Handfield SCC
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Mike Ogle: All right. So Rob, welcome to the Supply Chain Careers podcast. It’s great to have you with us today.
Rob Handfield: Pleasure to be here.
Thank you for inviting me today.
Mike Ogle: Now, Rob, what really originally drew you into supply chain? What and what has kept you engaged and passionate about being in this field over the years?
Rob Handfield: As my bio says, I’ve been involved in supply chains for 35 years now. Originally started working in operations management during my PhD at university of North Carolina. And I was doing a field study when I was going around visiting factories all over the state, all over the country actually. And including some of the old, textile firms and fact and furniture factories out in Western North Carolina. And, . What really drew me into it was everyone kept talking about the long lead times associated with purchasing. [00:01:00] And, I looked into it and I thought, there hasn’t been a lot of work done about this thing called supply management or purchasing as they called it back then. And it’s, the people working in that field were, kinda like high school grads.
They would call ’em buyers and, that was my experience there and I thought there’s a lot of room for development here. So that’s what kind of drew me into it is my engagement with organizations and seeing that there really was a gap here in the way that we were working in managing our supply base and our supply chain.
Rodney Apple: And then it progressed from there, for either th 35 years. That’s a good little clip, right?
Rob Handfield: It is. And after I I started out my career at Michigan State University and at that time was a guy Bob Monka, who was leading that supply management group there.
And he started something called the Global Procurement Benchmarking Initiative. And as part of that, as a young assistant professor, I got to interview [00:02:00] and talk to some of the leading companies in the world. Apple, I, BM, Dow, Ford, Honda and really started to observe, the best practices.
And this was in the, early nineties. And organizations were on the initial. Cusp of really developing supply management as a professional business function. And it’s interesting, a lot of the big consulting firms were also, sitting in on those sessions, taking notes.
And very soon we’re also developing their own supply management. Practices, so they, of course, they claimed it was their own their own stuff. But it was really cutting edge stuff. And I got a credit bob with really helping me to understand what was going on in supply chain management in the field, and working with, gene Richter and just some of the pioneers of the field as well.
And then from there I came to NC State [00:03:00] in around 2000. And at that time I, I had this gut feeling that students really needed to learn by doing right. And our motto at NC Status thing can do. I thought, is there a way that we could get students involved in supply chain problems and projects with real companies?
And this dates back to, what Peter Drucker said is that business schools should be more like a medical school where the student and the physician work on the patient. And if you can, take them out to the patient, you bring the patient into the classroom. And that’s what we ended up doing.
And 25 years later we’re still doing that. We have about 20 student projects every semester 15 weeks long. Teams of three or four. And they’re working on real supply chain problems with real [00:04:00] companies. And we have. Faculty, advisors, generally retired supply chain executives that, whose spouses don’t want ’em hang around at home.
Mike Ogle: Yeah.
Rob Handfield: And and having them mentor these young students. And it’s just a great combination and I’m really proud of the work that those students are able to do.
Rodney Apple: I love it. You touched on this answer to my next question, but you’ve worked with, and I’ve, I’m sure Rob, being in this 35 years, you’ve you’ve watched some students have who’ve gone a long ways in their career towards that, coveted Chief Supply Chain Officer, CPO type roles. What have you observed? What are those common denominators that you’ve seen, those groups that have really excelled and have had a very successful career in supply chain?
Rob Handfield: It’s being around as long as I have. It’s really exciting to see some of my former students now, serving in executive roles, as, one, one gentle, one gentleman was, head of Supply Chain Logistics [00:05:00] at Ford. Another one is head of supply management at the Estee Lauder. And, seeing these folks, I invite them to come back and talk to the MBA class. And the one thing that they say is, it really is about managing relationships and, some of the most critical relationships as opposed to what you might think are not with external parties, those usually work pretty well. But it’s internally, working with stakeholders in finance, in marketing and operations particularly the CFO and establishing a solid relationship these folks and really understanding.
The business strategy. Procurement too often, wants to go off on their own and, find cost savings. That’s great, but if it’s not aligned with the business strategy, if it’s not aligned with what your internal stakeholders want or need you’re not gonna succeed.
You’re not gonna get buy-in and you’re not gonna be successful. Hitching your wagon to a [00:06:00] business strategy and really understanding what that means. Is essential in supply chains today. We are a service function. We’re not an independent function. Now, we can certainly drive and improve the competitiveness of our organization, but we have to be aligned with stakeholder requirements.
