Supply Chain is More Than Just a Business – It’s a Community

[00:00:00] Mike Ogle: Welcome to the Supply Chain Careers Podcast. The only podcast for job seekers, professionals, and students who are focused on career enhancing conversations and insights across all aspects of the supply chain discipline. This podcast is made possible by SCM Talent Group, the industry leading supply chain executive search firm.

Visit SCM Talent Group at scmtalent. com. In this episode of the Supply Chain Careers podcast, we speak with Bob Ferrari, the Managing Director of the Ferrari Consulting and Research Group, who also has experience at Opium, IDC, SAP, and AMR. First, Bob provides his supply chain career path and how his varied supply chain opportunities in manufacturing, production, information systems, and supply chain industry analysis helped him get to the point of founding the Ferrari Group.

[00:01:00] Listen as Bob provides his thoughts on the work and impact of an industry analyst, particularly how people process what’s new. He also provides his thoughts on industry trends. What is impacting the international flow of goods and the impact of AI supply chain agents? Bob closes with his thoughts about the changes we face in jobs and tasks that are part of the future of supply chains Including the way we interface with the physical and non physical aspects of AI I’m your podcast co host

[00:01:29] Rodney Apple: Mike Oval and I’m your podcast co host Rodney Apple, Bob, it’s a pleasure to have you on the Supply Chain Careers podcast today.

Welcome to the show.

[00:01:42] Bob Ferrari: Thank you, Rodney. It’s a pleasure to be invited here and I’m looking forward to our conversation.

[00:01:47] Rodney Apple: Likewise. So we’ll get started. And in typical fashion, we love to hear our guest career journey. A lot of people, and you know, don’t seek out a career path in supply chain. We find that pretty traditional compared to the folks coming up in the newer generation.

So, so we’d love to hear, you know, your background, what kind of sparked that interest in getting into supply chain and how did your career evolve over time?

[00:02:12] Bob Ferrari: I can share somewhat of a unique perspective on my career journey. It first started when I was in high school and I needed a summer job. And my father was the production supervisor at a textile machinery firm.

And he thought, what a great introduction I could give my son into what we do and how we do it. So they gave me a job as a Shipping and receiving clerk, which was non threatening, I thought. And what they produced was these massive machines, literally, that when they were completed, they would go into mills, apparel mills and things like that.

And they would take up an entire trailer when they were completed. So there was one [00:03:00] particular day that I always remember. It reigned in my memory. Trailer showed up. We were going to ship this massive machine. And my father said to me, you’re going to help us. You’re going to help the guys do this. I said, great.

I’d love it. What do you need me to do? So you get on the back of the trailer, in the trailer, and you guide it because there was two fork trucks that were lifting this beast up to the trailer and then pushing it in. So you lead it in. As we do this, tell us if we’re not going to hit anything. And it’ll be great.

I said, Hey, let’s do it. So what’d he be? That truck, that machine came in and they slid it all the way up to the middle of the trailer. Beautiful. All set to go. They were on the other side. Say, great, we’re done here. Okay. Let’s wrap up. And I looked around and I said, Hey, wait a minute, guys. How do I get out of here?

Oh, really? Are you [00:04:00] there? Yeah, I’m there. I need to get out of here. And they said, gee, I don’t know. We didn’t think of that. Can you climb up over the machine and make your way back here? And I thought, and I was like, do I panic or do I do some creative thinking here? So I noticed there were straps around that part of the machine and I figured out, all right, why don’t I use the straps to get on top of the machine?

Luckily it had a wooden top to it. It was all created. So I got my way up to the top and crawled all the way back to the end of the trailer. And when I got to the other end, there they were. All smiling because they, it was a prank and they taught me a lesson and that particular day. And they said, Bob, always remember situational awareness.

When you go out in front of the pallet, [00:05:00] you got to know how to get out. When it’s all said and done. So that was my first introduction to logistics and planning and what that meant. And that’s still ingrained in me, believe it or not, for our listeners. Cause I always remember it with a chuckle. So from there I went to college to get a bachelor’s degree in business.

I went to a university that had a co op program where you could alternate semesters back and forth, one semester academic. One semester working at a local business and I loved it and it was ideal for me and I purposely chose I wanted positions at a manufacturing company and I managed to get that for a couple of semesters one was basically expediting materials for the production floor materials that were overdue So literally just they would tell me what to expedite and I’d call suppliers and try to figure out when it [00:06:00] was coming and whatever needed to be done and try to do all that coordination.

Another job I had was later in the, when my, I think it was my junior year in college. And that was on a manufacturing line and doing time studies at an assembly line, the most unpopular task that anyone wanted to undertake. So why not let the co op student do it? Right. That makes sense. That taught me communication skills.

Because there was a, this cadre of supply chain, assembly line workers saying, What are you doing? I said, I’m just ascertaining how long it takes to do each of these tasks. Why are you doing this? Who told you to do it? Where is the, where is this going? Are they going to lay us off? I said, Whoa, timeout, timeout, we’re just trying to improve the process, whatever.

