Resilient Supply Chain— stories and strategies that keep business moving

Send me a message AI is impacting all aspects of the digitised supply chain. To hear the impact it is having on the logistics space I invited Transmetrics Chief Commercial Office Marc Meyer to come on the podcast to talk about what he has seen. We had a fascinating conversation touching on the inefficiencies that have traditionally plagued logistics, some of the ways AI can help, and where things...

Send me a message It has been a while since we had an episode of the podcast focussing on Product Lifecycle management (PLM), so I invited my colleague Ismail Serin , who heads the product management for PLM solutions at SAP to come on the show to talk a little about it. We had a fascinating conversation discussing what is happening in the PLM space these days, how cloud is helping that trend, and...

Send me a message Supply chains are being buffeted like never before. They are being required to become more resilient to survive. But will they, and why didn't they before now? To answer these questions, and more, I invited Dr . Sanjay Kumar , supply chain expert, and professor at Valparaiso University, as well as a visiting Professor at  Zhejiang University of Technology in Hangzhou, China....

Send me a message We haven't talked supply chain planning in a while, so I reached out to my colleague David Vallejo to come on the podcast to have a chat about the importance of planning and how advances mean artificial intelligence can play a part. Dave is the Global Head of Digital Business Planning at SAP We had a fascinating conversation discussing digital planning's role in supply...

Send me a message There's a lot of talk these days about blockchain in supply chain. How much is hype? How much is real? Why not use a simple database instead of a blockchain? And isn't blockchain environmentally destructive? To answer some of these and more questions, I invited Kieren James-Lubin , CEO of BlockApps to come on the podcast  We had a fascinating conversation discussing blo...

Send me a message Continuous improvement is a topic we've not addressed many times in this podcast. To rectify that I invited Prabhjot Singh , ( @psinghSF on Twitter) CEO of Pyze to come on the podcast to talk about how Continuous improvement is helping their clients.   We had a fascinating conversation discussing some of the challenges that are unique to the industry, some of the innovative...

Send me a message The direct-to-consumer wine supply chain is one that has had an interesting ride, especially in the last two years. To learn more about some of the challenges companies in this space face, and the innovative ways they overcome them, I invited Andrew Walleck of COO of Wine Access to come on the podcast. We had a fascinating conversation discussing some of the challenges that are u...

Send me a message Infosys held a customer roundtable earlier this year where they invited customers, partners, and industry analysts to talk about the issues facing supply chains today. It was a really interesting event with some fascinating learnings, so I invited Infosys executives Ramesh J Chougule, and Srinivas Krishnamoorthy to come on the podcast to share what they heard. We had a fascinatin...

Send me a message Former Caterpillar exec, navy vet, and current Partner and CTO at C5MI Marty Groover has just written a book called Speed of Advance . The book takes Marty's learnings from his time in the Navy (Speed of advance is a naval term), and from his time in Caterpillar, to help organisations learn how best to deploy Industry 4.0 technologies for end-to-end visibility throughout you...

Send me a message Continuous improvement is vital for any company that doesn't want to keep still (and keeping still is not a recipe for business success!). One company that preaches this is Lytica, so I invited their co-founder and CTO, Ken Bradley to come on the podcast to tell me more. We had a fascinating conversation discussing how Lytica works with its clients, how the events of the las...

Send me a message Organisations are required to comply with a dizzying, and an increasing number of regulations. Compliance with these regulations is important not just from a safety perspective, but also from a reputational, and sustainability point of view. To talk about how software can help companies address their regulatory compliance requirements, I invited Dr. Rüdiger Kreuzholz to come on t...

Send me a message Part of my role in SAP is as a Futurist, so I'm always fascinated when I come across other Futurists. Dr. Elouise Epstein works as a Partner and Futurist for global management consulting firm Kearney and has written a couple of books on supply chain, including one released last year (2021) called Trade wars, pandemics, and chaos: How digital procurement enables business succ...

Send me a message Covid has had all kinds of impacts on supply chains. Many new startups have arisen to try to meet some of the shortcomings highlighted by Covid. One of those is Factrees . Factrees tries to help level the playing field for small & medium manufacturers by providing a networking platform that finds, qualifies and connects them with manufacturer reps and distributors. To learn m...