Rodney Apple: Yeah. Very good. I love that relationships and we’ve always said, we firmly believe even with a lot of automation and robotics, that it’s still a very people oriented business and relationship oriented business stakeholders through your own organization, through supplier management and all of the above.
Right?
Rob Handfield: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
Mike Ogle: Yeah. When I teach operations management, one of the things is that we go pretty in depth into local optimization and the failures that can happen when you’re optimizing your little piece of things. So that remark that you’ve made, I think is something that everybody should pay attention to, to [00:07:00] understand how do you make it work for everybody?
That’ll give you some longevity and a good reputation in the industry.
Rob Handfield: Exactly and you look at the really successful procurement leaders, they’re they’re humble people, right? They listen, they spend more time listening than they do talking, and that ability to.
I, I, it’s almost a consultative approach of really listening to your stakeholders and solving their problems. What are your problems? How can I help you? What can I do that to make your life easier? What could we do to drive innovation, to drive quality, to drive delivery, to drive, cost effectiveness, whatever those requirements are, let’s find a strategy and work together.
To do that. And I think that’s essential today in particularly in today’s organizations and in this environment with so many so much chaos going on in the external environment at no other time do, is it imperative for people [00:08:00] to, to work together and try to solve these problems
Mike Ogle: yet, if you take care of that aspect of it, it will be longer term and tend to grow?
Rob Handfield: Exactly. Exactly. It has staying power because you can look at a five-year roadmap and say, okay, here’s what do we need to do first? What do we need to do second? How do we build on the early steps? And, truthfully, a lot of early steps have to do with, just understanding the current state, really getting a handle on.
Our inventory on our spend, on our footprint today. And it’s amazing how many organizations don’t even have that. They don’t have a good idea of what is going on today and where, they might know where their tier one suppliers are, but no idea, near no clue as to where their tier two and tier threes are.
Mike Ogle: I’m gonna. Change this discussion over just a [00:09:00] bit to try to get an overview of what the Supply Chain Resource Management Center does. And based on your work with the center as well, where do you see some of the biggest gaps between what students learn and what employers need?
Rob Handfield: Yeah, that’s a great question, Mike.
As I said, the the first thing that happens. Companies come to us and we tell them, give us a short summary of the problem that you have. Whether it’s, an inventory problem, a transportation problem, warehouse problem, could be a spend management. It could be a deep dive into a supply market and developing a report.
But then the first thing that the team has to do, and this is really important, is to develop a scope document and to say. What is the question we’re trying to answer here? And that sounds pretty simple, but it’s actually not, because you gotta remember, they’ve got 15 weeks to do this, so you don’t want to, you wanna [00:10:00] under, under promise and over deliver, right?
So you really wanna be able to figure out what the question is that you’re trying to answer. The other piece, believe it or not, that is the most simple thing, often the most simple things that, that people are lacking. But the one thing students are lacking in today’s curriculum and supply chain curriculum is how to work as a team and how to communicate.
So many of our students. Come in and they’re having weekly conference calls with these, with their clients. And they don’t know how to run a meeting. They don’t know how to, present a data analysis. They don’t know how to draft an agenda. They don’t know how to manage a project.
So these are fundamental skills. These are the skills that they’re learning by doing. You have to throw them off the deep end into the pool in a, an industry they know nothing about in a company they’ve never worked with before. [00:11:00] And they have to, on their feet, figure out how to scope a problem, come up with a data analysis and data collection plan, how to conduct that analysis, how to present it.
How to deal with unexpected results or, deviations in, in, in the plan which occurs, we’ve had, in some cases people being laid off right in the middle of a semester. How do you deal with that? Being able to really manage a team, communicate effectively project plan and come up with a, an outcome.
That they can present to to, to their stakeholders in this company is really key. And, one of the crowning moments for me, I always look forward to this, is we have a gallery walk on the last day of classes where all the teams prepare a poster board and they they, it has to be vetted, of course.
They present the outcomes of what they worked on. [00:12:00] And other executives can come in and, see other people’s dirty laundry and also, also get ideas for other projects they can work on. And to me it’s real. I’m so proud of these students when they come out of this because they’ve.
If you look at ’em, the way they came in on day one, wearing their ECDC T-shirt and coming up the other end in a, in a business suit and presenting is really unremarkable.