So I got [00:07:00] some keen skills out of that experience. Another journey in my, in my career, while I was at college, I joined the ROTC program. So right after I graduated with my bachelor’s degree, I went into active military service and my branch was air defense artillery missiles, like the Hawk missile back then and things like that.

So I got a lot of training. in radar systems and electronics and naturally in maintenance, because if you didn’t maintain this equipment, you are out of luck. So I had all of that background and experience and I was all set to go and likely, hopefully a career in that area. And then there was a war environment and I got deployment to a war zone.

And I went to the war zone and they looked at my background and they say, you’re artillery, aren’t you? Yeah, I’m artillery. Okay. You’re going to go to the battalion, [00:08:00] the artillery battalion. And I was appointed a maintenance officer for this artillery, uh, temporary battalion, which had all sorts of equipment, motor vehicles, artillery pieces, you name it.

And they were all deployed on mountaintops. And, and war theater, I learned a lot of logistics back then. I look, I learned what the mission was about keeping equipment always operational. And if any of our listeners ever tuned in to the TV series MASH, if you remember it, with all the characters, and you remember the bartering that went on, the swapping that would go on typically, there was a lot of that going on.

And as a junior lieutenant. My non commissioned officers were very creative in their bartering, uh, abilities to get the equipment that we needed when we needed it. And then I, as a lieutenant, Had to [00:09:00] cover their butts, so to speak, with the paperwork, with the administrative things, and things like that, and explain to senior officers, why did that new piece of equipment just show up?

I said, we were just very creative. It just happened to be there, and I got the paperwork in place, and I got it airlifted in here, and so forth. So, again, more skills, more appreciation of logistics, of materials management. Inventory, just in time inventory, you name it, it was all there. Then, after I completed military service, then I did my usual job positions.

When I purposely chose to get into all the, I wanted to get into all the various areas of supply chain. So I had roles in production, I had roles in warehouse management, warehouse operations. I did roles in production scheduling, because I had that background. [00:10:00] I had roles in high tech industry. and notions of what needed to be done in supply chain.

And all of that just added to my skill sets, literally. And then I made a career pivot. I wanted to get into information systems and I had the opportunity to do so because I, a manager that was a very senior manager at a U S manufacturing operation said, how would you like to come in and add your planning skills?

To what we’re doing in information technology. At the same time, we’re going to introduce you to systems implementation. Great, let’s do it. So that launched another career path for me in implementing systems, software systems. Software systems related to sales and operations planning. Uh, related to ERP implementation, [00:11:00] wide scope ERP implementations, multi site ERP implementations, database management, change management.

All of those skills came into the tool suite and then the portfolio, especially the change management skills, because they were the most important of all, because you’re changing work. So that honed everything to the point where. Industry analyst firm called AMR Research, which was a specialty boutique analyst firm focusing on manufacturing industries back then.

They came knocking and said, Hey, Bob. We’d like your background. And by the way, that was precipitated by a networking contact that I had who was already an analyst at AMR. And he said, Bob, you’ve got a great background. Come be an industry analyst. And I said, I don’t even know what industry analysts do, candidly.

Help me, you know, [00:12:00] explain to me what you do. So they did. And I said, gee, that sounds interesting. I think I can do that. And it was the best decision I ever made in my career because it, they realized that even though I didn’t at the time, I had all the preliminary skill sets, and then I made a pivot again.

And one of the few pivots that industry analysts did back then. I went back into the technology role. I was recruited by SAP. Then I reentered the industry analyst world with IDC. A top tier industry analyst firm. They were just starting out a vertical industry practice called manufacturing insights and networking is always a powerful tool for us in supply chain management.

And one of the AMR managers that I work with at AMR was starting up this practice. And he reached out to me and recruited me and said, Bob, I [00:13:00] want you to come in and lead our entire supply chain research agenda. That’s beyond planning. That was planning, execution, collaboration, B2B business, great opportunity.

And I jumped on it. And that afforded me the opportunity because IDC. is a global wide industry analyst organization. They have analysts all over the world. So as I laid out the research agenda for supply chain, I had the ability to collaborate with analysts in China, with the rest of Asia. With analysts in Europe, Latin America, to get all of these perspectives of supply chain pointed out and put it into our advisory services.

We had, we launched a specific service back then on outsourcing to China. And what to look for, the pros, the [00:14:00] cons, the, the strengths, the liabilities and so forth. So that was another chapter in my career, so to speak. And then at that point, I reached another, we all reach a crossroads in our, in our career, and I reached that crossroads.

I said, what do I wanna do next? I’ve done so many things. What should I be doing? And I looked at what was going on. I learned to look forward. That’s what my value add for many businesses, for many technology providers, look backward, but look forward. What’s going to happen? So I was looking forward and I said, the internet is here, social media is here, and the world that I came from, the industry analyst world, is going to be impacted by this wave.

There was no question in my mind. And I said, if that’s going to happen, I want to be on the leading edge of that. So that’s when I decided to put [00:15:00] out my own shingle. I knew I had a personal brand. People knew of me, they knew of my capability. And I said, that’s one challenge that may be in my favor. The second is, you know, let’s do a business model that basically leverages.

