Auto Supply Chain Champions

The auto industry didn’t lose USMCA on July 1st. It lost the assumption that the rules would sit still. The agreement isn’t dead. Nobody packed their boxes. But the US declined to renew the deal as written, and it opened what could be a 10-year renegotiation of the trade framework that governs somewhere between 1.6 and 2 trillion dollars a year, with autos at roughly 18% of that. The proposal on t...

The automotive industry spends a lot of time talking about supply chains, but not nearly enough time talking about the people who make them work. In this episode of the Auto Supply Chain Champions Podcast, Jan Griffiths and Tom Roberts are joined by Leah Wolf, retired General Motors supply chain executive and professor at Central Michigan University, for a conversation about one of the industry's...

Data is everywhere in manufacturing. Competitive advantage comes from turning it into action, where the work happens. In this episode of the Auto Supply Chain Champions Podcast, Jan Griffiths and Tom Roberts sit down with Tom Luttrell, CIO of CSP, to discuss what it takes to modernize technology inside an automotive manufacturing company and why the future belongs to companies that move beyond sys...

Most of us are playing with AI; a few are putting it to work. The gap between the two is the difference between curiosity and a competitive edge. Jan Griffiths and Tom Roberts sit down with Cheryl Thompson, founder of the Cheryl Thompson AI Adoption Advisory Practice and one of the most practical voices in AI adoption today. With over 1,400 hours of hands-on learning, Cheryl has gone deep on what...

The real cyber threat isn't someone stealing your data. It's someone quietly changing a one to a zero on your shop floor, and you not noticing until something breaks. Cybersecurity used to be the topic everyone talked about. Then it went quiet. Now, with AI accelerating attack capability and quantum computing on the horizon, it's more urgent than ever, and most automotive manufacturers are not rea...

The rear view mirror exists for a reason. Q1 is done. Jan Griffiths and co-host Tom Roberts look back at what Q1 revealed and look ahead at what Q2 demands. Tariff volatility. AI embedded in every executive's day. The domain knowledge gap that's quietly killing AI ROI. And a Q2 lineup built to help automotive leaders stop reacting and start acting. Over a year of tariff chaos has tested every supp...

What does it really take to walk into a new purchasing leadership role and make it work? Not the strategy deck. Not the org chart. The real work: the people, the data, the relationships, and the hard lessons learned along the way. In this episode, Jan Griffiths and co-host Tom Roberts sit down with Marty Rathsburg, newly appointed Head of Purchasing at the Gemini Group, a tier one and tier two aut...

Your physical supply chain is optimized. Your data supply chain is broken. That's the hard truth at the center of this conversation and it's one most automotive leaders haven't fully faced yet. In this episode, Jan Griffiths and Tom Roberts sit down with Kevin Piotrowski, Chief Transformation Officer at AIAG, to break down Catena-X: what it is, why it matters, and why the automotive industry can n...

Contact Ian at ian.berman@qad.com and Joshua at joshua.guy@qad.com for further conversation Global trade does not have a compliance problem. It has an execution gap. The classifications exist. The brokers are in place. The duties are being paid. Yet too often, trade is treated as documentation instead of strategy. In this episode, Jan Griffiths and Tom Roberts sit down with Ian Berman, Global Trad...

Manufacturers do not have a data problem. They have an execution gap. The dashboards exist. The reports are generated. The KPIs are reviewed. Yet too often, action stalls between insight and impact. In this episode, Jan Griffiths and Tom Roberts sit down with Zack Sosebee, SVP of Operations & Customer Success at Redzone, to explore what changes when data moves beyond visibility and into the ha...

Automotive supply chains are no longer being reshaped by crisis. They are being reshaped by clarity, and clarity is forcing hard choices. In this episode of the Auto Supply Chain Champions Podcast , Jan Griffiths and co-host Tom Roberts are joined by Paul Eichenberg, Chief Strategist and author of The Road Ahead: Five Key Predictions for the Global Automotive Industry in 2026 , for a blunt, realit...

Automotive manufacturing leaders have no shortage of data, but only those who turn it into action are winning, and AI is the accelerator. In this milestone episode, Jan Griffiths is joined by Sanjay Brahmawar, CEO of QAD, and Dr. Bryan Reimer, MIT Research Scientist and author of How to Make AI Useful, for a grounded conversation about how AI is creating real advantage in automotive manufacturing....