Mike Ogle: Yeah. AB absolutely. I mean I love to see those kinds of setups. I think when I taught at UNC Charlotte, I was on the engineering side of things and we had a big end of semester.
Presentation, in the gym floor where all the people walk around from the different companies. And the biggest thing to me was you see the transformation in the students because of the interaction with the companies. It has such a great value to it. So I think it’s fantastic what you’re doing.
Wish we had the same thing up here. [00:13:00]
Rob Handfield: Yeah, no it’s, again, we’ve been doing this, 25 years. Again, we do 15 to 20 of these projects every semester. I’ve had students come up to me and said, this was the best class I’ve ever taken here at NC State. I learned more about how to manage how to, how I learned more about myself as an individual.
I learned so much from, these faculty mentors are, our faculty mentors are terrific. These are people who’ve. Spend a lifetime working at, IBM or GSK or or Merck. And they come in and they mentor these students and they really teach them a lot about how to deal with people, when there’s conflicts in the team, how do you deal with that?
When people aren’t pulling their own weight on a team, how do you deal with that? These are real world situations that. You have to deal with. And I and part of that is is the learning that goes on. And I also have to say, the people who are sponsoring these projects in the companies, [00:14:00] they are really invested.
They are there because yes. They’re there to get some really smart kids working on a problem from a point of view that maybe they’ve never thought of before. An innovative way of looking at the issue. For them it’s a great experience as well. ’cause they’re also learning from these students.
I’ll tell you though, the students today are so innovative. They can run circles around me in terms of the stuff they can do with, Microsoft BI and Python and they’re really smart kids.
Rodney Apple: Rob, I just thought of a follow up question here. We in, in my world, I’m on the recruitment side of supply chain.
We work across all industries, all functions. And I remember back when I started, we talked earlier before we, we started this pod about you have some, you did some work with Home Depot 25 years ago, and that’s where I cut my teeth. And and I just remember this, it’s so hard to find these, like what you just described, those technical skills, kids aren’t coming outta school.
We’re having to teach them a lot when [00:15:00] they get in the door here. Abundance of soft skills. And I feel like that’s inverted. You just called it out with their. Super sharp kids when they’re going through school. But we’re hearing that the soft skills are lagging when they come out.
Have you made, have you seen like an observation over the years you’ve been in like, I don’t wanna call it a degradation of soft skills, but just that maybe that inversion where the it’s soft skills where strong hard skills, not so much and it’s flip flopped. Yeah,
Rob Handfield: Yeah. No, you’re absolutely right Rodney.
And I’ll tell you the current, the current batch of students who went through, COVID in particular, just there, there’s a gap there. They don’t, they’re so used to communicating on social media. They can’t hold a conversation. They don’t know what to do or what to say.
It’s like they’re frozen. They don’t know what to say or do. And it there, there’s also really a preoccupation with their phones. I had one employer call me and he said, Rob, [00:16:00] are you teaching these students anything about, how to have a meeting and how to hold a meeting?
And he said, because, we hired one of your students and we were, I was having a one-on-one with her, and the whole time she was on her phone.
How do you do that? And I had to tell her to put her phone down and have a conversation with her. That is just so fundamental. That’s just wrong and I think that’s one thing that students have to be able to do is to learn how to focus, put down your electronics.
And think about, the conversation you’re having and how to elicit that conversation and how to have a dialogue and even just, small talk, how to make small talk, I think is another skill they have to learn.
Rodney Apple: Exactly. Yeah. No, that’s well said. And you called it out earlier, like working in procurement and just being a really good listener.
I think that applies in supply chain with so many things going on every day. Yeah. Okay. Good deal. Shifting. Actually this is, curriculum, things are evolving so quickly in [00:17:00] supply chain as you’re aware of. You and I, and all three of us have seen a lot. And it’s went to Modex recently and I had not been in maybe six years.
And just mine was blown again with whoa, there’s a lot more a lot more stuff here that’s a lot more advanced and, so how do you keep up with that curriculum to align with where what employers need when you think about these evolutions and advancements in technology. So they can hit that, hit the ground running when they enter into their first jobs.
Rob Handfield: Yeah. One of the key skills that students today are, we’re really trying to infuse into every element of our curriculum is. The ability to work with large data sets and the ability to interpret the outcomes and how to, it’s almost like a curiosity. How do you probe that data set and extract insights that can be useful for decision making?