The internet leverages social media. So I decided to form what is still today, the supply chain matters blog. And we still have it today. Believe it or not, supply chain matters is global wide. Our readership extends through all regions, particularly regions that back then you would call low cost today that mainstream, so we have lots of readers.

Across Asia, across the Middle East region, whatever. So that’s been my career journey. It’s a lot of pivoting that I was fortunate to be able to do a lot of curiosity on my part on what’s going on. And [00:16:00] maybe some of our listeners can value from that.

[00:16:06] Mike Ogle: During this short break, we recognize that this podcast is made possible by SCM talent group, the industry leading supply chain, executive search firm, visit SCM talent group.

And Bob, as a, as a follow up to that, when you mentioned AMR and IDC, and now with your own shingle, being able to understand how much things have changed in the way that you go about being an analyst, the way that the tools, the impact. That it’s had and, and maybe a little bit about where you think that might be going.

[00:16:45] Bob Ferrari: Yeah, I think that’s a very important perspective, Mike, a very insightful one as well, industry analysts were, we play the role of, I always call it the tie breaker. You would [00:17:00] always walk into a situation where there were all these functional teams or line of business teams. They all had different viewpoints about their supply chain strategies.

Why they were frustrated by certain things. Where could technology help? What are the different approaches? And like all discussions, people get bogged down with positional statements. And whatever. And that was need a tiebreaker. And many times in my history analyst world and experiences, I was called in to be that tiebreaker.

So it was basically, okay, listen to everybody, listen to what they’re saying. What are the key points? What are the key obstacles they’re talking about? Help them to understand what that is. And to begin to realize what the real problem is, because as we often find, what you think is the real problem [00:18:00] and what is the, probably some of the root causes of that can be different things, literally.

They can be on the process side, they can be on the people side, or they can be on the technology side, or they can be all three. So, that was the role of analysts then. Now it’s You go to social media now and there are all forms of supply chain on the media right now. So it’s different. It’s far different.

And I’d like to believe that those of us who have some grounding are the ones that are going to be followed, but we’ll see.

[00:18:36] Mike Ogle: It’s got to feel a little bit like you’d walk into somebody’s office in the past in a way. I might have been on the phone, you might have been at a conference or whatever it might be, but it tended to be a little bit more one on one.

Yeah. If there was a way to compare it, maybe it’s like stepping into a huge gymnasium now where everybody’s talking all at once and you’re trying to sift through what’s real and what’s not.

[00:18:57] Bob Ferrari: Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And [00:19:00] it’s a very difficult challenge, Mike. And I’ve always found it’s better to be in person.

It’s better to be there to watch the nonverbals to understand the dialogue and to spend time with these people literally just spend time because and we’ll get into this later in our conversations and Rodney you, uh, emphasize this on our podcast supply chain is a relationship business is both business and personal relationships based.

And when you look at that, it becomes a small community, literally, because we begin to know each other, know of each other, understand what others are doing in the community, and we share a lot. And that’s what gets things done in the end of the day.

[00:19:56] Rodney Apple: That’s a good summary there and a good segue too. And I like how you [00:20:00] think people process technology and from our angle here with the supply chain careers podcast We’re clearly on the people side doesn’t mean we avoid the technology and process side of the house But I think it leads into, into our inner question.

We’re based on your latest research, your conversations across these different industries with different people across different functions and different companies and all that stuff. You do have a unique perspective. And I think likewise, as we’re recruiting across different industries and functions, we have our own unique perspective, but would love to hear, cause this is the big question that we’re getting today in light of a new administration, there’s a lot of.

Change going on, uh, from a policy perspective, we’re facing geopolitical challenges that are zigging and zagging and, and everybody is, you know, is wondering what’s going to happen as we go forward. And nobody has a crystal ball either, but we’d love to hear just when it comes to workforce trends, what are the big things we’re hearing that supply chain professionals that our audiences should be aware [00:21:00] of as 2025.

[00:21:03] Bob Ferrari: Great question. Great question. There’s a couple of perspectives that I can share. First of all, as you pointed out, Rodney, nothing’s cast in stone, right? It’s a notion of a lot of news, breaking news and so forth. And you’ve got to cut through all of that, basically, okay, in order to ascertain what does this really mean for our supply chain, for our business, whatever.

And when you do that, you begin to see, okay, the notion here is lots of uncertainty. The sense that it could go in other directions. You hear the numbers, 25 percent tariffs. Something even more than that. Retaliatory tariffs. What does that mean? All these notions here, and those are not necessarily what, in, in computer science, we would call deterministic factors [00:22:00] that basically say, if you do A, B will occur.

And if you do B, C will occur. Under these notions, A could occur, B could occur. Or CDNF could occur. So that is quite different. And when I talk to audiences, and by the way, I’m going to have some market research commentary on supply chain matters coming out the next few weeks about this, we come from, we talk about supply chain planning and what capabilities were manifested in the technologies over the years.

It was very much deterministic, the sense that, okay, exactly. You look at demand. And you ascertain what levels of demand you need to support. You look at supply and where supply came from and what the balances and shortages would be. And you begin to optimize that with technologies. And today you can add artificial intelligence and machine learning [00:23:00] capabilities to do that for you.

