Supply Chain World Volume 8, Issue 4

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Interesting variety Hello and welcome to April issue of Supply Chain World. The supply chain has been somewhat of a hot topic briefly for the world recently, thanks to the giant ship Ever Given getting stuck in the Suez Canal in March. The six-day long period of delay experienced by ships travelling through the waterway will have a continuing knock on effect and it further increases pressure on supply chains already challenged by coronavirus. Experts seem undecided on how much it will ultimately impact consumers – was your business affected by the crisis? I would love to hear from you if so.

We’ve been fortunate – as we are every month – to speak to some fascinating companies for this issue.

On page 48, a familiar name to most, Polaroid, shares how it prioritizes a partnership approach with suppliers, as well as gives SCW readers a look at its newest product.

Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s supply chain operation gets discussed on page 28 – not only dealing with

coronavirus, the team at the hospital were also getting to grips with a new IT implementation, too. The feature gives some insights into some of the creative ways the team is improving its supply chain, and is well worth a read.

On page 52 we take a look at how leader in the agrifood industry, Olymel, has established several strategies for success and how clear communication and flexibility meant that the company and its partners were able to adapt to the changes brought on by the Covid-19 crisis.

SCW also spoke to Samit Doshi, Head of Procurement at Transdev, the largest provider of transport in North America, and he revealed that the business adopts three primary efficiency strategies for supply chain efficiency. To find out more – visit page 36.

The sheer variety in our spotlighted companies always makes for an interesting combination of topics – I hope that there is something that grabs your interest in this issue.

Libbie Hammond libbie@schofieldpublishing.com Please note: The opinions expressed by contributors and advertisers within this publication do not necessarily coincide with those of the editor and publisher. Every reasonable effort is made to ensure that the information published is accurate, and correct at time of writing, but no legal responsibility for loss occasioned by the use of such information can be accepted by the publisher. All rights reserved. The contents of the magazine are strictly copyright, the property of Schofield Publishing, and may not be copied, stored in a retrieval system, or reproduced without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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CONTENTS

Features 4 Big Data

To address immediate issues and restore operations while also positioning themselves for long-term success, brands need a better understanding of the data flowing in and out of their supply chains

Profiles

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6 eCommerce

Thomas R. Cutler reports on B2B eCommerce selection, which starts with a request for proposal (RFP). An effective RFP template has been developed and this is a perfect starting point

10 Retail Supply Chain

The imperative for retail businesses is ensuring their operational models are robust enough to overcome current hurdles. Combining astute strategic planning and effective digital transformation tools will give many a leg up

12 RFID

Now is the ideal time for serious players in the retail industry to investigate and invest in technology innovations, such as smart packaging which leverages lowcost RFID and cutting-edge flexible electronics

Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

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14 Outsourcing

The connector industry is undergoing a change in consumer behavior, and the supply chain must respond.

By carefully listening to customers, understanding their business and tailoring your approach to match, suppliers can rise to meet the challenge

16 Digital triggers

RFID is one technology that can act as a digital trigger – a machine readable label or tag unique to a product which gives it a digital ‘birth certificate’. Retail, and particularly apparel, has implemented hundreds of projects with billions of tags utilized

Olymel

18 Trends

With repeat lockdowns across the globe, the idea of purchasing thousands of components from dozens of countries across every continent is unlikely to hold the attractiveness it has done for at least 200 years. What does this mean for manufacturing and engineering?

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20 Digital supply chain

As online and digital purchasing has become so largescale in both B2C and B2B setups, the importance of an efficient supply chain has never been greater. Digital supply chain platforms can provide transparency and drive optimization

24 News

Some of the recent developments within the supply chain arena – new contracts, exciting announcements, research findings and interesting solutions

COE Distributing 2

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48

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Transdev U.S.

Polaroid

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58

Arandell

Palmer Logistics

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70

IBM

Royal Caribbean Group scw-mag.com

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BIG DATA

Creating resilience

The disruption caused by last year’s pandemic demonstrates how supply chain vulnerability poses a serious business risk, says Amy Hodler

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f 2020 taught us anything, it was that we underestimate the pivotal role of the supply chains in our lives and how fragile these global networks are. There is a pressing need to build robust, scalable, and less vulnerable supply chains.

Our challenging circumstances are set to continue for the foreseeable future. While we’re likely to see a roll-back from overreliance on single-sourced goods, modern capitalism depends upon global markets.

The issue is the more complex a supply chain, the more vulnerable it is. As supply chain technology experts Transparency-One point out: “Supply chains that incorporate multiple tiers, are heavily globalized and/or

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involve a number of components or stages of transformation, are inherently more complicated and at greater risk of being severely affected by a crisis like Covid-19.”

Transparency in the supply chain becomes more vital and more complex so that brands can prepare and manage challenging events like a pandemic. CIOs need a highly scalable way to manage the vast volumes of serial numbers, supplier and facility details, certifications, documents, and detailed questionnaires they need to get on top of the crisis and re-start their businesses once the pandemic eases.

As a result, manufacturers, distributors, and logistics companies need a more agile way of

dealing with the vast amount of intertwined data and regulations involved with delivering items globally. At the same time, brands need to win back consumer and customer confidence—and in some cases, trust. And all this needs to occur while ensuring products meet international standards and regulations and maintain sustainability and social responsibility standards.

Big data issues To address immediate issues and restore operations while also positioning ourselves for long-term success, brands need a better understanding of the data flowing in and out of their supply chains. With that insight, they

can gain real-time insight to support smart, data-driven decision-making.

Companies that have 360-degree visibility of their supply chains and supplier ecosystem understand how this will impact production.

They know they need to look for alternative sources if there is a shortage of components, for example, or if ports are locked down.

Operators underprepared for this, or indeed the next significant disruption, will find it almost impossible to mitigate supply shock and manage demand volatility.

Many enterprises still have their data stored in silos, meaning they only have a partial view of what is going on in their supply chains. According to Forrester Analyst Alla Valente, the supply chain risk management tech stack often consists of Excel and SharePoint, which don’t have the ability to handle the data volumes or the sophisticated analysis required. Even if the data is stored in a single business database, she warns, understanding the connections between products on a production line or in pallets waiting to be shipped is next to impossible.

Making traditional databases perform multidimensional tasks in real-time is also not a viable option, with performance degradation as the total dataset size grows.

Built expressly for connected data There is an answer in the shape of graph technology, an approach in data management that records and ‘connects the dots’ between

complex data interdependencies. When you track a product or component, you create a hierarchy of data and store how it’s all connected. An example of the power graph databases offer in uncovering relationships in big data was highlighted by the Panama and Paradise Papers exposes. The group behind the investigation, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, used graph technology to map incredibly complex financial connections and spot irregularities in history’s largest data leaks.

As graph-based tools are built expressly for connected data, performance is maintained across vast quantities of data. This is a useful capability as the number of unique serial codes alone can run into the billions. Suppose you record the code on a particular pallet, then a graph database can automatically recall all of its contents. This includes the operational context, such as which ports it shipped through, where it was manufactured, and the relationships between manufacturers.

Using a graph database, firms can typically demonstrate 100 times faster query response speeds than from traditional relational

database software. This elevated response time is critical during the current crisis and will be crucial going forward in a highly digitized and increasingly competitive world.

Be ready for the next wave of disruption Without a doubt, Covid-19 was a particularly dramatic upset to global supply chains. Still, disruptive events are not new: tsunamis in Japan, flooding in Thailand, major storms and hurricanes, even previous waves of illness (SARS, Ebola) have all had a significant impact on supply chains. It remains to be seen if Brexit-related supply chain chaos will persist.

Company leaders need to make sourcing appropriate tools and technology to provide visibility and insight into the complex, interconnected supply chains they work with a priority.

If they view their supply chain as the networks they truly represent, they can maximize opportunities as the world resets and buffer themselves against the likely fact of recurrent, future business risk.

Amy Hodler is Director, Analytics and AI Program at Neo4j, the world’s leading graph database company. Amy is also co-author of Graph Algorithms: Practical Examples in Apache Spark & Neo4j, published by O’Reilly Media.

Neo4j is the leader in graph database technology. As the world’s most widely deployed graph database, it helps global brands – including Comcast, NASA, UBS and Volvo – to reveal and predict how people, processes, and systems are interrelated. Using this relationships-first approach, applications built with Neo4j tackle connected data challenges such as analytics and artificial intelligence, fraud detection, real-time recommendations, and knowledge graphs. www.neo4j.com

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eCOMMERCE

Starting point B2B eCommerce selection starts with a request for proposal. By Thomas R. Cutler

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he most comprehensive critical analysis of B2B eCommerce platforms produced some surprising findings. Most notably, so few options offered an open-source platform built from the ground up for midmarket and large eCommerce businesses.

There were many groundbreaking flexible features coupled with robust B2B features.

Importantly, many of the solutions were not specifically designed for manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers, and multi-channel brands. An in-depth comparison of these solution providers is shown below.

As pandemic considerations linger, B2B eCommerce vendors must remotely deliver innovative solutions for dynamic companies embarking on a digital transformation.

Selection criteria should include all major analyst firms such as IDC, Gartner, and Frost & Sullivan.

Essential questions to ask B2B eCommerce vendors Creating a Request for Proposal (RFP) from scratch can be challenging and timeconsuming. Researching what delayed the evaluation and purchase of much needed B2B eCommerce solutions was confusion around what product features and deliverables were most important to the business. The challenge was exacerbated by a wide range of technical questions that should be asked when researching various B2B eCommerce vendors.

An RFP narrows down vendors when re-platforming. It places vendors on an even playing field, helping businesses determine which vendor is best suited. Ask the wrong questions and the answers will fail to advance the purchase decisions. Questions must address priorities on both the departmental as well as company (global enterprise) levels.

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eCOMMERCE

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Recently, an effective RFP template (link below) was developed which potential vendors review and respond how they plan to meet specific company requirements. This template is a perfect starting point, yet B2B eCommerce vendors may need to expand responses based on perspective or industry sector experience.

The most essential questions to ask B2B eCommerce vendors will rapidly answer what best fits a business’ requirements both at present and in the future.

