Supply Chain - Unfiltered

Picture walking into a warehouse, factory, mine site, or solar field in 2035 and realizing the biggest shift is not a single shiny robot, it is the feeling that operations are finally steady. Staffing gaps stop derailing throughput. Dangerous tasks get handled without putting people in harm’s way. And “automation” stops being a pilot and becomes part of how work gets done. We sit down with Leo Ma,...

A single river corridor in Louisiana helps move a staggering share of America’s exports, and when it hiccups, the ripple hits farmers, factories, retailers, and consumers. We sit down with Harrison Crabtree , Executive Director of the World Trade Center New Orleans, to unpack what keeps the South Louisiana port system resilient when trade rules shift and nature refuses to cooperate. We get specifi...

The next supply chain disruption will not wait for your dashboard to refresh, and it definitely will not wait for a two-year implementation plan. We sit down with Antonio Gonzalez, CEO and co-founder of Vallor, to talk about a problem procurement teams feel every day but rarely name out loud: the answers to “what are our options?” are often already negotiated into our contracts, yet the data is no...

Your procurement team can’t automate what it can’t trust. When supplier names duplicate, dashboards sit unopened, and every “simple” request turns into an Excel fire drill, AI doesn’t fix the problem, it exposes it. We sit down with Laura Beth ("LB") Hirt-Sharpe, Data Offerings Leader for IBM Procurement and an IBM Outstanding Technical Achievement Award recipient, to get specific about...

The supply chain doesn’t break in the obvious places, it breaks in the gray areas: the assumptions inside contracts, the handoffs between shipper and 3PL, and the gaps between a plan and the real world. We sit down with Sandy Hodes , Senior Vice President and Chief Procurement and Corporate Development Officer at Ryder System, to unpack how third-party logistics providers navigate supply chain vol...

Sustainability can feel like a moving target when elections, tariff headlines, and shifting regulations keep rewriting the rules. We sit down with Kris Spriano , former Vice President of Programs and Development at the Sustainable Purchasing Leadership Council (SPLC) and current Product Materials Manager at Arista Networks, to get honest about what’s really happening inside procurement teams and w...

Change is easy to describe and brutally hard to deliver, especially in supply chain and procurement where every shift touches customers, suppliers, systems, and frontline teams. We sit down with Manish Kapoor , founder and CEO of Growth Catalyst Group, to get honest about what separates a thought leader from a true change agent and why execution is the part that tests your leadership the most. We...

Stability is the word we all want to hear in supply chain, but Lucas Cunha thinks we should stop waiting for it. The pace of AI, the churn in global trade, and the squeeze of nonstop deadlines are pushing logistics, procurement, and operations teams into a new reality where adaptability is the real baseline for survival. We dig into what that means on the ground when you are trying to keep materia...

Data is quietly becoming the most negotiable asset in business and the easiest one to misuse. We sit down with Charlotte de Brabandt, Ph. D. , an expert in procurement, digital transformation, and AI-driven sustainability, to make sense of what it means to treat data like an economic engine rather than a pile of reports. We walk through Charlotte’s AI data economy model and the four forces it bala...

76% of leaders say data-driven decision making is the goal, but most people still don’t trust the data they’re looking at. That contradiction is not just frustrating, it’s expensive. We talk with Susan Walsh , founder of The Classification Guru , about what actually breaks procurement data and supplier master data over time, and why “just add AI” won’t fix a messy foundation. We get practical abou...

Disruption isn’t a phase you “get through” anymore. It’s the environment, and it’s forcing supply chains and organizations to evolve beyond classic agility into something bigger: hyper agility. We sit down with Dr. Charlotte de Brabandt to unpack what hyper agility really means and why she sees it as a true superpower for teams that need to sense change early, respond fast, and still stay grounded...

Scaling globally is exhilarating right up until the “how fast can we hire” question meets reality. A new client award or a winning bid can force a rapid ramp in a country where you have no entity, no local payroll, and no clear view of employment law. That’s when opportunity turns into internal panic, and the clock starts ticking on delivery dates, revenue, and credibility. We sit down with Rebecc...

Trillions in new factories are coming, supply chains are shifting closer to home, and yet the biggest constraint is not equipment or real estate, it’s people. We sit down with Isaac Hagan , Senior VP of Emerging Verticals at ManpowerGroup, to unpack what “emerging talent markets” really mean right now and why they often look like familiar industries under extreme transformation: manufacturing, sem...