And to enhance that. But with this process, you’re now looking at the need to do scenario based. Decision making, which basically says we don’t know the complete answer here. All right. It’s a whole set of variables and that lends itself to what, again, in computer terminology or methodologies is probabilistic type modeling, okay?

Which basically says it could be a number of outcomes, but you need to have all the variables and you need to. And then you have to tune those variables to what you’re trying to achieve. So let’s take an example for our listeners. So you’re looking at certain amount of tariffs and how they’re going to impact your particular supply networks or your particular customer service [00:24:00] levels.

So you want to ascertain what’s going to be the impact to customer service levels. Let’s say you have a 90%, 95 percent level right now, and you want to maintain that. The other thing is. You have cost targets. You have margin targets. And they lead to profitability and profitability goals that the C suite executives are really honed in on and tuned into.

So that’s another objective. So you want the ability to model what a 25 percent tariff will be in order to maintain that level of customer service and this level of product margin. So that’s a bunch of scenarios that will come out. Some will be worst case. Some will be best case. And then you look at those and you’re going to probably have an iteration cycle that goes on like with sales and operations planning [00:25:00] teams or integrated business management teams, however you call it in these particular organizations to look at those values and say, wait a minute.

Okay, that’s not going to fly. This isn’t going to fly. But what if we do something else? One of the things, let’s tune the model again, and then go to another iteration. Now let’s tune it again for this model, and let’s do it again. And eventually, you’re gonna get to a point where it says, Okay, it’s the sum of all the evils, or it’s a, we check this to get this.

We do this and we set expectations for our customers and for our management teams about this is probably the best case we’re going to get under this current scenario. And we go with it. And then that’s going to be a constant iteration through this whole period, quite frankly. So that’s one example I can share with our listeners.

Now, from a skills perspective. For the people listening [00:26:00] in, think about that. Think about the interaction with the technologies to be able to do that. If it took you hours and days to gather up all that information. And then to try to do that in a spreadsheet, you can’t do it. You just can’t do it, because by the time you get it done, the assumptions are going to change.

So now you get to the point where you know that technology has got to be a part of this. And you need to get your skills. In line being able to do that sometime in the future. So begin to experiment with these technologies as they come along. And the notion is, and maybe we’ll get to it in a later question, depending on time, I’ll talk about the different AI technologies that are out there today and how you can take advantage of them.

[00:26:54] Rodney Apple: That’s our, I think that’s our next question. That’s a good perspective too. Okay.

[00:26:58] Bob Ferrari: Let’s begin by [00:27:00] differentiating about AI technologies because there’s a lot of hype going on about AI driven supply chains or AI driven businesses or data driven businesses. Okay. And there’s a need to differentiate those.

When we look at AI, there is the notion of, as I just mentioned, Artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies. They have been around for about 10 years and they have been deployed quite effectively in supply chain business processes. We have AI and machine learning and supply chain planning technologies today.

We have it in warehouse management today, in decision making, we have it in logistics, and all of these new startups that look at global wide logistics movements, so to speak. The Project 44s, [00:28:00] the, uh, the Flexports and all of that. There are those technologies. That is AI and machine learning. Basically what that does is, It looks at patterns of data of decisions and so forth, and it learns the patterns and then it starts to automate those for you take that grudgery out of that in terms of putting the information collection that you need to do and make those decisions.

We have control layer. A supervisory level technology approaches now that actually extract the data from your, uh, logistics management, transportation management, and your warehouse management systems and bring them up to a different layer where you can determine the decisions you need to do. What information is coming?

What material flows are coming into this warehouse today? Where are we going to put them away? What commitments do we have to service customers? [00:29:00] What bottlenecks can we anticipate? What last minute changes are going to change our work shift and our labor requirement needs? All of that’s already available, right?

So that’s narrow AI. Then, there’s this notion of advanced AI. ChatGTP, which is bot based technology. We ask questions of the model based on whatever the learning model is. And right now, we don’t have a lot of supply chain specific learning models for very legitimate reasons, but think of it with all information.

Today, we do Google Inquiry. I do, basically, Google Inquiries about topics that I need to write about. Google now automatically converts me to an AI agent through the form of ChatGTP and gives me a summation. of all of this stuff [00:30:00] that took me days before to get to Garner, right? Okay. I interact with marketing teams, secret unveiled, who basically use chat GPT to write marketing content, to write blogs for them.

I don’t like it. I don’t think it’s the way to go, but they do it. And okay, fine. It’s productive. It adds productivity. It adds more to their, the efficiency of what they do. So, that’s the advanced AI part of this. Now, that technology in the Gartner cycle, there’s the hype cycle that Gartner talks about, that just blows through the hype cycle, okay?

Now, we’re getting grounded in that. If you keep up to date with what’s going on and uh, technology industry about this. [00:31:00] Now the discovery is we can break up these large language models into smaller segments called AI agents. Some call it agentic AI, but basically take the humongous model and the expense involved in it and the learning.

and break it into different dimensions. That opens up the opportunity for supply chain agents. And indeed, there are companies today that I can name that are actually doing that work right now. They are working with very large multinational companies and they’re working on AI agents. It’s literally around planning for demand for, uh, planning supply.