Integrated technology solutions must provide a diverse range of B2B features and capabilities including: • Personalization • Localization • Built-in multi-channel CRM • Powerful workflows • A pricing engine

B2B eCommerce Feature List A structured list of the B2B eCommerce features includes pricing, catalog management, marketing capabilities, checkout flows, and more. Since the CIO will be involved in the decision-making process there must be questions answered regarding security, technologies used, and IT infrastructure required to support the system.

Licensing and pricing questionnaire must include all the must-ask tricky questions that help identify any hidden fees and additional expenses some vendors would never share at an RFP stage.

The matrix of B2B eCommerce vendors and features Ultimately the question in complex decisionmaking is what makes one vendor better than another. Identifying the variables most important to each organization depends on the complexity of the operation. These decisions are not made in a vacuum nor a snap-shot of the company’s situation today, but rather the capacity to grow in scalability and performance well into the future.

Seventy per cent of B2B sellers will have an eCommerce site by 2023 Currently fewer than 50 per cent of B2B sellers have an eCommerce site; within two years 70 per cent will have one. Flexibility is crucial for sustainability. B2B sellers are investing in highly flexible software because the workflows used today may not be relevant next year nor the year after that. As customer expectations and business requirements change, automation

technology platforms must have the capacity to adapt changes by building new workflows or adjusting existing workflows. Leaders with a growth strategy through acquisition require flexible workflows platforms as a myriad of integration challenges are presented.

A flexible workflow engine is what gives this flexibility, otherwise a piece of code can also automate business processes. But as businesses and processes evolve it would be cheaper to maintain and create new workflows using a workflow engine rather than writing new code every time.

Automating routine business tasks translates to increased customer satisfaction, retention, and improved sales effectiveness.

Customer-facing teams are better able to focus on non-routine situations. While the drive for ‘more, better, faster, cheaper’ may seem relentless, technology provides the tools that make it possible. Flexible B2B eCommerce workflows are a powerful way to help increase productivity and profitability.

Understanding workflows and business processes Business processes define how work gets done in an organization. Most managers are responsible for business process management including implementing lean manufacturing principles, specifically eliminating superfluous steps, and determining automation where possible.

Automated workflows are a series of steps in a business process that have been digitally automated. A simplified automated workflow allows sales personnel to enter a sales order from a new customer into a digital system.

Thomas R. Cutler is the President and CEO of Fort Lauderdale, Floridabased, TR Cutler, Inc., celebrating its 22nd year. Cutler is the founder of the Manufacturing Media Consortium including more than 8000 journalists, editors, and economists writing about trends in manufacturing, industry, material handling, and process improvement.

Cutler authors more than 1000 feature articles annually regarding the manufacturing sector. More than 4800 industry leaders follow Cutler on Twitter daily at @ThomasRCutler.

Contact Cutler at trcutler@ trcutlerinc.com, or visit https:// www.trcutlerinc.com/.

The free template referenced in the text is available here: https://oroinc.com/ b2b-ecommerce/freerfp-template/?utm_ source=pr&utm_medium=trcutler&utm_campaign=byline

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RETAIL SUPPLY CHAIN

Adapt and evolve Retail logistics in the time of Covid. By Philip Ashton

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liché or not, the world has changed beyond imagination in the past 12 months, and much of the retail industry has borne the brunt of the impact of the pandemic. Predictions made as recently as 2019 are now firmly outdated, as the uncertainty brought on by Brexit and Covid-19 has transformed the business landscape. For retailers, survival is predicated on keeping up with consumer expectations, particularly around home deliveries and returns. Supply chains have never been so important.

As of November 2020, online sales accounted for more than a third of all retail sales (36 per cent), up 67 per cent from the year before (21 per cent). As the population retreated to their homes and high streets and shopping centers alike were left empty, online consumer spending boomed, increasing

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by 50 per cent in just eight months. As retail businesses in the UK attempt to navigate the complexities of Brexit and thrive despite the near non-existent footfall, a resilient and efficient supply chain is vital in order for them to make seamless online business a priority, and serve the needs of their customers.

Customer experience-focused logistics One major impact of the Covid-19 pandemic is that e-commerce trends that have been gradually developing in recent years have suddenly accelerated. As 2021 is being viewed as a year to recuperate some of the lost revenue from 2020, retailers that fail to adapt and update their supply chains to meet consumer demands could face fatal problems.

As a result, this year will see retailers using storefronts as fulfilment hubs, personalizing

and automating the online support experience and enhancing their in-store offerings with technology as part of the move towards a seamless omnichannel shopping experience.

New research commissioned by 7bridges, together with recently published research from the ONS, shows that shoppers who have a preference for online are higher spenders, spending nearly 169 per cent more than their high-street equivalents. This means that, for the foreseeable future, online is where retailers can generate their growth and profits, if they can also get a handle on the new costs that come with this key battleground.

The Amazon example Amazon continues to dominate in the ecommerce space, setting the standard for online shopping experiences and enjoying record sales in the second half of 2020 as a

result. Despite the challenges arising from pandemic-related border closures and even as its EU sales take a hit from post-Brexit charges on shipping to and from the continent, Amazon is thriving. But how can retailers follow its example?

Delivery and returns – quick, cheap and green?

With so many consumers moving online to shop, retailers need to provide the experience they expect. What this looks like in real terms is investing in smart technology so that the online experience delights in speed, cost and sustainability. This can include optimizing end-to-end logistics for an exceptional delivery and returns service, including multiple delivery options to suit all needs (standard, next-day, last-minute); keeping delivery rates in line with consumer expectations; and prioritizing ecofriendly and functional packaging over an eyecatching design more commonly deployed to compete for attention on a shop shelf. It may sound like a tall order, but technology really is making it possible.

Our research showed that environmentally friendly delivery and packaging options are not simply preferred, but that they actively influence purchasing decisions, particularly among Gen Z and millennial shoppers. Fiftyeight per cent of 25-34 year-olds actively select carbon-neutral delivery options, while 62 per cent say that their choice of retailer is affected by the availability of eco-friendly or minimized packaging. Retailers wanting to keep costs low is understandable, but it’s worth noting that 52 per cent of online customers say they would continue buying from the same company if they get their orders in premium packaging.

experience an increase in online sales within the catchment of a bricks-and-mortar store.

Adapt existing infrastructure

Don’t wait for the unexpected

With shops across the country left empty, repurposing physical storefronts into virtual warehouses can help boost logistics operations, shortening the distance to the end consumer. This temporary ‘ship-fromstore’ model is already being implemented successfully by brands such as Selfridges in London, as retailers look to mitigate the loss of consumers walking through their doors.

Retailers with existing stores can use them as a valuable asset in their online sales efforts, particularly in situations where footfall is drastically reduced, such as localized lockdowns. Integrating existing assets into the supply chain infrastructure not only helps fulfil online sales in the most efficient ways possible, but also offsets the costs of keeping stores.

This, in turn, boosts the brand’s visibility and can impact total sales volumes, as shown in research from CACI, which found that brands

The key takeaway for retailers over the past year should be that waiting for the unexpected to happen is a bad strategy - and will lead to disaster. No matter what you have planned, any number of things can disrupt businessas-usual, from localized extreme weather events to national-level political or economic decision-making or even a global pandemic.

In 2021, retailers must resolve to prioritize resilience and flexibility in their supply chains so they are less exposed to unforeseen delays or costs.

One example of this adaptability is implementing a multi-provider logistics strategy to help avoid absorbing damage from third-party difficulties. For example, in January, DPD’s road service was halted by problems with the manual paperwork processes and incomplete data. Any retailers unable to switch to an alternative shipping provider rapidly will

have suffered as a result. The inflexibility of operating with a limited number of carriers leaves businesses vulnerable to both additional costs or surcharges as well as poor carrier performance.

Resilience is not a new requirement for retailers – the sector has evolved with the markets and societies, and has always had to adapt to unforeseen circumstances. The imperative for retail businesses is ensuring their operational models are robust enough to overcome current hurdles. Combining astute strategic planning and effective digital transformation tools will give many a leg up in the market.

Philip Ashton is co-founder and CEO of 7bridges. 7bridges is a smart logistics platform that uses AI technology to transform logistics for scalable, sustainable and profitable business growth. It was co-founded in 2016

by Philip Ashton and Matei Beremski, with the aim of transforming and democratizing logistics with smart technology. www.the7bridges.com

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RFID

Time to investigate Invest in RFID and novel flexible electronics technology to improve supply chain operations. By Gillian Ewers

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n today’s challenging times retailers and brands are looking for even more innovative ways to boost business, improve supply chain efficiencies and engage with their consumers.

Incorporating low-cost RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) and novel flexible electronics technology into everyday objects could be a real game changer.

The retail industry has had an especially difficult time during the last 12 months. On the one hand, essential food shops have been incredibly busy and endured supply chain problems; whereas non-essential physical shops have been forced to close during lockdown periods and focus online, with more than a few failing to make things work. The widespread impact of the Covid-19 crisis has compelled retailers and brands to improve operational efficiencies and logistics, and to build stronger relationships with their

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consumers in order to survive. In many ways, it has accelerated a process that was already in motion before the pandemic, encouraging them to invest in technology that can help to improve supply chain processes and to connect with consumers more effectively.

RFID is not new. It has been around for some time and is widely used in the apparel sector for stock management. This leverages conventional electronics - silicon integrated circuits (ICs), but even though there have been cost reductions of over 50 per cent in the last ten years, the price remains far too high for the Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) sector, where items cost one or two pounds (or euros/dollars) and the packaging pennies.

Plus, on the practical side, bulky, rigid siliconbased inlays (tags) can be felt under thin labels and are also susceptible to impact damage on high-speed packaging lines.

Low-cost RFID and novel flexible electronics

offer an exciting alternative to conventional silicon-based solutions. These can be combined with blockchain and cloud-based services to monitor goods from the point of origin, through manufacturing and right up to the end of product life. This provides a range of benefits including provenance, authentication, supply chain tracking, stock control, and can even help to increase recycling rates.