At the heart of The Prophets’ vision are “The 24 Essential Supply Chain Processes.” What are they? Find out, and see the future yourself. Click here As 2025 wraps up, the Auto Supply Chain Prophets podcast looks back on its journey and shares thoughts about what’s next. Hosts Jan Griffiths, Jim Liegghio, and Terry Onica take a moment to celebrate the podcast’s impact, highlighting 15,000 downloads...

At the heart of The Prophets’ vision are “The 24 Essential Supply Chain Processes.” What are they? Find out, and see the future yourself. Click here This episode takes a break from our usual detailed discussions to reflect on the conversations that shaped the year for the Auto Supply Chain Prophets podcast.  Jan Griffiths, joined by co-hosts Jim Liegghio and Terry Onica, looks at why specific...

At the heart of The Prophets’ vision are “The 24 Essential Supply Chain Processes.” What are they? Find out, and see the future yourself. Click here Brand loyalty at Nissan isn’t earned during a sale. It’s earned later, when a driver needs a repair, and the part they need is already there. That moment shapes Darrin Lucas’s work. He leads after-sales supply chain operations across the Americas, mak...

At the heart of The Prophets’ vision are “The 24 Essential Supply Chain Processes.” What are they? Find out, and see the future yourself. Click here Quoting might sound like routine paperwork, but in today’s automotive supply chain, it’s becoming one of the biggest pressure points. Behind every new program sits an RFQ process that’s overworked, outdated, and dangerously dependent on a few people w...

At the heart of The Prophets’ vision are “The 24 Essential Supply Chain Processes.” What are they? Find out, and see the future yourself. Click here Every strong supply chain starts with strong talent, and at Wayne State University, that’s exactly what’s being built. This episode takes listeners inside the General Motors and Wayne State Supply Chain Case Competition, where students from across the...

At the heart of The Prophets’ vision are “The 24 Essential Supply Chain Processes.” What are they? Find out, and see the future yourself. Click here Logistics doesn’t always get the attention it deserves in the automotive world. Yet a wealth of knowledge is sitting inside 3PLs; companies that don’t just move parts but keep the entire system running. That’s why she brings in Jeff Kosloski, Vice Pre...

At the heart of The Prophets’ vision are “The 24 Essential Supply Chain Processes.” What are they? Find out, and see the future yourself. Click here This episode, recorded live at the QAD Midwest Users Conference, brings together voices shaping the future of automotive supply chains. Hosts Jan Griffiths, Terry Onica, and Jim Liegghio sat down with leaders across the supply chain to explore the fut...

At the heart of The Prophets’ vision are “The 24 Essential Supply Chain Processes.” What are they? Find out, and see the future yourself. Click here The automotive industry is famous for its tough negotiations—OEMs squeezing suppliers, suppliers passing the pressure down the line. For decades, that approach was seen as a strength. But what if it’s actually holding the industry back? In this episod...

At the heart of The Prophets’ vision are “The 24 Essential Supply Chain Processes.” What are they? Find out, and see the future yourself. Click here The pace of change in automotive supply chains isn’t slowing down, and waiting for OEM direction is no longer an option.  Regulations, tariffs, sustainability requirements, and labor laws are reshaping the way suppliers operate, and the companies...

At the heart of The Prophets’ vision are “The 24 Essential Supply Chain Processes.” What are they? Find out, and see the future yourself. Click here When OEMs change their schedules or requirements, the ripple effect through the supply chain can feel like a game of telephone. Messages get passed down the chain, sometimes altered and ignored, leaving those further down the line piecing together wha...

At the heart of The Prophets’ vision are “The 24 Essential Supply Chain Processes.” What are they? Find out, and see the future yourself. Click here When constant disruption becomes part of the job, how do you build a supply chain that can withstand the pressure? In this episode, Kyle Price, Vice President of Procurement at Caterpillar, joins Jan, Terry, and James to talk about building a resilien...

At the heart of The Prophets’ vision are “The 24 Essential Supply Chain Processes.” What are they? Find out, and see the future yourself. Click here Sometimes the best insights come from looking back. In this special episode of Auto Supply Chain Prophets, hosts Jan Griffiths, Terry Onica, and James Liegghio break from their usual guest format to reflect on the year's most impactful episodes. Each...

At the heart of The Prophets’ vision are “The 24 Essential Supply Chain Processes.” What are they? Find out, and see the future yourself. Click here “Just tell us why you’re making changes.” That simple request from a Tier 2 supplier at an AIAG conference says everything about where the automotive supply chain still struggles. The supply base still faces a lack of basic communication. Data is also...