So there are individual agents just in those areas. Okay. There are some in other areas of supply chain as [00:32:00] well. That’s going to take a couple of years to evolve. So you know, the message for our listeners is understand that that’s where we’re going today. You have the ability to interact with AI and machine learning, understand what it does, understand how to leverage it, understand how to query the information, and do not just limit your exposure to certain supply chain applications, wherever they are, get yourself exposed to other supply chain applications, consider changing some of your functional, like I did, Some of your functional career paths, but if you’re in planning, maybe you want to take a role in procurement and into that area and understand the broader picture around supply networks.

Uh, maybe you want to explore the logistics side of this in addition to your procurement experience. It’s all of that. I think.[00:33:00] [00:33:01] Mike Ogle: During this short break, we recognize that this podcast is made possible by SCM Talent Group, the industry leading supply chain executive search firm. Visit SCM Talent Group at scmtalent. com

[00:33:18] Rodney Apple: Bob, you’ve talked about how these tools that are coming that are here now, and then especially the ones that are being developed and we’re working with a supply chain AI startup now that’s, it’s in stealth mode, so can’t talk about it, but fascinating things that they’re bringing. They’re working on but I was curious and I think a lot of our audience is curious is like what the heck is this?

Going to do to our jobs What air what areas within the supply chain when you think about functional level roles? Are there any that might go away? Because people want to be thinking about that today so they can plan for tomorrow And as you talked about earlier with giving pivots So Pivot is going to be a big word that’s going to continue as we go forward.

And we have to [00:34:00] pivot around AI as it impacts jobs and the overall workforce. Any, anything you want to share there that jobs that could potentially vanish?

[00:34:08] Bob Ferrari: Yeah, absolutely. There’s no question that certain jobs will be assumed by these technologies, but those are jobs that we would consider to be tedious, time consuming, or things like that, gathering up all these information sources.

That’s a ripe area for AI based technology, to be able to do that. There are decisions that get made that are pretty straightforward, that basically say, if A happens, B will not happen, so you need to do these things. Okay, and I am machine learning model will understand that and then automate that for you.

Okay, that’s going to free up people to do some of the real work. All right, around analyzing doing the analysis around the [00:35:00] scenarios. That I mentioned, I think they’re going to be new roles. I think you’re going to see jobs like supply chain architect, supply chain strategist, supply chain data management would be a real role that I think will come here, bringing all these pieces together.

And I think there’ll be other kinds of roles as well. And again, as you pointed out, Rodney, I think the message here is think about this and prepare your skill sets. To be prepared for when these things happen, and also it puts you in the limelight, so to speak, as you pointed out on our webcast, Rodney, employers look at people who provide the innovation, who can provide the catalyst for change, who can hit the ground running.

When we have a particular challenge, you having a leg [00:36:00] up in the notion of being able to leverage these technologies when they become mainstream for you, understanding what the change management implications would be. As I came to understand, um, that gives you a leg up in that aspect to come in the door and be on the top of the, the final candidate list, hopefully to be able to do that.

[00:36:24] Rodney Apple: Yeah. Said Bob, I agree. And I think if, even if you look back across, we’ve all been in this space for 20. 30 years plus, and that’s one thing that I’ve, I’ve just, we notice over the years is some of the jobs that existed 20 years ago, they may still be there, but if anything, I’ve noticed as change is constant and technology rapidly evolves and the jobs have changed over the years as well.

And I think you’re right on the money. I do think we’re going to see new jobs pop up and some of the mundane tasks will go away. We know robotics or co bots are doing that today, replacing the mundane jobs that. Either have the highest [00:37:00] turnover or they’re causing the most injuries or people. Those are the ones that are being replaced by robotics.

The robotics are now the new evolutions. We’ve had a couple of folks on talking about their integrating AI and machine learning into the machines. And all of these things are rapidly changing and that keeps us on our toes. And if anything, for our listeners, when you think about your careers, adapt or die is really the message.

[00:37:22] Bob Ferrari: Yeah, and I, if we got some time, I might share just one other quick story, if one of your guests haven’t already shared it. I did some work for a robotics company in the sense of robotics deployment in logistics and warehousing environments and the human factors of that, so to speak, and what was remarkable for me to discover.

is that when these robots were introduced to line workers, warehouse line workers, naturally, there’s a defense mechanism to say, that machine is going to take my job. [00:38:00] But the way the technology provider positioned the technology, this is going to enhance your job because you are part of the process. You have not been taken out of the process, and they weren’t.

The robot was guiding the person to the pick slots, to the most opportune locations to get the materials and so forth. But another thing occurred during this process that these implementation teams observed. Workers were naming the robots. And they had a naming contest that was kicked off. Name your robot.

And some, as you can expect, some innovative names came out, like their NFL team, the Panthers or the Steelers. Or something like that. Or the famous gaming android, whatever. They would all [00:39:00] name their robots. And then they got into conversations about, my robot is better than your robot. And we’re going to be more productive on this shift than you’re going to be productive with your robot.