Send me a message The apparel industry has seen seismic changes in the last couple of years, from swinging demand, to the shift to direct sales, to supply breakdowns. To talk about some of these changes, I invited Steve Riordan , Global Directo of Supply Chain at Kalypso to come on the podcast to discuss them. We had a great conversation discussing the challenges facing the apparel industry, how s...

Send me a message As supply chains are digitising, Artificial Intelligence is having an increasingly positive impact on them. To talk a little about this I invited James Coombes , co-founder, and CEO of Vector.ai to come on the podcast to talk about it. We had a great conversation discussing the current possibilities of AI for supply chains, the impact on jobs, and where to from here. If you have...

Send me a message In the last two episodes of this podcast, we spoke more broadly about the causes of the current chip shortages. In today's episode, we are diving more deeply into it, focussing on one of the industries most deeply affected - the Automotive Industry. I invited Randy Kobat ( @RandyKobat on Twitter) to come on the podcast to discuss this. Randy is a Senior Vice President at  Co...

Send me a message The semiconductor shortages are still causing havoc with global supply chains so I'm running another episode dedicated to the topic. In today's episode, I talk to Richard Barnett , CMO at SupplyFrame about the shortage. We had a great conversation discussing SupplyFrame's recent acquisition by Siemens, some causes and consequences of the chip shortage, and how orga...

Send me a message The global semiconductor shortage has been playing havoc with supply chains for a good 12-18 months at this stage. And it doesn't look set to be fixed any time soon. And just recently my colleague Jeff Howell published a fascinating, comprehensive Point of View paper all about the semiconductor shortage. To find out more, I invited him to come on the podcast to talk about it...

Send me a message Three topics that are receiving increasing interest in supply chain these days are Intelligent Assets, Circular Economy, and Sustainability, so when I came across Sundararaman Sankaranarayanan , Head of Digital Innovation, and a 25 year veteran of Wipro, I invited him to come on the podcast with my colleague Pavneet Bedi to talk about these topics. We had a fantastic conversation...

Send me a message Welcome back and happy new year. For this first episode of 2022, I thought of having a future-focussed episode, one talking about mobile devices in supply chain. To that end, I invited SAP Product Manager  Jan Mölls to come on the podcast to talk about how new smartphone apps and capabilities are transforming supply chain. We had a fantastic conversation covering why smartphones...

Send me a message The apparel industry has been very slow to digitise, so when I had a chance to chat with someone who has rolled out a successful Industry 4.0 initiative in this sector, I jumped at the opportunity. Joachim Hensch rolled out a smart factory project for Hugo Boss while working for them, and has since left to set up his own consulting company ( Joachim Hensch Consulting ) to help ot...

Send me a message The cosmetics industry is an interesting space and never more so than in the last two years. Demand has shifted wildly, as have purchasing habits with more than ever being bought online. Against this backdrop, I invited PCA Group 's SVP Strategy, Corporate Development, and New Business Development, Ransley Carpio to come on the podcast to talk about some of the things that h...

Send me a message The topic of sustainability is becoming increasingly important for organisations, and since 80-90% of an organisation's emissions originate from its supply chain, this means as supply chain professionals, we have an obligation to act on it. A large proportion of emissions often come from logistics, so I invited Juliet Mwangi to come on the podcast to talk about this.  We had...

Send me a message In this episode of the Digital Supply Chain podcast I spoke to Steve Shebuski . Steve is VP Digital Strategy for Blue Horseshoe . We had an excellent conversation around the latest trends in supply chain covering the rise of control towers, warehouse automation, and supply chain flexibly and resilience. Oh, and this is one of the first podcast episodes that I have created chapter...

Send me a message Specification management is a relatively new field in digital supply chains, but one that has a lot of potential. To learn more about it, the reasons why it is important, and how it can help companies become more efficient and sustainableI invited Matt Wright , Founder and CEO of Specright - a software platform for specification management to come on the podcast to talk all about...