The traditional method of identification on packages in the retail environment has been 2D or 3D barcodes. As these require no additional manufacturing resources these are simply printed along with the rest of the label.

However, apart from some initial success in Asia, most consumers have not really engaged with these codes, even after smartphone camera apps were updated to automatically read them. In addition, these codes are limited to the SKU / product level, as conventional

printing lines cannot generate unique item level codes. That would require digital printing, and/or double-pass printing (once through a traditional printer then a digital printer for the barcode), which would add extra costs. Barcodes are also visible and can be copied by counterfeiters quite easily.

Near Field Communication (NFC) is a type of RFID technology that operates over short distances and can be read by NFC-enabled smartphones. NFC can be added underneath the existing product label, so it does not take up valuable marketing real estate and could be used in both the supply chain and also by the end consumer, pre- and post-sale. A unique identifier can be associated with each item that can then be securely logged into a cloud database. By tracking and recording the item at each stage of the manufacturing and supply journey, it is possible to prove provenance and to reduce grey market activities (where goods

are not counterfeit but are bought in a lowpriced country and then sold in another for a much higher price).

Now is the ideal time for serious players in the retail industry to investigate and invest in technology innovations, such as smart packaging which leverages low-cost RFID and cutting-edge flexible electronics, in order to streamline supply chain operations and boost business. These forward-thinking retailers will be well rewarded.

Gillian Ewers is VP Marketing at PragmatIC Semiconductor. PragmatIC Semi manufactures ultra-low-cost, flexible electronics that are thinner than a human hair and each cost less than one cent to produce.

The potential for PragmatIC’s production technology is huge - with opportunities for introducing intelligence and interactivity to everyday items, enabling the potential for trillions of smart objects. www.pragmaticsemi.com

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OUTSOURCING

Making connections The changing world of outsourcing connectors and why industrial customers are increasingly driven by retail experiences. By Jonathan Parry

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riven by ever-evolving customer demands for faster fulfilment, the connector industry is undergoing rapid change. Suppliers are now expected to offer both transactional offerings, as well as bespoke development.

Most of us probably don’t give a second thought to the connectors we use in our everyday lives. They either come bundled with the products we buy, or they’re easily purchased using our favorite online shopping app. In industry, however — especially in

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mission critical sectors such as military, aerospace and medical — the reliability of the connector can mean the difference between success or failure; life or death.

Two approaches While there is no fixed definition for what it means to outsource a connector — it does, after all, mean different things to different people — in my experience, it means one of two things.

The first type of customer that outsources

a connector is what we refer to at PEIGenesis as a redistribution business. This is typically a large catalogue style business selling everything from semiconductors to stepladders, as well as connectors. This type of customer will ask us to supply the inventory, but also fulfil the order. Here, we use a dropshipping model to process the order directly to the end-customer using the reseller’s branding and preferred packaging.

For the customer, it makes no difference where the product arrives from, and for the

businesses. Best Buy, for example, now offers same-day delivery; order by 3pm and in many cases, you’ll receive your order by 9pm.

Compare this to the 24-week lead time for a typical connector manufacturer, and it’s easy to see why customers can become frustrated. This change is forcing connector manufacturers to adapt. At PEI-Genesis, we already offer a 48-hour lead time because we hold inventory in component form, and can assemble and ship orders thanks to high levels of automation.

However, even this in some cases isn’t fast enough and so we’re looking into processes like picking-and-shipping of finished goods.

Here, we hold bonded, or reserved, stock of finished parts for specific customers.

This approach is higher risk because no manufacturer wants to hold high volumes of finished parts in case product specifications change and the parts become obsolete.

However, we can manage some of this risk by carefully listening to customer needs over the course of a multi-year project, and adapt as required.

Segmentation strategy

reseller it alleviates a major resource and time burden of having to receive parts from us and then process, package, and ship them.

The second type of outsourcing we see involves the bespoke development of a connector for a specialized application. A defense customer, for example, may need to specify a connector with a specific electroless nickel plating for corrosion protection, or with a backshell that provides protection against electromagnetic or radiofrequency interference. For these extreme scenarios, the connector must be carefully engineered.

This is where outsourcing relies on the expertise of the supplier to provide engineering support. These kinds of projects may take two to three years in development, and involve a close working relationship where

your supplier joins your design meetings to help you through the process.

For most businesses, the connector makes up a small part of a much bigger product, and so outsourcing gives access to expertise including 3D drawings, tooling, and physical prototyping to drive forward the project — a process that would otherwise require the development of in-house specialisms that may take years to master.

Faster fulfilment The connector industry is also seeing a growing demand for faster fulfilment.

Customer behavior in the industrial segments is being driven by buyers’ own experiences as retail customers. The impact of retail businesses like Amazon and Best Buy are driving consumers to expect more of industrial

The lesson here is that outsourcing, particularly for connectors, is not a one-sizefits-all approach. Sometimes businesses will seek out parts at the best price point and are looking for an effective transactional relationship, other times businesses are looking to build a partnership with a trusted advisor that lasts many years. Whichever the case, it’s important that suppliers use an effective segmentation strategy to cater for the needs of the customer.

Part of a transactional segmentation strategy, for example, may involve offering connectors at a variety of quality levels, from good, better and best — to match the pricing needs of the customer — while maintaining the likes of AS9100D and ISO 9001:2015 quality standards.

The connector industry is undergoing a change in consumer behavior, and the supply chain must respond. By carefully listening to customers, understanding their business and tailoring your approach to match, suppliers can rise to meet the challenge.

Jonathan Parry is Senior VP and MD Europe at connector specialist PEI-Genesis, a leading global provider of custom engineered connector and cable solutions. PEI partners with you from design to delivery – it designs custom connector and cable solutions to meet your specific application requirements and then delivers with service, speed and a consistent quality that is unmatched in the industry. www.peigenesis.com

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DIGITAL TRIGGERS

Tied together Digital identities: the key to true transparency in the supply chain.

By Tyler Chaffo

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ecent months have shown us the importance of supply chains. I never thought that the conversations I have at work around traceability and transparency would be had in almost equal measure with family and friends. But certainly Covid-19 has brought supply chains under sharper focus.

Organizations have been calling out for more transparency than ever before.

‘Transparency’ can mean many things. Of course, firms want to know exactly where goods are and that orders to customers can be fulfilled. This critical need will not change, but it can (and should) go deeper to knowing exactly where a product comes from – ideally

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right down to the raw material it was sourced from to the factory it was made in.

Sustainability is being driven from the boardroom as well as by consumers Why care now? Interestingly, 65 per cent of business leaders identify sustainability as an even bigger priority post Covid-19. What was already on the boardroom agenda has become more important. Equally as important is the fact that 83 per cent of that same group also believe that supply chains and associated technologies can support sustainability objectives. And there is consumer pull too with 70 per cent of consumers now believing that

trust in a brand is more important than in the past – knowing how a product is sourced and brought to market is critical to this.

Introducing digital identities The introduction of digital identities is a ‘game changer’ which offers consumers the highest standards of visibility, safety, education, and authenticity possible, while giving businesses complete control over their supply chains. This process represents a full journey from raw material to production and even end of life of the product.

RFID is one such technology that can act as a digital trigger – a machine readable label or tag unique to that product which

gives it a digital ‘birth certificate’. Retail, and particularly apparel, has implemented hundreds of projects with billions of tags utilized. RFID use is now expanding rapidly in other areas, including cosmetics and beauty, food production, processing automation, distribution of goods, aviation, automobile and industrial manufacturing, healthcare, and pharmaceuticals as well as logistics and fulfilment. Whilst it was once viewed as a technology just for the supply chain – tracking items, pallets, and cases and so forth – it is now being employed to create business value at store level, to launch consumer-engagement applications.

Yet RFID is only part of the puzzle. Digital triggers come in various forms including passive Bluetooth, NFC, QR codes and even the humble barcode. It depends on what the product is and the application it is being used for. What’s key is to centralize the intelligence around each of these triggers into one system and make use of the data.

A digital ‘birth certificate’ How might it work? A digital ‘birth certificate’ could be assigned to a product at point of origin which contains provenance related information of the product; how was it made, was it made sustainably and ethically, what percentage of recycled content does it have?

As the product moves through the supply chain, event-level data such as RFID scans at DCs and fulfilment centers can update the digital ID with the latest information.

Then once it reaches the retailer, inventory availability can be shared with customers to highlight where products are available.

These products might also have an NFC tag or a QR code that a consumer could use their mobile phone to interact with and find out more about. Finally, when the product has reached the end of its useful life the unique digital identity can be used to highlight what to do with the product based upon its journey including its applicability for recycling or resale.

Looking ahead Over the last year, supply chains have been tested like never before. Yet in many cases it has brought technology decisions forward and means that organizations are in better shape to address all the critical components which make true transparency possible. Digital triggers

now come in many different forms. It means that it is becoming possible to tie all these together and gain true transparency as to not just where a product might be at one point in time but where exactly it has come from.

Tyler Chaffo is Manager, Global Sustainability, Intelligent Labels at Avery Dennison, a global materials science company, specializing in the design and production of a wide variety of labeling and functional materials. The company’s products are used by most industries and include self-adhesive, pressure-sensitive materials for labeling and visual communication applications; tapes and other solutions for industrial, medical and retail applications; clothing labels, tags and props; in addition to radio frequency identification (RFID) solutions for the fashion market and others. www.averydennison.com https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=HkF_o6kGxRA

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TRENDS

A new era?

How businesses are responding to the fragility of the modern supply chain.

By Mark Dorman

R

arely in modern times have we seen both supply and demand be so severely and simultaneously disrupted. The complex nature of supply chains and their reliance on huge physical assets means they are not adept at dealing with global disruption and speedy transformation.

Covid-19 has been a test for the resilience of supply chains across the manufacturing and engineering sectors, but it is a test that these sectors are rising to. We are now witnessing a response from businesses which are completely reconsidering and reconfiguring their principles around production, storage and day-to-day business operations.

before manufacturing commences – has traditionally been the guiding principle for any manufacturer. Multi-sourcing components is after all the clear route to reducing costs, but Covid-19 has exposed the fragility of the model – which cannot cope with international travel and trade restrictions.