And it was healthy competition. And these implementation teams, and even the customers were starting to say, This is great. They’re seeing this, and then that opened the opportunity for them, the employers, to have the conversation about, what about your career path? Would you like to get involved in robotics?

And in this area, and that opened the doors for them to think about that and say, yeah, maybe I do. Okay, let’s work on a plan to get you more exposure to this area. So that’s just one nugget I can share. Yeah,

[00:39:50] Rodney Apple: yeah. Fascinating.

[00:39:52] Mike Ogle: You’ve seen those major shifts in reshoring and nearshoring and some of the aspects there.

So we dealt with the tariff side [00:40:00] of things. Yeah. But I think being able to, what your thoughts may be in the area of, as we’re pursuing Reshoring and nearshoring the kinds of workforce shifts and what we have, what we don’t have, what we lost over the years and are trying to recover. Are there some thoughts there that you’ve heard from some of the people that you’re working with?

[00:40:22] Bob Ferrari: All right, from a manufacturing perspective, if we’re going to assume that the goal of all these efforts is to introduce more manufacturing into the U. S. per se, so if we go with that perspective and goal set, as we’ve been talking about skills exiting the workforce after COVID and that sort of thing, manufacturing was also impacted.

Very much so. And I’m sure your guests have talked about this. Very experienced people decided to retire or basically got caught in some cutbacks that happened during the [00:41:00] COVID period. So there’s been this overarching need for more skilled people to come into manufacturing. Now, the good news about that is that the US legislation, the Chips and Science Act, And the U.

1. Infrastructure Act had provisions provide added manufacturing, training, manufacturing, worker training, and it was already that those programs going on regionally across the U. S. And hopefully this is going to add to that. Okay. And I don’t know if you caught the announcement this week from Apple. Apple announced that they’re going to invest 550 billion into the U.
2. And part of that was added training in advanced manufacturing practices. So that’s another component of that. So, I think we want to believe that we can make [00:42:00] a dent in the worker shortages at the manufacturing level. And again, that’s a different skill set. That’s people coming in that have lots of comfortable comfort with working with technology, understanding technology, understanding how to change parameters around production.

How to do all the things that are required to do that. So, that’s one impact that’s got to be addressed. The other impact is clearly, you just don’t move the end production into a domestic manufacturing. It comes with the supply network. And 10, 15, or 20 years of outsourcing has developed supply networks that are very much innovative.

Industry specific. If you look in commercial aviation, as an example, to take just one example, Airbus and Boeing, [00:43:00] their aircraft have global sources of components in terms of wing structures, in terms of fuselage, in terms of engine technologies, in terms of whatever, you don’t just take all of that And get it converted into the U.

1. It’s gonna be cost prohibitive. So we’ve got to find means to maintain some of the critical supply networks that we need. And that’s at all tiers. Tier 1 titanium, rare earths, semiconductor. All of those kinds of things, middle chair, component assemblies, as I mentioned, and all those kinds of things, all of that has to be worked out.

That’s not going to be overnight. That’s going to take multiple years, if ever, to be able to do. So that’s a consideration that our legislators need [00:44:00] to think about. Uh, very much, and I was pleased that the CEO of Ford elected to visit Washington and deliver some of those messages, uh, to legislators in, in D.

1. because it needed to be delivered. And I’m hopeful other CEOs will do the same thing.

[00:44:19] Rodney Apple: They will, because you can’t flip that light switch over with these tariffs and, Oh, I’m just going to go build a factory. These things, as you mentioned, take years. And so there’s going to be some in the back of the mind from these CEOs, they’re going to be thinking and head of supply chains is how long is.

This trend, these global policy changes, how long will they be in effect? And if someone else comes in, if we, if tariffs raise prices, we have a economic slowdown is the impact and they may gamble on, we’ll just wait and we’ll absorb these costs or pass them through or a hybrid of. Because the timing of this is enormous, and then you think about the investments, and you think about higher costs of labor, and you [00:45:00] think about labor shortages and manufacturing.

Yeah, we’ve got more advanced technologies and robotics to help assemble and build things, but at the end of the day, it still requires a lot of people, and a lot of people, as you mentioned, 50 years ago, we started outsourcing things to China and other low cost countries. And people got out of manufacturing as a parent.

I’m not telling my kids to get into manufacturing. Maybe that’ll change. We’ll see. But I know my parents and my dad got laid off at a automotive plant before his years before his retirement. And a lot of people had. That had these hopes and dreams. They went away when those jobs went away. So you compound all of these factors and there’s a scenario planning.

It goes back to what you said earlier, Bob, it’s what’s going to happen. How are we going to find these people? Does it make sense to spend billions of dollars? Cause that’s what it takes, especially for these larger companies. That’s what it takes to move things back and reshore. So it’s going to be really interesting to see what unfolds as.

Policy changes continue to [00:46:00] unfold.

[00:46:00] Bob Ferrari: Yeah. And I want to think that, you know, at the core level, we would understand as a country that there are critical manufacturing capabilities. That we always have to maintain, you know, what has changed in our career spans is that we never thought that supply chain would be a part of national policy and it’s now part of national policy, not only for the U.

