continuous improvement. Figure 1. Global Summit 2017 Registrants Survey Results: Barriers to Driving Continuous…

Some notes from the ‘Imagine2030’ conference of supply chain insights Jeremiah Owyang of Crowd Companies was 1 of the keynotes on the #imagine2030 conference of supply chain insights. CC is a Silicon Valley startup bringing change in large companies. It centers on the “collaborative economy” (AirBnB), “crowd business models” (Uber) and “autonomous world” (autonomous driving & robotics) disruptions. Much of Jeremiah’s keynote at the Imagine2030 conference was centered on the example of how the car industry is currently disrupted and massively moving towards a fully autonomous fleet of cars. The figure below shows data from Morgan Stanley which promises we…

In September 2016 I was lucky enough to attend Lora Cecere’s (founder of Supply Chain Insights) Imagine the Supply Chain of 2030 Global Summit. I found the conference extremely insightful and wanted to share with you some of my key takeaways from the event. This is the first article in a four part series to be published in the coming weeks, “Incubate your own talents”. Talent shortage in the supply chain industry is a known issue, especially with the demand for middle management positions. The rapid expansion and increasing complexity of the industry, the qualifications needed for supply chain professionals…