With repeat lockdowns across the globe, the idea of purchasing thousands of components from dozens of countries across every continent is unlikely to hold the attractiveness it has done for at least 200 years.

The natural question is what does this mean for manufacturing and engineering?

Global supply chains - Just in Time moving to Just in Case

According to McKinsey, the performance benchmark for on-time, in-full delivery is 95 per cent and low overall cost means nothing if reliability of delivery cannot be guaranteed

The just-in-time model – which is defined by materials arriving at location just

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The rebirth of onshoring

from start-to-end. As such, forecasting, planning, manufacturing and distribution operations need to be reassessed by manufacturers to uphold this benchmark and where ‘just-in-time’ fits within it.

The principle of ‘just-in-time’ may remain if the supply chain can be onshored and contained within a country’s borders. In other words, purchasing products within your business’ land borders will become increasingly attractive. It means that the demand for ships, planes, and customs declarations is diminished drastically.

We expect to see intermodal transport begin to thrive, particularly in the UK, with freight trains also taking on a greater role in transporting components to manufacturing plants, while fleets of light-commercial vehicles will dramatically increase given that last-mile delivery is more important now than ever.

If offshore trade continues to be vulnerable to any number of government restrictions, bringing purchasing decisions onshore is arguably simpler – albeit costs may be higher.

However, a return to onshoring is not the sole change we are going to witness in the manufacturing and engineering industries.

AI and automation: buzzwords no more For years, AI and automation have been buzzwords used to promote a forwardthinking approach. But they were part of digitalization plans that had long-lead timeframes – nestled within five-year plans and discussion about Industry 4.0.

If anything, the Covid-19 pandemic has made manufacturers realize that automation is their best friend in adjusting to the ‘new normal’ of one-way systems and social distancing because it allows machines to

occupy the newly created space between humans – literal social distancing.

Meanwhile AI enables manufacturers to drive efficiency within their business in real-time, as it crunches the data on business productivity and uses this to inform decisions about overall operations. The power of AI cannot be understated: rarely before have we faced such disruption to our day-to-day lives and in the absence of any historical data sets to interpret, it is AI that can begin to digest this data and help businesses make crucial decisions at the right time.

Covid-19 could mark a new era for global trade The Covid-19 pandemic has rewritten the rulebook on global trade – a rulebook that we have treated as sacrosanct for decades. It is the case that manufacturing and engineering are top of the list for industries to revive

- governments across the board know the domestic success of these industries is one of the surest ways to mend an injured economy.

Every trend we are seeing points to the sectors being ready to embrace talent and businesses who are ready to adopt the benefits of onshoring and the unquestionable power of technology as the recovery begins.

Mark Dorman is CEO of SThree, a leading STEM recruiter. SThree is the only global pure play specialist staffing business focused on roles in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). It brings skilled people together to build the future through the provision of specialist Contract and Permanent services to a diverse client base of over 9,000 clients. SThree brands include Progressive, Computer Futures, Huxley Associates and Real Staffing Group.

The Group has circa 3,000 employees in 16 countries. www.sthree.com

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DIGITAL SUPPLY CHAIN

Data intelligence

How a digital supply chain platform provides transparency and drives process optimization. By Bart Coppelmans

A

s online and digital purchasing has become so large-scale in both B2C and B2B setups, the importance of an efficient supply chain has never been greater. Because of this, visibility and transparency in the supply chain has become a basic requirement, as customers expect real-time visibility in intermodal supply chains, akin to the consumer experience when ordering a package.

Today, it is no longer good enough to know a container is in a particular city. We want

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to know the precise location of a shipment, get the estimated time of arrival (ETA) to its destination and guide and track the shipment at every step of its journey. Location services have evolved in line with these increased demands and are helping customers to get this level of visibility.

Despite significant investments into legacy solutions, only six per cent of companies believe they’ve achieved full supply chain visibility. Factors such as missing industry standards, the overall complexity of

supply chains, differing legacy systems and proprietary tracking solutions are leading to many solutions in silos, hence digitizing the challenge but not solving it. A platform approach is the most critical step to achieving full visibility and a ground level investment for further optimization, self-healing, and automation of the supply chain.

Being able to tap into an array of location intelligence, from transport management systems to asset tracking hardware, as well as location components, can help deliver this

“ Customers want platforms that are quick to set-up and consume micro services which provide quick results, and this changes how we can consider IT structures of the future.

Because of this we can expect the acceleration of digitalized supply chains to quicken, as customers who decide to digitalize their supply chain will want instant results

desired visibility. A digitalized supply chain allows live data to track each aspect of the chain. Location intelligence is crucial in the full end-to-end supply chain process: from planning to transport execution and optimizing inbound logistics.

High numbers of interfaces The current state of the intermodal datasharing environment has not yet matured to the point where carriers or other logistics partners are providing the necessary

information to make this kind of visibility a reality. Recent research suggests there’s still work to do in digitally connecting the intermodal supply chain. Companies have more data than they’re typically sharing with their logistic partners, which can leave those partners in the dark in terms of intermodal visibility. Historically, there has been some resistance to share too much data, but the lack of visibility can cause various challenges within the supply chain, such as restricting the accuracy of estimated arrival times, which

creates inefficient handovers that affect many stakeholders within the supply chain.

To improve the efficiency of the supply chain, businesses must use real time location data for inbound tracking. This aids visibility of arrival times and enables them to recalculate loading and unloading points on-time. IoT enables many factors to be integrated into this - whether the delivery is made by rail, air, sea or by truck, whether the goods are packaged or brought in bulk, the rates of the loading points and so on –

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DIGITAL SUPPLY CHAIN

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meaning there are many challenges in the way of an optimized supply chain.

Real-time location and shipment monitoring data can be used to allow for predictive models which enable customers to react and respond based on what they are seeing from the data. Proactive alerts for the likes of traffic jams or shipment conditions enable adjustments to be made, such as re-routing or preventing a dead-on-arrival shipment. This data needs to be proactively communicated and the customer needs to be able to rely on the data analytics to optimize its operations and ensure customer satisfaction. The spread of predictive analytics tools in supply chains has added another layer of expectation to the concept of visibility. It is not just about where — it’s also about using data to provide estimates on a potential arrival time and to proactively respond if something is happening. Companies tend to be more loyal to vendors that pre-emptively fix mistakes than to vendors that never make mistakes.

The information from these predictive models can be fed in to alter the delivery date to the customer, enabling transparency of the supply chain at every level. The ambition is to bring the data from various predictive analytics models together to a central point and create a strong level of connection to every part of the supply chain – both physical and technological.

The impact of Coronavirus The Coronavirus pandemic has underlined the importance of transparency. As entire supply chains were shut down, many companies struggled with reduced visibility and being unable to identify when and where breaches in the chain occurred. This highlighted existing inefficiencies in many companies’ supply chains and created an opportunity to accelerate improvements through digitalization.

One lesson we have learnt from the pandemic is that IT investment has changed.

Customers would previously buy a license to a platform and then implement it after the point of purchase. But now there is a different way of thinking around the immediacy of the standard set-up of processes that fit around the business programme of the customer.

Solutions can no longer afford to have a transportation gap, and purchasers expect the implementation time to be very short.

There is reason to be optimistic as data availability and information sharing has improved in recent years with platform providers offering horizontal platforms that connect different players in the ecosystem

to ensure cross-industry collaboration.

Customers want platforms that are quick to set-up and consume micro services which provide quick results, and this changes how we can consider IT structures of the future. Because of this we can expect the acceleration of digitalized supply chains to quicken, as customers who decide to digitalize their supply chain will want instant results.

A centralized view The desire for instant results means that companies benefit most when they invest in a solution that is scalable, easy to deploy and can start quickly. This can be expanded step-by-step, but crucially while you expand you are already benefitting from a boosted data-driven system. Increasingly, larger players are steering away from standard, less flexible solutions in the market and would rather redesign and build their supply chain or transport management platform by consuming microservices & APIs, and then building on top of that.

This enables companies to invest in an open ecosystem which can find the right datasets.

It is possible to draw on shipment, transport planning, traffic or weather data to inform predictive models, but the most crucial aspect is selecting the right data that will provide the most impactful results, and this is best achieved in solutions that are scalable and easy to deploy.

This could be through the use of IoT on timeslot management of one particular site, to boost its efficiency at this location, and then the live data taken from this can be used to inform timeslot management at other distribution centers. This is done by creating a digital yard and venue maps with location services that can be communicated throughout the chain, providing exact ETA’s to improve timeslot management. This can provide businesses with competitive advantage by boosting efficiency and enabling data-informed decision-making in stock ordering and product management.

This is particularly pertinent in light of the Coronavirus and changes we have seen in 2020, where there is increased uncertainty for every business and this can be expected to go on well into 2021. As a result, decisionmaking driven by location technology is more vital than ever, underlining the value of transparency in the supply chain.

Bart Coppelmans is Senior Manager Industry Solutions at HERE Technologies.

HERE, a location data and technology platform, moves people, businesses and cities forward by harnessing the power of location.

By leveraging its open platform, it empowers its customers to achieve better outcomes from helping a city manage its infrastructure or a business optimize its assets to guiding drivers to their destination safely. www.here.com http://360.here.com

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News In Brief Business transformation Blue Yonder, a world leader in digital supply chain and omni-channel commerce fulfillment, has announced that Philip Morris International Inc. (PMI), a leading international tobacco company, has selected its SaaS- and cloud-based transportation management solution (TMS) to complete its end-to-end supply chain strategy.