S., but other countries as well. So that’s where we are. And part of that is predicated on what are the strategic industries that you need to maintain as a nation. To be able to sustain yourself and the economy, the global economy and whatever. So that’s a piece of this that, so that would say to me. That you always want to have core skills in manufacturing.

Okay, however, it’s manifested But you need those capabilities and you need the people to be able to do that same with yeah [00:47:00] We’re not going to wholesale transfer supply networks, but we need the people who understand where those networks Reside and how to tap them and then there’s one other quick thing That I just wanted to raise, Mike, with your notions here.

Everybody keeps asking me, especially Wall Street, what are the key technologies and supply chain that are going to benefit from this, these movements? Everybody wants to know about that, okay? I’m not part of the investment community. I don’t talk about that. I talk about what I think are going to be the most valuable for people and skill sets.

There are two. One is global trade management, and that’s the thankless task of tracking all of the global tariffs and classification codes that all materials have to move themselves globally and regionally. [00:48:00] And years ago, that used to be a massive labor intensive task for people to do. In other words, stay abreast of all these changing laws.

Think about it now, over the next couple of years, what a test it’s going to be. Today, there are technology providers that have automated all of that. It’s AI and machine learning based. It’s there. Okay. And as it changes. The regulation is changing, and then they automate the customs paperwork, and then they help you as a business with your duty drawbacks.

In other words, you paid the tariff, you did some things, you can get a credit for that and a duty drawback. A lot of that goes out the door because we never close the loop. Manufacturers tend to not do that. So that’s a technology that’s going to benefit from that, and from a skills [00:49:00] level, supply chain people who understand that’s where to go.

That’s where we need to tap into in terms of our business process and decision making needs, that’s going to be helpful. It’s going to take away that work. The other one is supply chain network design, what we used to call supply chain network design, which basically is a plot of your global supply chain, right?

And I got into this technology many years ago, uh, because my mentor at AMR Research, a guy by the name of Larry Lapidi, was the only analyst globally that knew this technology and knew the players. And Larry handed it off to me. And It is evolved throughout the years, and it’s just even more important today than it was back then.

So we can take that technology now [00:50:00] and apply it to all those scenario based models that I talked about before. So now you get a visual representation of what all that means. And if you plot your major customers on that plot, you begin to unfold the strategies. imply how customer service impacts will happen based on that.

So those are true technologies that supply chain practitioners would want to get their skill sets honed on. What did they do? How do you interrelate with them? How can we get involved in that sort of thing?

[00:50:45] Rodney Apple: Yeah, and it brings it back full circle when we talk about the people side of supply chain and obviously we’re mixing in quite a bit of technology today But if you’re listening and you see the things Apple’s bringing in and what was the number of jobs they were predicting Bob is like [00:51:00] 20, 000 Yeah, in the next 420,

[00:51:03] Bob Ferrari: I think 220.

[00:51:05] Rodney Apple: Yeah, that’s where are you going to find all these people when there’s, there are manufacturing labor shortages all over the place. A lot of this is driven by Amazon has opened up e commerce fulfillment centers all over the place and they need maintenance people. They need engineering production operations folks.

And, you know, that hints the investments in automation, material handling equipment, the robots, the co bots, all that stuff is all coming together. And so you think about your career and where everything’s going, you mix in the global policy changes that we’re rapidly seeing come into effect. You’ve got to be comfortable with change and technology and, but you think about the functional areas too.

And I’d love your commentary on this manufacturing. The overarching goal with these tariffs is made in the USA. We need more of that. And like you said, our critical components need to be near and dear versus far away, they can have enormous implications [00:52:00] to national defense and things like that, but it’s a manufacturing it’s operations.

And I think a lot of people coming up gravitate towards. Technology and AI and the kind of that sexier side of supply chain. But when you go back to the roots, operations, manufacturing, if it’s going to come back, then you got to be thinking, maybe I should be looking into something out in a factory and in operations, because you know, those jobs, you can’t make the widgets without having it.

[00:52:26] Mike Ogle: So, Bob, organizations, people are having to change and adjust, but organizations are needing to change as well. And from what are you seeing as far as the way that organizations are getting redesigned and how supply chain functions are within that, how do they restructure to, to better handle this age where it seems like we’ve got a whole lot more volatility and risk?

[00:52:51] Bob Ferrari: From our perspective, I’m sensing that businesses are beginning to better understand that the [00:53:00] supply chain functional silos that we have are not going to suffice as we get into this next era of uncertainty. I constantly See, and we’ve constantly heard of surveys that basically say when all is said and done businesses are drowning in data.

They literally collect too much data. And at the end of the day, it’s not the right data that they need to make the decisions that they want to make. And I think when teams do the root cause of all of this. They find that it’s functionally driven. Procurement, not to pick on any one function, but procurement has a set of.

Goals, key performance indicators, whatever that they didn’t want to collect. Manufacturing has its goals. Planning has their goals. Logistics and execution [00:54:00] supply chain fulfillment teams have their goals. So we have all of that percolating, but what the real objective here. Is the end to end supply chain perspective, and that transcends the functions.

So I think that has organizational dimensional aspects to it. And I’ve talked to, I’ve talked and talked to some business leaders and even some technology leaders who have encountered this in their implementations. We’ve talked about this and basically stated it may be something that’s really going to help here.