I think that in, in and of itself is one of the key [00:18:00] skill sets that we’re seeing today. And the first thing you realize is, before you jump in and start running bi graphs or, statistical analysis, again, go back and ask, what is the question? What is my hypothesis?
How do I how do I inquire what are the patterns that I expect to see with this data? And so that it is part art and part science, in this case. And so we we work, we really work with students on data analysis and data interpretation. And part of that involves ai, and we can talk about AI in a moment, but even more fundamentally is let’s start with a data set and let’s work through it.
And often when you’re working with data. No big surprises here is the data sucks, right? So it’s terrible data. And so understanding the importance of data quality data cleansing, data standardization, know if you don’t have good [00:19:00] data, it doesn’t matter what kind of complicated analysis you use, you’re gonna get garbage.
Those are the kinds of things we really emphasize in the curriculum today is working with data sets. Lensing the data quality and the data interpretation.
Mike Ogle: And one of the things I wanted to ask about careers for students, thinking about somebody who is early in their supply chain career and the types of things that you probably emphasize as they go through some of their projects, the capstone projects and other things that you have them work through.
In trying to get them to that point where they’re ready to start that career are there some things that, that you advise to them or ask, tell them they should prioritize in those first few years, both to position themselves well. To understand these are some of the behaviors you really need to try to adopt early on and the things that they should avoid as far as use some common mistakes when people start positions.
Rodney Apple: Like using your phone when you’re having a [00:20:00] conversation.
Rob Handfield: Exactly. Using your phone is top of that list. One of the things I tell students is, look there’s a lot of information out there on, on supply chains and it’s important for you to. Really immerse yourself into that world if that’s a career path you want to take.
And I would say that is the case for any business or management career today. Get a subscription to the Wall Street Journal. I have it and I read it daily. Read what’s going on in, in the New York Times, read what’s happening in the Economist. Stay abreast of current events because things are changing so quickly and you’re gonna be expected, to be conversant in current events and understand what’s happening.
The other thing I tell them is, look don’t be afraid to explore, different technologies work with Claude or, other kinds of technologies and learn about how they operate. Think about, ways that you can connect [00:21:00] with people in industry that you can talk to and visit with them and learn from them because they can really help you understand what’s going on and give you great career advice.
And, if you discover something that you really. Passionate about that you really are interested in, go after that because, don’t choose a career that’s gonna have the highest the highest salary or promotion opportunity. Choose something that you love because you’re gonna be doing this for a very long time.
So make sure you really enjoy and are really passionate about what you’re studying.
Rodney Apple: And Rob, I know you probably get this question a lot because I know I do. And this is coming from, students that are starting to think about what, the myriad of jobs that are out there across all these functions and industries and company sizes and different ownership models.
And, it’s where do I start? And it leads into, where do I want to grow? And we’re hearing a [00:22:00] lot from not only on our podcast, but from our clients. Common denominators are just. Everybody’s going down this analytical technology track and they’re avoiding the operations where you get that master’s degree in leadership, early on, and the people management, the soft skills that again we’ve touched on.
So what do you advise these students and there’s always this, do I need to broaden my exposure functionally more broader, end to end, can you. Does it make more sense to, to be a specialist and just grow up in procurement or transportation? And I know everybody’s got, they have to figure that out.
But do you have any thoughts on that and what do you advise students that they’ve got that deer in the headlights? I’m confused. I don’t know what to do.
Rob Handfield: Yeah, no, I, I tell students, look the best experience you can get is practical experience. Even if you are, like one of the senior vice presidents of at UPS, he graduated from NC State and he worked his way by working on UPS loading dock, right?
[00:23:00] And he just kept going up in the company. And I tell him, work on the loading dock of a Home Depot or a Lowe’s or work in a grocery store bagging groceries and see how, stuff comes in and ends up on the shelf. Take one of those jobs where, it is an operational job but you’re learning and you’re observing and you’re dealing with other people.
And I always say that’s the best way, that’s the best way to start learning is learn it from the ground up. And when you see that things later on, as you do move up in your career, you can, those lessons are gonna come back and you can, you’ll rely on them to help you understand.
How does the average Joe on the dock, how does he think about his job and how does he think about their organization and how does he think about the problems that they have to solve on a daily basis, and how can we make their life easier? Tho those are the things that I think are really essential.
And there’s a certain humility. I think that you see [00:24:00] leaders who have that ability to talk to the common Joe. They know that those are the people that matter and they want to connect with those people.