As PMI continues to transform its business to deliver a smoke-free future by commercializing smoke-free products around the globe, it is adapting its supply-

Full solutions

chain including its digital transportation

JLT Mobile Computers has joined the Ivanti Wavelink Device Validation Solutions Program.

management. Supporting PMI, Blue Yonder

This program enables device manufacturers offering solutions for the supply chain and

will provide a scalable solution that will help

warehousing industries to rapidly validate their products for the Ivanti Wavelink software

PMI to manage global freight by providing

platform, which facilitates device and wireless infrastructure management, terminal

visibility, allowing the company to better

emulation, voice, and mobile application development without the need to modify backend

plan, optimize, and deliver the right goods

systems. Customers of Ivanti-validated JLT rugged mobile computers benefit from easy

while centrally tracking the entire cost

access to mobile-enablement solutions that boost supply chain efficiency, productivity and

to deliver. As a result, this will enable PMI

security in the warehouse and across the supply chain.

to better service its B2B customers, and

“JLT Mobile Computers prides itself in providing best-in-class rugged mobile computing

enhance its ability to extend its reach to

devices for our customers in warehousing, transportation, manufacturing, mining, ports,

serve its B2C base through secondary

and agriculture. Now we can offer our hardware pre-validated for use with the Ivanti

distribution channels.

Wavelink suite of software products such as their terminal emulator, industrial browser and voice picking,” said Eric Miller, CEO at JLT Mobile Computers USA. “For our customers, knowing that everything will work together right out of the box is huge. Pre-validation

Perfect picking

totally eliminates trial and error and the uncertainty of mixing and matching hardware and

Cimcorp, a manufacturer and integrator

software. We’re now selling complete and fully validated solutions.”

of turnkey robotic order fulfilment and tire-handling solutions has successfully implemented a robotic Layer Pick solution for third-party logistics (3PL) provider

Total oversight

GEODIS at its warehouse located in

InfinityQS® International, Inc., (InfinityQS) has

Clayton, Indiana. Cimcorp has partnered

revealed that King & Prince Seafood® has

with systems integrator Advanced Handling

standardized on InfinityQS Quality Intelligence

Systems (AHS) for the project, in which

software across all three of its US production

Cimcorp’s technology is integrated into an

plants. Using InfinityQS, King & Prince leverages

automated distribution solution. As a key

real-time data visibility to uphold its commitment

solution feature, the Layer Pick system will

to quality by proactively monitoring more than 100 processes in its plants.

enable faster order fulfilment and ensure

purchases raw seafood materials via an extensive global sourcing network. Because these

At the Clayton facility, GEODIS specifically

materials represent 60-75 per cent of the finished product enjoyed by King & Prince

handles warehousing and distribution

consumers, it’s critical that these raw materials meet quality standards and avoid issues

operations for one of the largest suppliers

further down the supply chain. By requiring that suppliers digitally collect and share quality

of over-the-counter health products in

data through InfinityQS software, King & Prince achieves total oversight of third-party

North America.

inspections - before products even leave their country of origin.

Cimcorp’s Layer Pick solution will drastically

24

As part of Nissui - the second largest seafood company in the world - King & Prince

complete picking accuracy.

As Tracy McConnell, Vice President of Technical Services at King & Prince, notes: “Bringing

increase throughput for GEODIS, picking an

in high-quality seafood that meets our tight specifications directly translates into a high-end

impressive 3,000 layers of product a day in

final product, which positively affects both our revenue and our reputation.” The collected

just two shifts – with 100 per cent accuracy,

supplier data also facilitates purchasing decisions, in which the company’s procurement

full product traceability and no need for

managers use the data to review supplier capability and determine which suppliers to use

manual picking.

when producing new items.

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NEWS Seamless integration

Software suite

Port Logistics Group/Whiplash (PLG/WL) has signed a multi-

With supply chains becoming more dependent on mobile workers to meet

year logistics contract with Moda Operandi, a major online

productivity goals, Honeywell has announced a suite of enhanced supply chain

marketplace for luxury fashion and apparel.

software, featuring digital disruptors, to provide a powerful solution to increase

Under this contract, Port Logistics Group/Whiplash will

efficiencies and deliver better customer experiences.

provide Moda Operandi with a range of services including

The supply chain suite, which can be installed on Honeywell mobile computers,

order management, fulfilment, distribution, and custom

is designed to help mobile workers throughout the retail, manufacturing,

packaging, backed by the power of the proprietary Whiplash

pharmaceutical and transportation and logistics industries become more

ecommerce platform.

productive and make actionable decisions.

“A major advantage for us from the outset was that

The software suite also includes Honeywell’s Operational Intelligence software

Port Logistics Group/Whiplash is very experienced in

platform, and when also combined with the Honeywell Smart Talk unified

working with major fashion retailers, both online and

workforce communications application, mobile workers have the tools to give

offline,” said Nikhil Soares, ecommerce Supply Chain and

them actionable insights and the ability to act upon them.

Operations Executive for Moda Operandi. “Their high-level

The three solutions have an open API architecture, allowing businesses to

understanding of the industry gave us confidence that they

integrate these applications with other work-essential software. Greater visibility

understood our needs and our desire to offer our clients an

can be achieved through centralizing data that usually scattered throughout the

enhanced level of service.

organization giving

“The Whiplash ecommerce technology platform has

customers greater

been the ultimate trump card for Moda Operandi. The

transparency

ability to integrate so seamlessly with our online store has

enabling them

given us a level of flexibility and control that we’ve never

to move from

had before,” added Soares. “Fulfilment is complex for an

reactive problem

operation of our size, and there are a lot of moving parts

addressing to real

to consider. PLG/WL gave us full visibility from day one. We

time problem

feel so welcomed by the team whenever we visit the facility

solving with end-

because they’re just as invested as we are in making Moda

to-end operational

succeed.”

visibility.

Delivering healthcare Tecsys builds supply chain solutions that equip organizations for the evolving demands of business; these demands have been bent and stretched more rapidly in the aftermath of Covid-19 than ever in recent history because of widespread disruption to workforces and supply availability. In healthcare, the critical need to shield against supply chain disruption and increase resiliency has been widely acknowledged; together with their software partners, US healthcare supply chain leaders are defining new industry best practices to stay adaptable in the face of increased volatility.

This shift has created a healthcare supply chain landscape ripe for the kind of transformation by which Tecsys has earned its reputation. Several national health systems have adopted Tecsys’ supply chain platform, and among them, Tecsys is delighted to be working with UC (University of Cincinnati) Health to build on this tradition of innovation and adhere to the highest standards of quality, safety, service and price.

Tecsys is helping UC Health to improve data capture practices, strengthen operational visibility, control costs and reduce non-value-added tasks.

By automating supply chain processes across the health system, Tecsys is supporting UC Health’s longstanding legacy of delivering progressive and patient-centric healthcare to its community.

“We selected Tecsys to automate demand capture at over 200 inventory locations in order to unencumber staff from collecting demand data at the inventory site while ensuring alignment with the health system’s forthcoming ERP needs,” says Matt VonderHaar, director of Supply Chain Analytics, UC Health.

As the healthcare industry continues to change and the impact of government regulations becomes more prevalent, Tecsys’ supply chain platform provides the network flexibility and connectivity to address and report on those changes.

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Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP)

A healthy

approach

Thanks to strong supplier relationships and a firm strategy for future development, the Supply Chain team at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) steered through the coronavirus pandemic and is poised for the future

I

nspired by a visit to Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children in London, Francis West Lewis, MD founded Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) in 1855. The nation’s first hospital devoted exclusively to the care of children, CHOP has been the birthplace for countless breakthroughs and dramatic firsts in pediatric medicine since its beginnings.

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CHOP’s evolution into one of America’s finest children’s hospitals has been a fascinating journey. It has grown from just 12 beds and a dispensary into a state-of-the-art medical facility, and now features 600 beds and more than one million outpatient visits and inpatient admissions each year. The hospital has fostered medical discoveries and innovations that have

improved pediatric healthcare and saved countless children’s lives. Today, families facing complex conditions come to CHOP from all over the world, and its compassionate care and innovation has repeatedly earned it a spot on the US News & World Report’s Honor Roll of the nation’s best children’s hospitals.

Given that the ethos and reputation of CHOP

is built on a foundation of delivering safe, highquality, family-centered care, the teams that keep the hospital functioning have to ensure that

operations and ensure that standards of care are always upheld.

One such department is Supply Chain

they are always at the top of their game. This doesn’t just apply to the front-line doctors and nurses that deliver the hands-on care for which the facility is renowned, but also the various other departments that are essential to maintain

Management, which is responsible for the contracting, procurement, storage and distribution of all supplies, equipment and services, as well as managing supplier relationships across the organization.

Centralizing Supplies and Getting Creative During the Pandemic A highly complex and multifaceted area to manage during normal circumstances, in 2020 the CHOP Supply Chain Management Team was faced with the challenges of Covid-19.

From a supply chain perspective, as Joni M. Rittler, Vice President, Supply Chain Management

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Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) Artist’s impression of the new building

Belimed Inc.

Belimed Inc. are a leading supplier of medical and surgical instrument sterilization, disinfection, and cleaning products and services. Established in 1990, with global headquarters in Zug Switzerland and US headquarters in Charleston, SC, we are continually evolving our technology-driven portfolio; innovating ways to improve reliability, efficiency, and sustainability in sterile processing departments.

As engineers of confidence, we build trust and value by precisely identifying and resolving customer challenges and optimizing requirements to improve their overall work environment. Our complete spectrum of sterile workflow solutions includes planning and design, market-leading equipment, consumables, servicing, data connectivity, education and training. Visit us atwww.belimed.com.

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noted, there was an immediate problem to solve. “Like most hospitals attempting to acquire additional PPE supplies, the Supply Chain team at CHOP was very creative in responding to the organization’s needs, and initially centralized the ordering and distribution of all PPE related supplies to safeguard inventory and ensure

it had adequate supplies where needed. Two examples of creativity involved contracting with a local distillery to get hand sanitizer and engaging local suppliers to sew masks that were used for patients and families.”

Leftover supplies that could not be used at the hospital were donated to Habitat for

Humanity, and CHOP also assisted many small, local, and minority suppliers in keeping their teams employed during a challenging time.

“The Supply Chain team met daily with clinical teams to review supply inventories and implement conservation efforts as needed.”

When N95 masks became scarce, the team organized efforts to reprocess the masks to ensure adequate supplies. Additionally, the team managed many generous donations from the community and assured that product was reviewed and approved for use in clinical areas.