Your supply chain decisions can feel like you’re parked in the middle of a busy intersection with traffic coming from every direction: operational pressure, ethical expectations, AI disruption, and the constant demand for profitability. We sit down with Burkhard Schemmel , senior sales leader at Maersk and founder of the Research Institute of Alterocentric Business Ethics, to make that chaos worka...

A 20-year veteran retires, and suddenly the “way we do it” disappears with them. That is the reality across manufacturing, maintenance, and field service right now, and it shows up everywhere: longer onboarding, inconsistent work, safety gaps, and teams stuck relearning the same fixes under pressure. We talk with Siva Kumar Lakshmanan (Siva), CEO of DeepHow , about a practical way to capture triba...

This episode explores how robotics, AI, and automation are reshaping manufacturing, supply chains, and the future of work. In this episode of Supply Chain Unfiltered , host Melanie Stern sits down with Myron Moser , alliant Strategic Advisory Board Member and Chairman Emeritus at Hartfiel Automation. A 35-year veteran in industrial automation and robotics, Myron unpacks what’s hype, what’s real, a...

How should consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies and bulk product manufacturers adapt when tariffs shift, retailers pivot, and consumer demand becomes unpredictable? In this episode of Supply Chain  - Unfiltered , presented by the Institute for Supply Management (ISM), host Melanie Stern sits down with Jesse Jones, Vice President of Operations at WSI, a national third‑party logistics (3PL) provi...

Discover which companies thrive, and which struggle, when tariffs and trade barriers shift. In this “Supply Chain – Unfiltered” episode, Chandler Willison of M Science explains why supply chain flexibility is key to resilience, and how smaller firms with rigid operations are most vulnerable to policy changes. Gain practical insights into the strategic moves that help organizations adapt, optimize,...

In this episode of “Supply Chain – Unfiltered,” host Melanie Stern welcomes Dr. John Mitchell, President & CEO of the Global Electronics Association, to discuss why electronics – like energy – touch every sector and every life. Mitchell shares new trade flows analysis showing that electronics now represent one in every five dollars of global merchandise trade, and explains how this trend is ac...

In this episode of “Supply Chain – Unfiltered,” featuring Conrad Snover, CEO at ProcurAbility, dives into the impact of electrification on grid infrastructure and supply chains. Success in today’s environment hinges on building collaborative, long-term partnerships among utilities, suppliers, and contractors. Conrad discusses that integrated supply chain models, strategic contracting, and shared f...

Audrey Clavedon, Head of ESG Leadership and Consultancy at Sedex, joins “Supply Chain – Unfiltered” to discuss opportunities for transforming ESG compliance and the outlook for 2026. Rather than getting bogged down by reporting requirements, businesses can refocus their efforts on making a tangible impact on sustainability and building resilient supply chains.  This year has brought heightened att...

In this episode of Supply Chain – Unfiltered, Vijay Manohar Cherukuru, Director of Product at Walmart GoLocal., a division of Walmart, one of the world’s largest retail supply chains, shares his insights into the evolving landscape of delivery and logistics. VJ discusses how Walmart GoLocal is balancing automation and human expertise, scaling innovative technologies like drones and driverless truc...

In this episode, LightSource CEO, Spencer Penn shares how his experience working on the Model 3 program at Tesla – scaling it from a boutique car business to millions of vehicles – helped shape his vision for transforming procurement through AI. Spencer discusses how leveraging AI and automation are redefining procurement, turning it from a tactical function into a driver of strategic level thinki...

In this episode, Mat Witte, CEO of ORTEC Americas, addresses the pressing challenges supply chain operators across North America are facing. From labor shortages to rising costs, inventory issues, and reluctance to adopt automation, the landscape in transportation, warehousing, and distribution continue to evolve, and not without strain. Mat brings decades of experience in supply chain optimizatio...

In this episode of “Supply Chain — Unfiltered”, we explore the evolving landscape of data democratization in supply chain management. Our guest Dr. Charlotte Anabelle de Brabandt, digital futurist and author, introduces a framework designed to make data accessible to both analytics-driven professionals and those less data-inclined. Learn how organizations are shifting away from siloed data ownersh...