Rodney Apple: Very well said. Yeah. And do you feel like, ’cause I get this question a lot too folks that track more corporate roles analytical technology and related do you think they have an opportunity to reach that?
Again, that C-suite if they detour they don’t go through and lead a plant. Or a warehouse or a net, a physical, the physical supply chain. ‘Cause that seems to be a big concern as we talk to both clients as well as our podcast guests, like chief supply chain officer.
Like we, we have these huge gaps in the middle, everybody’s. Nobody wants to go run a plant or a warehouse. And and a lot of people think that it’s gonna slow you down and maybe even block your ability to be selected into those big roles. Yeah.
Rob Handfield: I a hundred percent agree with that observation.
Rodney there’s a saying, most senior supply chain executives don’t know how to log onto their ERP system, ’cause they’ve never [00:25:00] done it. They’ve never had those roles where they’re sitting in front of a computer screen, chasing down parts or expediting or, those kinds of activities gives you a real world view into what what those real problems are.
And I think having a strong basis in operational management as a buyer, as a planner as a material planner is really a life lesson that you need to have before you can move on to these senior roles because you understand the issues. And the same thing goes for data analysts if you, unless you can really understand.
What that data signifies, what that minimum order quantity means. What that lead change in lead time on a product from a supplier. What is the significance of that and what, how does it impact other operations within the company? You’re not gonna be able to really come up with those data insights.[00:26:00]
Interpretation that is the most important part of analytics. How you interpret that data and that information, and how it leads to either a decision or a remediation or a mitigation plan or what have you. You need to have the operational experience there.
Mike Ogle: Yeah. And does anybody actually have consistency of following those kinds of rules and data sets and data quality concerns?
That variation across functions can be debilitating.
Rob Handfield: It can it really can. And you know what you, you tend to see are data silos, right? Data that’s not. It’s the different data. It’s this different information that’s being communicated across those different business functions.
I want to, I wanna refer to Lenovo because I recently did a, an interview with Jack Fiedler who led their AI digital transformation. And he said the first they started this in 2017. [00:27:00] And they started initially saying, okay, let’s start adopting AI into our supply chain.
And they realized very quickly, no, we’ve gotta take a step back because our data is so bad. We had, we have different data across different business units, across different business functions, and what we need is a single instance of data across the entire business with data standards, data dictionaries.
And until we get there, we’re not gonna implement any advanced technologies because, what’s the use of having a dashboard when no one believes it? ’cause they know that the data’s crummy. So they spent eight years, eight years, if you can believe it, really working on improving their data.
And then they started to really adopt and integrate AI in a meaningful way because they could, they could know that they had the right qualified [00:28:00] quantity of information as it related to inventory suppliers lead times, minimum order quantities, all that information is critical to have, right.
Mike Ogle: A and beyond the information. Next thing I wanted to ask about was, when you look at some of these top performing organizations and the people within them, what do you see that defines a great supply chain leader and the great supply chain teams that they manage? And what kind of skills will matter most going forward?
Rob Handfield: I I think a common. And I think I said this earlier, a common theme I see in the great supply chain leaders is is humility. They surround themselves with really smart people and they spend more time asking questions and listening as opposed to, directing and giving their personal views on what’s happening.
And if you have a. [00:29:00] If you have a team of really smart people that, that understand what’s going on and you can rely on them for decisions, you’re gonna be successful. And I think that’s essential to, to be able to do that. Again, it goes back to listening and humility and asking questions and also just wandering throughout the organization.
Go down to the loading dock and talk to those guys see what’s going on down there. Understand what’s happening in your supply base and visit with those suppliers and talk to them. That’s information gathering, that’s market intelligence. And market intelligence is essential to making good decisions today is understanding what’s going on out there.
Mike Ogle: I don’t know that this will actually be in here in the end. So Brian, when you’re editing but did you know John Hill in the industry, a lot of warehouse management system work? Is where he cut his teeth, but worked in that for years. But he’s passed now. But
Rob Handfield: yes, I didn’t know I heard about John Hill.
Yeah. Really bright [00:30:00] guy. Yeah. Super guy.
Mike Ogle: I got to see John present maybe a dozen times when we ended up having some road shows. When I worked with MHI. And one of the stories that he always told was, I can learn more in 10 minutes smoking a cigarette out on the loading dock about what’s happening in this company than I did with the hour that I spent with the executives before that.