Supply Chain worked with CHOP’s research and lab departments to create 3D printed supplies or to repackage supplies safely. And in the early days of the pandemic, the department coordinated efforts to assemble and distribute the Covid-19 test kits. Most recently Supply Chain assisted with the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines for teachers and test kits to support the reopening of schools in the Philadelphia School District.”

Thanks to its actions and preparations, the Supply Chain team at CHOP helped to navigate the hospital through an unprecedented time, and its leader, Joni Rittler, credits the success of its response directly to its strategic planning.

“For several years, one of our goals was related to people,” she said. “We approached this goal from three perspectives: growing and developing our Supply Chain team, cultivating internal partnerships with clinical/business units and developing strong strategic partnerships with our suppliers. I believe our focused efforts in these areas paid off in spades during the pandemic, as our team was well prepared to quickly shift to remote work and still maintain our service expectations.”

Peter Schemm, Sr Director of Technology and Services, shared a great example of this in action with the readers of Supply Chain World.

When the Supply Chain needed more space to store additional personal protection equipment (PPE), they turned to local, small and diverse suppliers for storage space. He stated: “We quickly realized that we would not have adequate space to store the increased inventory that we would need to support the Covid-19 efforts,” he revealed. “Our Sourcing & Contracting team reached out to local suppliers to find warehouse space. We negotiated a contract with a local, minority owned business, Emsco Scientific Enterprises, Inc, that is located in West Philadelphia. EMSCO proved to be an excellent

Zebra Technologies Corporation

Healthcare distribution can be particularly challenging due to high SKU counts, regulatory requirements for lot-controlled items, various and often confusing pack-levels, and multiple temperature zones. Leveraging real-time data capture to track inventory is critical to both inventory control and providing adequate service to internal customers. CHOP partnered with Zebra Technologies to streamline their par activity, picking and receiving workflows with our mobile computers, mobile printers and print media.

CHOP is making investments in supply chain technology that will lay the foundation for improved responsiveness, better inventory control and operational efficiency. These capabilities will result in better support for the care-givers and ultimately contribute to improved patient outcomes. Zebra is proud to be an integral partner in CHOP’s supply chain enhancements.

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Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP)

PAR Excellence Systems Inc.

Demands on supply chain operations have never been higher but labor resources are harder to find and more expensive…

However, did you know that 30 MILLION times per day, PAR scales effortlessly track the consumption of supply item at hundreds of hospitals? Whether in nursing, surgery, cath lab or central pharmacy – PAR’s technology eliminates daily cycle counts and provides you with 100 per cent real time inventory visibility.

Address stock outs before they happen and make nurses smile.

Drive down inventory levels and get that pat on the back from your CFO. Free your talented staff to do higher value work.

Weight. Don’t wait. www.parexcellence.com

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partner, responding to our emergent needs and growing demands for more space.”

Utilizing Diverse Suppliers Another topic that saw increased focus during 2020 was supplier diversity. For the past five years, CHOP’s Supply Chain team has partnered with the hospital’s government affairs team and the City of Philadelphia to explore opportunities to utilize local, diverse suppliers in the

community, with an original focus on catering, promotional printing and marketing.

Recently they expanded their contract with Emsco to work with Fisher Scientific, Inc supporting their needs for lab supplies in the CHOP Research Institute.

Another example of the CHOP Supply Chain department demonstrating its commitment to diversity and inclusion is its role in the expansion of hair care products for inpatients to include

shampoo, conditioner, hair moisturizing lotion, brushes and caps specifically for those who identify as Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC). The team played a pivotal role in working with the hospital’s Office of Diversity & Inclusion, as well as various clinical teams, to search for and identify effective, quality products. Next, the Supply Chain team plans to trial skin lotion on a few units, with organizationwide implementation by early spring.

This particular project not only illustrates the careful thought and consideration that the Supply Chain team puts into every detail of their roles, but also highlights how people remain placed at the center of CHOP’s priorities.

“People are one of CHOP’s strategic initiatives,” Joni said. “The overall goal is to be the best place where the best people do the best work in support of children’s health. Within this strategy we focus on recruiting, developing and retaining top talent. We work to develop a culture of safety (keeping kids safe, allowing for open discussion, creating trust), reliability (always doing the best for every patient, part of the safety journey), accountability and innovation (which is integrated in our mission statement).”

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Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) Implementing a New ERP System and other technologies The timing of the pandemic’s arrival also brought with it another trial for CHOP’s Supply Chain team – in January 2020, it had just implemented WorkDay as a new ERP system, the result of years of work and planning. CHOP selected WorkDay as its replacement ERP in 2018 and it went live on January 1st, 2020. Peter Schemm shared: “CHOP made a strategic decision to move to a modern cloud-based ERP system, which could support a complete overhaul of the general ledger and represent a single solution which all departments would adopt.”

As the pandemic started to spread in March, the CHOP analytics team worked with Supply Chain to quickly re-direct data input to Workday and stand up its analytical dashboards. This enabled the department to share across the entire organization the amount of inventory it had for critical PPE supplies. This sharing had multiple impacts; it stressed the need to conserve when supplies were low, and it also helped to alleviate the anxiety related to having adequate supplies.

Having begun its ERP journey in 2017, CHOP had the goal to improve and streamline its administrative processes and supporting technology, and from its research, it realized that the scope actually included more than just the ERP. It chartered the Galileo Program, which involved Supply Chain, Human Resources, Finance and Information Services. Several new technologies were implemented including: Strata: to support financial planning, reporting, and decision making, Workday, which maintains critical human resources and financial information, is used for HR and Finance transactions, and for purchasing supplies and services for CHOP; and Coupa: to make it easier for CHOP users to find supplies and services they need while also saving money by buying at preferred contract rates.

CHOP continues to have a focus on technology and making the most of its technology assets. Since assuming responsibility for the Central Sterile Processing Department, it has focused on improving instrument tracking.

It has invested in Real Time Asset Locations solutions which have the potential to improve its management of equipment.

At the forefront is CHOP’s commitment to analytics and reporting, which is not exclusive to Supply Chain. Peter shared: “CHOP has an expansive Data Lake to mine data, including supply chain data, and has started to package this data into Blocks for simpler cross domain use.”

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A New Services and Logistics Center One of the most exciting advancements in the Supply Chain department is a new Service and Logistics center (SLC), scheduled to open in the summer of 2022. The facility will support and house functions such as Supply Chain, Central Sterile Processing, Information Services, Facilities, Biomed and Food & Nutrition.

Within the SLC, the team has created a digital service desk where access to all support departments will be aligned through a single portal. Both a warehouse management system and enhanced tools for materials handling will be implemented and there will be a primary focus on customer experience. The SLC will change how supplies, equipment, instruments and other services are managed at CHOP.

financial stewardship, clinical integration, people and data and analytics.”

Throughout the past year, the CHOP Supply Chain team has established a solid platform from which it can launch into the exciting period ahead. A commitment to being proactive vs. reactive, a shared vision with internal colleagues and suppliers and strategy-focused decision-making creates a resilient team that has demonstrated commitment, reliability and flexibility to meet the needs of the children CHOP serves.

Peter stated: “A shared services model will align redundant work under the Supply Chain team. For example, instead of supplies, patient nutritional supplies, linen and mail being delivered by separate teams, one team will be responsible for deliveries, consolidating as much as possible into a single delivery. In advance of the move to the SLC, we have already worked to begin this transition.”

The next few years promise to be both

exciting and challenging for the Supply Chain team at CHOP. To help ensure that it is as well prepared as possible, the team will be relying on the strong supplier relationships that it has been nurturing as part of an overall strategic plan involving key partners and a multi-level communication approach. Joni said: “Moving into FY22, the team continues to assess sustainability, financial and other risks, and focus on five primary pillars: service expansion,

Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) www.chop.edu Services: Children’s hospital

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Transdev U.S.

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Helping empower passengers with the freedom to move safely and reliably The largest private provider of transport in the U.S. continues to prioritize safety for its employees and communities by building trust and reassurance in its transportation services as we emerge from the pandemic into the future

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Transdev U.S.

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Sam Doshi, Head of Procurement at Transdev

hen governments first put in place travel restrictions, Transdev U.S. set in motion solutions that would keep communities safely moving and ensuring people could continue to have access to mobility. “Safety is our highest priority. Transdev has a strong commitment to championing a health and safety culture for our passengers, employees and the communities we serve,” confirms Samit (Sam) Doshi, Head of Procurement at Transdev.

This mega-business, which specializes in operating six transportation modes across the U.S., provides busses and shuttles for both public transit and school transport, paratransit, streetcar, micro-transit and autonomous vehicles from its fleet. It also supports 90 transit agencies, as well as several public and private healthcare providers for paratransit, call center and brokerage services in over 200 communities across the U.S. Transdev is additionally a key operator of streetcars, as well as railroad track and infrastructure maintenance in the U.S. According to Sam, by providing an expansive range of products and services, Transdev has a unique edge compared to its competitors

for clients who are typically operating locally or regionally. “Clients experience greater cost efficiencies through our ability to buy larger volumes of the same things that they all buy themselves. Our global presence enhances this ability to provide volume discounts. There are also more uniform safety standards across all sizes of our operations, which makes Transdev more reliable, and obviously this encourages faster technological and operational innovation for us to move the industry forward,” he said.

With 15,000 dedicated employees across the U.S., and a net worth of $1.2 billion, Transdev is the largest private provider of public transport in the United States. The business is part of a global company that operates in 18 countries across six continents. “Transdev provides 200 million annual passenger trips that serve 200 cities and communities in the U.S.,” emphasizes Sam. This accomplishment is fueled by safe, reliable and innovative solutions that serve the common good of its employees and communities; an accomplishment that continues to improve with the purpose of empowering freedom to move confidently every day.

Another impressive accomplishment that

Neopart has provided parts management programs and related services to numerous transits and private operators, but its partnership with Transdev stands alone. This special relationship leverages each company’s complementary attributes, creating synergies that achieve tangible improvements in key Transdev metrics, including on-time performance, labor utilization, maintenance costs, inventory investment and obsolescence costs, and efficiency ratios. Neopart’s original equipment (OE) supplier relationships, logistics infrastructure, and industry-wide transaction data combine with Transdev’s volume to create results truly impossible to achieve alone.