Okay. So let’s take down some of these functional silos. Now that doesn’t mean wholesale reorganization. That means realignment. So a couple of examples, lots of companies have sales and operations planning processes today. Some of them may call integrated business planning processes. And basically what the [00:55:00] participants are finance.

Sales and marketing, supply chain, and other participants. That comp, that’s functional silos wide. If we realign that process from a data management perspective and a data harmonization perspective, then we could achieve different results. Because basically what we’re asking for is what is the, the end to end data flows That tell us about what our demand pattern patterns are.

What are our supply network situation from a supply and demand perspective at this particular time, three months from today, six months from today? What are these external events that we’ve already talking about? About [00:56:00] a potential tariff or actual tariffs going into effect. What does this mean for our tactical window and our strategic window?

So that’s one example that we can just put out there for people that, that to think about. Mm-hmm . Another part of this is from the supply chain planning end, which I have lots and lots of experience in and knowledge in. There’s an understanding now that for planning to make this next iteration to help customers and this overall unpredictability era is we got to bring supply chain planning and execution data together.

Some of it call it supply chain synchronization of data flows. Some of it, some would call it more adaptive planning. But at the end of the day, what it really means when you talk to people is that on the [00:57:00] execution side, people say, hey, they’re making planning decisions that they don’t understand what it means for us in execution.

And on the opposite side, planning people are saying, We’re doing plans, but the execution side performed those plans because they got bottlenecks. And why are we finding out about this bottleneck now? Why didn’t we know about it before? So, that’s the notion of carrying out a little bit of these organizational silos.

I’m trying to bring them together.

[00:57:34] Rodney Apple: And Bob, you have fascinating stuff that you’re bringing up here about the future of supply chain, and I think we’re all looking forward to seeing what happens nervously, maybe, but as we wrap up here, you’ve talked about your career. We’ve talked a whole lot about happenings in supply chain in the future, but.

When you think back about some advice that really made an impact on your career, what would you call out there? And then is there any advice of your own [00:58:00] career advice that you’d like to share with our audience before we wrap up today?

[00:58:04] Bob Ferrari: Yeah, there’s a couple of things that I can share that I have found a value throughout my career.

The first is having a network of mentors, people who can guide you, people who can take an objective view of what your career desires are. what your skill sets are, where you may want to supplement your skills, how to deal with all of these organizational politics and that sort of thing. They are so helpful, um, and everybody should have them.

And you complement that with your networking contacts, obviously. But having those two, I think are very valuable. The other part that I often share with people who ask me about this, is you always want your mentors. And your networking resources to help you climb career ladders. [00:59:00] But we’re all humans and we have setbacks and we have setbacks in our careers.

Something didn’t work out right. Or it was a cutback and I got caught in a, in a layoff and that sort of thing, or the company reorganized and my job was eliminated. So that’s a setback. You equally need those mentors and those networking contacts when you’re in that situation as well, because they’re going to help you refocus as others did for me to say, Bob, lean on what your skill sets are, lean on what value you can provide to others in different roles, if need be, and that sort of thing and help you think about that.

So that’s one part of it. I think the other part of it is, is As I’ve mentioned is the ability to pivot, pivot yourself. Into other areas of [01:00:00] supply chain, not only from your notion of curiosity, but as we’ve pointed out, where’s the puck going to use that analogy? It’s going in this direction. You want to be ahead of that.

You want to have the skill sets that are going to be required when that shift happens.

[01:00:19] Rodney Apple: Great stuff. Thank you so much, Bob.

[01:00:22] Mike Ogle: And Bob, where can our audience go to be able to learn more about your company and the research you do?

[01:00:27] Bob Ferrari: Listeners can, first they can visit our websites. We have two of them. They are at www.

theferrarigroup. com or if you want to access the Supply Chain Matters blog directly, it’s www. theferrarigroup. com slash supply hyphen chain hyphen matters And that’ll get you to Supply Chain Matters. I have a profile on LinkedIn that’s available for [01:01:00] anybody to view. It has contact information there. Or if people, uh, listeners want to email me directly, you can use our general email account.

Which is the one word supply chain info at theferrarigroup. net. That’s theferrarigroup. net, which is another domain that we own for that.

[01:01:25] Rodney Apple: So Bob, thanks again for coming on the Supply Chain Careers podcast today and sharing all kinds of fascinating information. I knew you would have a lot of that, especially in light of the changes that are going on these days with global policy changes and And a whole bunch of other stuff.

So thanks for sharing your career journey with us and our audience And we look forward to staying in touch with you as things continue to change And the supply chain world continues to turn

[01:01:52] Bob Ferrari: and thanks again for inviting me and to all listening I wish all of you the very best in your careers and your experiences[01:02:00] [01:02:03] Mike Ogle: Thanks for listening to this episode of the supply chain careers podcast Be sure to listen to other episodes and sign up to be notified when future episodes are released as we continue to interview industry leading supply chain experts. This podcast is made possible by SCM Talent Group, the industry leading supply chain executive search firm.

Visit SCM Talent Group at scmtalent.com.