Yeah.
Rob Handfield: Yeah. And it’s funny if you ask those guys on the loading dock if you ask them, you know a question, they won’t give you a line. They’re not gonna BS you, they’ll tell you exactly what’s going on. When people say why? Why haven’t you said anything about this problem?
Nobody asked me.
Mike Ogle: Yeah.
Rodney Apple: Yep. Yeah. It goes right back to seeking out that operations experience.
Rob Handfield: Yeah.
Rodney Apple: Rob you, you just touched on AI that was mind blowing to hear about the IBM eight years to cleanse their data and get it in good order across the enterprise. But I’d love to [00:31:00] hear, this is the super hot topic, obviously, but what are you seeing and how do you feel that AI will reshape careers in the years ahead?
Like what might be some of those required skills when you think about the next 2, 3, 4 years out?
Rob Handfield: Yeah, that’s a great question. And I, I don’t have a crystal ball. It’s, things are moving so quickly at the moment. We’re I’m trying to use AI in my classroom on in my MBA class on supply management.
And I’ve developed a real time case study and I’m asking students to use AI to gain insights from the market that can impact their their responses and their analysis of the case. So trying to make it real time, I think is essential. But if I go back to Lenovo and I look at what they did because they had such good data, they had very good data histories.
And one of the things AI is really good at is. Reviewing [00:32:00] data and historical data and looking for patterns and looking for themes and markers that humans would not notice. But before you dive into using AI again, another thing Lenovo did is they said, okay, what are, let’s go back to what I said earlier.
Let’s go back and look at our business strategy. What is essential? About our business and they realized, there’s a few key drivers of our business and the task for supply chain is quality. It’s on time delivery. It’s allocation of product. Those are the things that drive our business.
So they said, can we use AI then to address those top challenges that we have that will directly impact our business strategy and our competitors? And so they, they started using AI for a variety of applications. One of the ones they used was on customer allocations. And they said, let’s look at these customer histories.
Let’s look at. Their [00:33:00] payment their customer satisfaction levels, their volume. And let’s allocate based on this algorithm of which customers we think are the most important, as opposed to allocating the customers that scream the loudest. Just having the ones that are the most important customers.
Another example had to do with order churn. So what can happen in many supply chain systems is okay, a supplier is supposed to deliver a hundred units on Monday they notify the company and they say, Hey, we’ve had some issues. We’re only gonna be able to deliver 50. So in the past, what Lenovo would do is they would reallocate, right?
So they would. Make allocation decisions to customers. They would increase their inventory. They would alter their lead times, make a whole bunch of different changes in their systems. What AI did is they looked at it and they said, this supplier’s done this to us before, and every time they say they’re not [00:34:00] gonna deliver, they end up delivering in the end.
So they said, we’re not gonna reallocate, we’re not going to gonna make these changes. We’re going to count on that. This supplier is most likely gonna still deliver a hundred units, even though they say they’re not. And so looking at these human behaviors I think is one way that AI can cut through the noise and see what’s going on.
And the last, one of the other applications I really am passionate about is what I call stress testing our supply chains. And I recently wrote an article in HBR on this theme based on some interviews I did with a couple of large companies. But, we don’t know what major disruptions are on the horizon, but we can we can imagine what they might be, right? So if we can use, what I call disciplined imagination to try to imagine what might happen we can use AI to run [00:35:00] simulations on how those impacts would impact our supply chain. Providing we have good data on, our suppliers and our logistics and our inventory.
We can run AI and stress. Supply chains and saying, what if this supplier goes under, or, what, if there’s a tornado that, that hits the Southeast, that wipes things out. What would happen then? And it enables us to be a little more resilient by being able to plan ahead for potential issues that might never occur, but they might occur.
There’s like a non-zero probability they might occur.
Rodney Apple: I, I was gonna ask too, like from a learning and development perspective, I had MHI reach out about this topic ’cause they’re doing an article on it. Here in the next epi or next magazine that comes out around ai, like our company’s using ai we go back to those frontline workers.
We know it’s in the corporate world and the analytics and all that, but go [00:36:00] back into the operations or any, be heard of, any companies using it more to accelerate the development of your, your frontline workers. Those out on those docks and the warehouses.
Any. Thoughts there?
Rob Handfield: Yeah, I’ve seen some interesting applications where you know, especially on, on retention, looking at one of the biggest retention issues is in the warehouse as there’s just so much turnover in the warehouse. And AI can be used to say, okay, what are the key retention issues?