Consistent with Transdev’s commitment to technology and innovation in delivering mobility solutions for its clients and passengers, Neopart leverages substantial investments in inventory management and data analytics technology. Having parts available when needed – whether at Transdev’s storeroom, Neopart’s distribution center or the manufacturer’s facility – depends on Neopart’s connected inventory management technology and insightful data analytics. But Neopart’s supply chain achievements do not only come from high fill rates; the part needs to come from the best manufacturer, too. That is why Neopart’s roots in vehicle manufacturing are so important. By supplementing broad access to OE manufacturers with technology tools, Neopart helps Transdev optimize supply paths.

Neopart truly has an inimitable profile. With a vendor base developed through vehicle manufacturing coupled with high-tech inventory management and data analytics systems, Neopart has a profile no other supplier in the transit industry has today – or may ever have given recent manufacturer consolidation. The Neopart toolkit is a Transdev strategic asset that helps it achieve excellence for its clients and passengers.

Deeply Rooted OE Supplier Relationships + State-of-the-Art Technology and Data Analytics Unparalleled Ability to Optimize Client Supply Paths

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Transdev U.S. pricing to its client partners. Lastly, Transdev invests in pushing innovation in fields such as autonomous vehicles, digital technology, and implementing robust safety programs to support not just the company’s growth, but the growth and progression of the entire industry to new frontiers.

Going Lean

the company manages to sustain involves its savings. Sam candidly notes that the company focuses on using its savings to continuously reinvest into the growth of its business. This in turn creates more volume for its suppliers while increasing growth for Transdev, which leads to adding new clients and operations. Another area it funnels savings into is operator optimization which allows Transdev to offer competitive

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But how is such an ever-growing company able to keep up the pace when it comes to supply chain efficiency? Sam elaborates that there are three primary efficiency strategies that have been implemented at Transdev U.S. to which much of its supply chain and material management success is owed. Firstly, the incorporation of Lean methodology. Through its maintenance department, Transdev has implemented a strong Lean program in which one of the key principles is to reduce waste and process inefficiencies.

“When applied, we use Lean practices to constantly determine how to better organize our inventory rooms, shops and to manage what we have on hand versus what is on-order,” highlights Sam. As a company, it has found that investing in cutting-edge software can only work if all its counterparties are willing to participate equally in the investment and usage. Sam indicates that this presents a challenge for Transdev because the company is supported by multiple local suppliers,

Transdev U.S. which means that the investment becomes unrealistic and leads to the company pivoting its focus on its own supply chain management behavior to improve asset management efficiency.

Secondly, the business practices Just in Time (JIT) inventory management contribute to the company’s success. Many of Transdev’s facilities do not own excess real estate to house largepart inventories, while the company oversees a diverse fleet with no short-term opportunity for consolidation. This means that it must be smart about how much it stocks and how frequently orders are made. “This is why we only stock the most frequently used components or components which are particularly hard to come by and order the rest using a JIT model, resulting in leaner inventories and more real-time consumption of the parts we order,” says Sam. Finally, Transdev advocates for healthy supplier relationships. “Our suppliers, whether large or small, are our greatest assets,” Sam explains. “We strive to maintain healthy relationships with our vendors and service providers with a combined objective of ultimately providing reliable service to our riders.” For Transdev, its suppliers are both proactive and innovative partners who

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Transdev U.S.

actively participate in providing levels of visibility and communications regarding issues that might impact its supply chain (like component shortages for example). These practices within its relationships enable strong supply chain efficiencies.

“To further evolve our supplier landscape, we also implemented a much stronger supplier

“We are a services company. Although we do have a strong people culture at Transdev, we constantly see efforts across the enterprise to increase, validate and socialize the accomplishments of our drivers, operations management and corporate staff – all who are really our unsung heroes 44

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risk management program that allows us to better know our counterparties from a financial, ethics and compliance perspective,” Sam adds.

“This program provides us with useful data to pre-empt any possible supply issues we could run into and gives us insight into the companies we are working with. We also upgraded our corporate social responsibility and sustainability commitments and are asking our suppliers to practice the same principles as we strive to.”

Having said this, being an innovative company in an old-school industry means that Transdev still makes traditional demands on its suppliers. It looks for quality products and solid services at a low price from businesses that brand themselves with a sense of innovation, evolution and longterm growth.

This allows competition for new and exciting business to strive towards bringing about cost efficacy to an industry that is predominantly funded by taxpayers. When it comes to relational developments, the company tries to develop relationships with strong secondary suppliers in categories that present the most opportunity for growth in the manufacturing and assembly spheres. This is owing to the fact that volatile industries are beginning to fade as their technologies become increasingly obsolete.

However, even though the company implements a water-tight practice to ensure relationships with its suppliers flourish, it has to be equally confident in its approach to enforcing effective solutions regarding supply chain volatility, especially in light of Covid-19 consequences. Sam elaborates that while it is convenient to have a one-stop-shop for many spend categories: “Our ability to house limited inventory at most of our locations means that our corporate resources partner with our operational resources to stay on top of alternate supply options and keep our suppliers aligned with our inventory situations across all our locations.”

Valued suppliers It is interesting to note that the impact of Covid-19 did not create a massive parts shortage for the company, despite it being the largest spend category. It took a team effort between maintenance, materials management and procurement to prevent this. When it came to logistics companies increasing their efforts to support the rapidly growing needs of ecommerce, Transdev ran into more delivery issues rather than supply issues, and of course it did not help that there was a shortage of drivers during 2020.

In fact, one of Transdev’s biggest pandemic challenges was sourcing adequate quantities of quality PPE. Key supply partnerships such as Zep Manufacturing and Imperial Supplies helped to keep Transdev stocked as quickly as they could source hygiene items like hand sanitizer, spray disinfectants and nitrile gloves. “Our vendors did most of the heavy lifting to validate quality products and we are so grateful to them,” Sam highlights, “but even they had their challenges in supplying products in the early stages of the virus. So, to overcome this, we partnered with local suppliers known to our locations,

Imperial Supplies

Imperial Supplies prides itself on being your fleet maintenance supply experts. Our unmatched dedicated service and an industry leading product offering of over 1.5+ million products has kept our customers’ fleets running strong since 1958.

As a proud partner of Transdev for over ten years, our tailored programs have allowed Transdev to drive cost savings year after year.

From inventory obsolescence programs to advanced reporting on order history and monthly spend, our goal is to protect their bottom line and keep Transdev moving forward.

Let Imperial do the same for you – contact us at 1-800-558-2808 or www.imperialsupplies.com.

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Transdev U.S.

finding ways to help them scale and support us nationally. They then chipped in to help our frontline and essential employees in providing PPE to buy and keep themselves and the public

and masks were the most difficult commodities to source. To overcome this obstacle, Transdev partnered with a nutrition supplement company and local distilleries who specialized in making

using our services safe.”

As it was for many companies, hand sanitizer

food products and fine spirits who then branched into producing hand sanitizers and supplying the

company exclusively. Masks on the other hand were a little different. As head of procurement, Sam had to re-learn very quickly the basics of importing goods in order to work with one of Transdev’s largest e-Bus manufacturers with a significant presence in China to procure substantial supplies of masks at a fair price. It also made some purchases directly from suppliers in Hong Kong to build an inventory of masks in a highly volatile market.

Now that more knowledge is available on how best to cope with the virus, Sam says that as the company moves into 2021, it can see the impact of the pandemic wearing off on the shipping industry, and that from a supply chain perspective, business appears as though it will return to normal, with some exceptions related to products driven by microchips.

Continuing the positive theme, these measures of learning to work alongside a pandemic while prioritizing employees and the public have only buttressed Transdev’s ethos of looking after its community. Transdev believes that when it cares about its community, great things happen and one of its recent projects in supporting its community has involved transforming Foothill Transit’s new transit center into a vaccination center. Ibrahima Toure, the South West Regional Vice President, commented that since the center which opened March 2020 has not been used to its full capacity since the pandemic, it made perfect sense to repurpose such a great space for a vaccination center to help its local community.

Innovative solutions Sam emphasizes that all of Transdev’s impressive achievements, especially during the pandemic, would not be possible without the people involved in the business. “We are a services company. Although we do have a strong people culture at Transdev, we constantly see efforts across the enterprise to increase, validate and socialize the accomplishments of our drivers, operations management and corporate staff – all who are really our unsung heroes,” Sam informs us. “In a way, the impact of the pandemic further strengthened our culture and commitment to each other as co-workers,” he added.

In light of this, Transdev is looking forward to overcoming the consequences of the pandemic in the upcoming year and to provide dependable and innovative solutions to an industry that is continuously evolving. With many of its suppliers having been impacted by the challenges of 2020, 2021 will be a year of stabilizing its supply chain in the spend areas that were most disrupted, while still striving to find new opportunities and partners to rebuild in areas where it lost reliability. “We will be looking for more supplier

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innovations, specifically in the e-commerce space. Increasing partnerships with suppliers that offer robust e-commerce solutions will enable us to gain more visibility over our entire supply chain,” said Sam. Of course, these ambitions are on top of its own challenges that the industry’s natural growth will likely impose.

For Transdev, a particular pinch point that the company could do with a quick innovative fix is the replacement of traditional diesel engine with electric vehicles. However, in Sam’s opinion, it is clear that EVs are here to stay. Despite the innovation that fuels the industry, mass transit will be an area that takes slightly longer to convert from old diesel tech to new EV tech, owing to the existing investments and useful life of existing rolling stock.

Transdev will continue to be a pioneer in its industry. Moving forward, its goal is to help its clients provide transit systems that are appealing, convenient, and integrate networks that actively help people who choose to ride. “In cities across the U.S., we are helping clients move toward making public transit equivalent to the city’s lifeblood, circulating and connecting riders safely to the people and places they care about,” Sam concludes.

