Category: Supply Chain Trends and Insights
Podcast: Key Supply Chain Skills – with Mary Long, CEO of Abgility
Mary has multiple end-to-end executive supply chain roles and shares with us some of the critical soft and hard skills professionals and students need to succeed in supply chain careers.
Christmas is Canceled?! Supply Chain Impacts
Just when you thought the supply chain couldn’t get any worse, CHRISTMAS IS CANCELED!
Global Sourcing is the New Procurement
Unless you’re a supply chain professional, the word “procurement” means nothing more than buying something. Could be buying a watch or a nice bottle of wine. “Where will we procure our dinner from this evening?” But, the supply chain discipline presents an entirely new meaning and understanding for procurement. And that meaning and use is shifting even faster now with the constant flurry of supply chain disruptions and the need for stronger strategic and global sourcing practices.
Supply Chain Disruptions Ripple from War in Ukraine
As the 2nd quarter of 2022 approaches, the world continues to confront massive supply chain disruptions. Oddly, 2022 showed some promise of calm and stability in world markets. The latest Covid surge was slowing, allowing for production and manufacturing to return to normal in southeast Asia. American ports were finding relief in their previously heavily congested cargo bays and berths. The American economy continued adding jobs and surging ahead with strong earnings and low unemployment. The rest of the world started to echo these moves. And then a disruption that has threatened to crater these gains: War. Russia invades [...]
Podcast: Understanding the Total Picture of Supply Chain – with Office Depot Supply Chain Executive, Tray Anderson
Tray Anderson shares his passion for understanding the total picture of a supply chain and how his wide variety of companies and assignments have enabled that perspective.
Omicron and the Supply Chain
An already stressed supply chain labor pool Impacted by Covid19 The combination of lockdowns, shift in ecommerce buying habits fueled by government cash injections, an already depleted labor force, and production evolutions with real time issues like a Suez Canal blockage created a perfect storm of supply chain issues. Now, the world faces further issues due to omicron and the supply chain. Let’s start with the labor force. A US Census article from November 2020 forecasts a manufacturing labor shortage due to the average age of manufacturers being 55 and above. In 2015, two thirds of the US workforce [...]
Supply Chain Talent Shortage: The Downside of an Up Economy
There are few basic economic tenants that rarely need explanation. One such phenomenon is the principle of supply and demand. In the world of supply chain, we are seeing this principle play out across every sector of the industry. From trucking to shipping to ports to production and warehouses and to the people who manage all of the touchpoints, supply and demand has rarely, if ever, been more of an issue. As consumers’ purchasing power increases, so does the need to increase capacity in direct proportion to this change in consumer behavior. As executive supply chain recruiters, we’re seeing [...]
Top Warehouse Skills Sought After in Warehouse Managers
Possessing warehouse skills can offer lucrative internal promotions for warehouse operatives, in particular for those with the drive to advance their supply chain careers into warehouse management. Starting salaries are typically in the $60,000-$80,000 range for warehouse managers, and can spike into the mid-to-high $100K range for those that manage large and more complex warehouse facilities. Most companies prefer their management team to consist of experienced warehouse managers, oftentimes recruited externally, and staff who have been promoted up from the ground floor within the operations. This allows for a healthy balance between having fresh ideas and allowing operatives’ voices [...]
Outstanding Operations Leadership Program: O2L
Operations Leadership Program (O2L) - Introduction Extensive research on the performance of Fortune 500 companies has shown that the key to driving sustainable long-term performance is to place an equal emphasis on the performance and “health” of an organization.1 The research notes that companies that balance the two outperform their peers by three-fold. In this context, “organizational health” refers to all the systems, processes, and cultural elements that are a part of executing the business priorities. An example from a recent engagement is expanding the S&OP process to manage inventory build-up to support new business development. This led to [...]
Understanding Supply Chain Functions
Keeping SCOR: A Good Way to Understand Supply Chain Functions Supply chains can be incredibly complex networks of companies worldwide that are transforming raw materials into products you buy and use. Materials may come from other countries, processed in still other countries, then travel by ship to ports in your own country, where they are put on a combination of trains/trucks/vans to get to your local store to be picked up. Many steps. A high amount of travel. Typically a lot of time and expense involved for a large number of supply chain employees. For some companies, however, their supply [...]