For these different workers what are the things we can do to incentivize them, to motivate them, to keep them on board, to make them productive. And so in some cases it’s things like. Creating their own schedules, being able to work certain hours, if they have on, maybe being able to, finish by three o’clock so they can pick up their kids from school.
Those are the kinds of little things that, that we can look at. And AI is really good at [00:37:00] coming up with, in interesting solutions for scheduling, for incentivizing and really improving retention. Of workers, particularly in a warehouse or DC type of environment. The other thing is it’s pretty good at predicting, when people might likely quit, right?
Being able to say ahead of time, this guy doesn’t seem happy. He’s, he, his last performance reviews have not been stellar and he’s. He or she is, had a number of incidents. This individual’s right to leave and we can either decide to intervene or or, make mitigation plans again, knowing that they will likely leave soon.
So those kinds of turnover issues is really important and, a lot of times to keep individuals, particularly in management roles. They want enrichment. They want training. They wanna learn, they want to be able to try new things. So finding ways to map out [00:38:00] career paths for individuals that create that, that level of enrichment.
And some people are happy doing the same job for 20 years but a lot of people are. And, distinguishing what those different individuals want is also important.
Rodney Apple: Oh, that that’s ex exciting and it’s much needed. And I think that’s one of those very positive attributes of AI in terms of application.
So hopefully that continues to evolve. Yeah, because we hear about it all the time from our clients. It’s constant headache and so forth.
Rob Handfield: The other interesting things on the hiring front we’ve developed some research models that look at what would happen. How many given turnover rates and given retention issues and looking at the roles that we have today, how many people do we need to hire to be able to fill those roles in the future?
And therefore, how many people do we need to interview to be able to make those hires [00:39:00] given the likelihood of hiring them? So those are the kinds of questions that AI can help you with because it, they can look at historical rates and give you a predictive model, which is pretty cool.
Rodney Apple: Yeah. It’s so more workforce planning oriented. Yeah.
Rob Handfield: Yeah.
Mike Ogle: I think you’ve talked about the quality of data and analysis skills and some of that aspect that was in that question.
But what was hitting me in the discussions, one of the things that I’m, I tend to be a little concerned about. Is students and even current supply chain workers, the, their lack of truly understanding variability, maybe sensitivity analysis, really, uncertainty and what kind of risks are out there of really being able to use not just statistical tools, like they have to be statistics gods, but just even understanding how to, it can be used even if somebody else does it for you.
Of the analysis you [00:40:00] need, but just understanding that whole aspect of variability and uncertainty, you have some thoughts on what you try to instill in students there?
Rob Handfield: Yeah I think, we’ve done a number of projects actually with with Honeywell and a few others where we’ve utilized the the res link tool and basically res link is a tool that.
Allows people to look at, what, where their supply, where their suppliers are located, and how a major disruption would impact would impact those suppliers and what the impact would then be on their financials. So yeah there’s an analytic portion of this, but I think the other interesting thing is, what I said earlier is identifying.
What are the risks that are out there and using this disciplined imagination. For example, you know the Japanese tsunami that happened years ago. What is the likelihood of that happening again? It’s very low. And if [00:41:00] it did happen again, would we be able to do anything about it?
No. Maybe we don’t need to, plan ahead a whole lot for things that are low probability and over which we don’t have a lot of control.
Rodney Apple: Oh, yeah.
Rob Handfield: But let’s look at the things where, we do have some control. The example I always use is, apple had two major. Suppliers, within a stone’s throw from an active volcano, right?
So that’s probably not a good strategy. And if, and it’s an active volcano, so if it blows, and both those guys would be knocked out. So let’s do things that we can do that are within our control. And let’s look at events that do have a, a good likelihood or at least a statistical probability of occurring.
And what can we do to mitigate that? Now, the Trump cards of course are, the current administration, with ICE that, that has, that was something that no one expected. But we do know [00:42:00] that it had a major impact on the workforce in this country. And companies were legitimately worried.
They had a real shortfall to fill. They could see that it was gonna be coming. And so they had to take steps to try to mitigate that ahead of time. And it was, it has been devastating on the workforce. Many are still reeling from those deportations and so forth that have gone.
Rodney Apple: You’re on mute.
Mike Ogle: Sorry. There we go. I had a suggestion in the interest of time. When I look at the last two questions, I think the one that you have there is better and it overlaps with the last one that I would’ve asked.
Rodney Apple: Oh yeah. The risk, yeah. As we’re talking about it now. Yeah.
Mike Ogle: Yeah, just getting into that whole disruption side and thinking about what leaders should be concentrating on as opposed to the fast forward 10 years question.
I’m not sure that we get as much outta that as we get outta yours. [00:43:00]
Rodney Apple: Yeah. Okay.
Mike Ogle: Okay.
Rodney Apple: So Rob, as a follow up on all these disruptions that are going on, you got geopolitical, we’ve got big changes here in our own administration here in the United States. Reshoring, French shoring, near shoring.
It’s the volatility is permanent, it seems. So what’s should supply chain leaders be focused on today and how. Is this shaping, the type of talent companies need as we’re clearly seeing a shift from, efficiency, cost savings, et cetera, to more building in that resiliency.
Rob Handfield: Yeah, I’m gonna I’m gonna plug my book flow that I wrote with Tom Linton.
Supply chains flow like a river, they encounter obstacles and they keep going. If they have to go around it, they’re gonna go around it, or on top of it or below it. They’ll figure it out. They flow naturally. And so I think we’re gonna continue to see supply chains operate and organizations are very adept at.
Coming up with, innovative new ways of dealing with [00:44:00] these problems. Not to say that it’s gonna be easy, but we are seeing a movement towards more near shoring. We’re definitely seeing, maybe a Pan-American type of economy starting to evolve. Some detachment from Asia is still going on.
And I think we’re gonna continue to see that. We’re gonna see continued evolution of supply chains and executives will continue to figure out new ways of dealing with the current set of challenges. So I’m optimistic.
Mike Ogle: One of the things that I love to talk with students about is the many millions of people around the world pursuing their own self-interest, but it’s, they’re so interconnected with each other.
It works out in the end.
Rob Handfield: It does. It does. Yeah. It’s a non-zero sum game. It’s, we all, we’re all benefiting from, our own self-interest in some ways.
Mike Ogle: And I think [00:45:00] to close things out, one of the things that we’d like to ask about, and by the way, once again, Brian, this wasn’t the last question before, but I wanted to ask you about some of the advice that you’d like to share with students.
Maybe even some things that, somebody advised to you years ago that you took to heart but some of the others that you may have come up with yourself as well.
Rob Handfield: I think we’ve covered a number of those throughout our discussion today, but I think one of the number one is, relationships are key to operate supply chains.
It’s not just a technical. It’s phenomenon it’s people, working with people. And in that respect, your integrity is the most important asset that you have as an individual, is working with integrity being honest collaborating, looking for win-win kinds of solutions. That’s always been a part of what I have been teaching in my classes for 35 years.
To me that’s the one thing you can do. And that again, involves. [00:46:00] Developing yourself as an individual, knowing your strengths, knowing your weaknesses and learning to rely on others, asking a lot of questions. And again, humility is essential to have a successful career.
Rodney Apple: Excellent advice.
Maybe just plug your book one more time. Where can we, obviously it’s, I’m sure it’s on Amazon, but
Rob Handfield: it’s on Amazon. Yeah, on Amazon, yeah. It’s called Flow, how the Best Supply Chains Thrive. Alright. It’s an odd little book, but it’s an interesting perspective.
Mike Ogle: Very good. Hey, was there an inspiration for it that you could share?
Rob Handfield: You know what Tom Linton is a brilliant guy. He’s just got a lot of ideas and he’s always trying to connect, supply chains to natural phenomenon, whether it’s, birds or california seals or whales he’s always trying to connect, make that connection with natural phenomena.
And that’s an interesting perspective that I think we’re gonna continue to see. Animals have [00:47:00] senses that none of us understand, right? They can, they know, how does a bird know to migrate back to the place it was born? How does it know how to do that? It has some incredible sensory elements that we have yet to understand and I think our supply chain can maybe someday try to mimic those capabilities.
Rodney Apple: Fascinating. We’ll have to check out flow. Thank you for referencing that, Rob.
Rob Handfield: You bet. Thank you for having me today. Really a fun discussion guys.
Rodney Apple: Likewise, Rob, thanks for guesting on the Supply Chain Careers podcast. We appreciate all of this amazing advice you’ve shared and just learning more about your own career journey.
So thanks again.
Rob Handfield: Thank you both.