Left: Sam Doshi, Head of Procurement at Transdev

“In cities across the U.S., we are helping clients move toward making public transit equivalent to the city’s lifeblood, circulating and connecting riders safely to the people and places they care about

Transdev U.S. www.transdevna.com Specialty: Private public transport operator

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Polaroid Ridley Scott Creative Group (EU) ‘Forever Now’ Polaroid Campaign | Director: John Filipe

Picture

perfect

The original creators of analog instant photography, Polaroid brings its creative, human approach to effective supply chain management

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nown by many different names through the years, including The Impossible Project and Polaroid Originals, the world’s favorite analog instant photography company is once again operating under the name that started it all – Polaroid. For over 80 years, Polaroid has continued to create life-enriching products that help its consumers capture everyday moments and connect in more meaningful ways.

“Polaroid is committed to creating beautiful

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tools that bring people together in the here and now,” shared the company’s Senior Manager of Supply Chain for North America, Anna Indelicato.

“Right now, photography is still at the heart of the business. We are offering refurbished vintage Polaroid cameras, as well as the Polaroid Now camera range, which is the latest generation of instant cameras. We also have the Polaroid Lab, which transforms a picture from your smartphone into a physical Polaroid photo, along with various other products. We believe in helping

people better experience everyday moments and relive them with something physical you can hold in your hand forever.”

In order to provide customers with its core range of instant cameras, instant film, printers and photography accessories, Polaroid has relied heavily upon its supply chain. Favoring a partnership approach with suppliers, the company takes every opportunity to further relationships by interacting with partners on a personal, human level – a practice the

company has also perfected with its workforce.

“Looking after our people has been critical to our success at Polaroid,” Anna says. “Two years ago, my team and I hand-wrapped individual Polaroid cameras and wrote personal messages for every single person on our fulfillment team.

the warehouse floor now knows us personally and can just send me a text message. It has saved us so many headaches and problems. How you treat people in this industry is everything.”

When it comes to the company’s supply chain dealings in North America, Polaroid’s long-

the world were reminded that collaboration and kindness should never be overlooked.

Alongside strong, hard-earned, mutually beneficial relationships, Polaroid was also boosted by its innate flexibility during the Covid-19 crisis. Lean, nimble and experienced,

Similarly, at the beginning of 2020 before Covid-19, we hosted a bowling night for our warehouse team where we all met up for pizza.

That personal interaction makes all the difference because if something goes wrong: someone on

standing supply chain success is built on four key values: honesty, understanding, respect and compassion. The importance of these principles was brought clearly into focus during the Covid-19 pandemic when individuals and companies across

the company adapted quickly to the challenges of the last 12 months and Anna is proud of the way the business and its supply chain rose to the occasion.

“We were really flexible,” Anna reports. “Not

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Polaroid Senior Manager of Supply Chain for North America, Anna Indelicato

long after the outbreak, Amazon announced that they were only focusing on core items.

Nobody considers an instant camera a core item when people need medication and toilet paper, but Amazon is a big partner for us and within a week and a half we were able to adapt for that relationship. We got really creative with our ERP

system and actually fulfilled Amazon orders directly from our warehouse until things levelled out. Being able to jump in and do that during the pandemic really helped us as a team.

“From a supply chain perspective, we have a really strong supply chain team in Europe and Asia, meaning we’re nimble to the latest issues,” Anna

adds. “Our network is such that, if we can’t find an answer to something, we can then go somewhere else, define it, and use our demand planning and resources to adapt.”

After successfully navigating the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic, Polaroid is now wellpositioned to tackle the future. As part of a regular investment program, the company opened a $140,000 cold storage warehouse facility at AMS East in New Castle, Delaware.

“An interesting fact that a lot of people don’t know is that Polaroid film is best stored in a refrigerator,” Anna reveals. “I’d been lobbying for better cold storage space and it was very exciting when we finally managed to build the new facility as part of a joint investment. It was a tough battle to get the funding and to pick the right contract, but when we finally opened the cold storage space, my team rolled out a fake red carpet and made me walk into the unit like I was a celebrity! It was a fun little moment that shows the kind of spirit we have as a group, as well as the spirit we have with our partners.”

This human side to Polaroid is a key part of what Anna believes sets the business apart from the competition. Only the fifth employee the company hired in the North America division when it was operating as The Impossible Project, Anna has seen the business grow rapidly over the past decade, yet she insists Polaroid has never lost sight of the personal touch that makes it great.

“No matter which area of the business you work in, Polaroid is bursting with creativity and fun,” Anna asserts. “Even though we are all very different people, we learn from each other and help each other out. We respect one another’s strengths and individualities. I really love that.

“Just over a year ago, I was preparing for a big meeting with our Board of Directors when my husband came down with Covid-19. Everything stopped and I had to say goodbye to work and go take care of my family. When I came back, nobody penalized me. Instead, everyone was asking, ‘Are you okay?’, ‘How is your family?’. This is a business where I know if something happens, if I have a young child or a similar family need, I can go and see to it while knowing my job is secure. Polaroid for me is a company where, no matter who you are, you are respected as a human being, even before experience or expertise come into the equation.”

In line with Polaroid’s values, Anna is passionate about introducing more women into the supply chain - an industry that, in many ways, is still very traditional. Inspired by a female mentor early on in her career, Anna now hopes to encourage and develop the next generation of women in the sector.

“The Polaroid supply team in the US is actually

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all women by circumstance and I think it’s really important to build future female leaders,” Anna states. “It’s also vital that I, as a leader in supply chain, ensure that as many doors in this industry remain open for women.

“As a woman in my position, I shouldn’t have to convince people to respect me as an equal, but the fact of the matter is I do. I believe that, every time I convince somebody, I gain an ally, which hopefully makes it easier for the next woman to come along in whatever field that may be. There is a lot of leading by example needed, so myself and other women are just taking it a day at a time, but slowly, we are making a difference.

“My advice for everyone in this industry, including myself, is to keep working, keep reading, keep learning, and keep developing. I know that I still need to learn more about women in supply chain and I need to keep tackling entrenched ideas and status-quo perceptions.”

Ambitious and optimistic, Anna is looking forward to leading Polaroid’s supply chain activities over the next decade. Always searching for ways to improve the business, Anna is set to completely overhaul the company’s internal recording structure when it comes to order management.

Previously focused on manual processes,

Polaroid Go is the smallest instant analog camera Polaroid has ever designed reporting for Anna and her team is moving online so that anyone in the company can access the information, which will automatically update twice a day.

“It’s really going to revolutionize how we manage orders and shipments internally,” Anna points out. “It’s going to elevate the strategic conversations we will be able to have. In general, order management is a very underdeveloped, overcomplicated part of the supply chain, but I think if you can proactively manage your outbound order volumes, then it actually lowers your logistical costs in the long-term.”

On a more basic level, after a year in which

remote working has become the norm, Anna is looking forward to once again interacting with her team and her partners face to face. In the longer term, Anna wishes to facilitate more sustainable growth at Polaroid, harnessing best-in-class processes and co-operating with more partners that share the company’s core values of honesty, openness and trust.

Polaroid www.polaroid.com Products: Instant cameras, film and accessories

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Olymel

Passion, partnership,

poultry and pork Feeding the world with passion since 1991, Olymel is a leader in the agrifood industry with over 15,000 employees and proud Quebec roots

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lymel is an organization with a simple motivation - to feed the world. Based in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec, the meat packing and food processing company is a major producer of pork and poultry products and operates as a subsidiary of Sollio Groupe Cooperatif, Canada’s largest co-operative.

A modern company with a deep pool of expertise and a long tradition of excellence, Olymel has expanded rapidly over the years

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through a combination of acquisition and organic growth. Today, in 2021, the firm boasts offices and facilities in locations as varied as Tokyo, Japan; Sydney, Australia; Beijing; China and Seoul, South Korea.

“At Olymel, we express our core values by never compromising on quality, continuously improving our performance in order to better serve customers, and by constantly striving to inspire trust,” explains Alexandre Tarini, the company’s Vice President of Logistics. “We are

dedicated to exceeding the highest industry standards in all operations. Our company also endeavours to be socially responsible, setting an example through its animal welfare practices, environmentally friendly processes, and community support. Only by maintaining these standards can we achieve our mission.”

Innovation has been a key factor in Olymel’s success over the last two and a half decades and the company attaches tremendous importance to product development. Favoring a partnership

Left: Alexandre Tarini, Vice President of Logistics

approach to continuous improvement, the firm works closely with its customers and suppliers to stay abreast of industry trends and meet client demands. Olymel employs a similar collaborative approach to its supply chain, where Alexandre believes strong, cohesive relationships are

helps with turnaround time, and we have effective contingency plans in place.

“In recent times, we have established several strategies for success, such as diversifying supply and making sure large suppliers have redundancy or minimum safety stock to cover market swings.

The united front across Olymel’s supply chain proved especially useful over the course of the last year as the industry battled the Covid-19 pandemic. Thanks to clear communication and flexibility, the company and its partners adapted to the changes brought on by the crisis and

mutually beneficial.

“By sharing information and common challenges, we work with suppliers as true partners,” Alexandre says. “We buy most of our packaging material and ingredients locally, which

Of course, we sometimes underestimate the intangible factor of working closely and fairly with our partners, but we continue to make efforts to retain a place in the minds of suppliers and customers alike.”

worked together to overcome the disruption.

“We trade commodities with over 60 different countries and have got used to adjusting short term-planning to suit market opportunities, especially for the make-to-order business,”

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Olymel

Alexandre declares. “The most complex piece is the private labels, which cannot be redirected to other customers, but we are lucky to have great partners across the board.

“When Covid-19 began to take hold in early 2020, sales in food service dropped by 80 per cent overnight and we had to determine a strategy to change our production plan and clear inventory.

We adapted like most companies, complying with local authorities and developing protocols for social distancing, temperature scanning and daily Covid questionnaires. On the business side of things, we made adjustments to protect our value-added markets, such as chilled pork, tweaked things to help cover retail increase, and even removed several small SKUs, which streamlined our product mix and gave us better throughput. All in all,” Alexandre summarizes, “we adapted incredibly quickly in a very challenging environment.”

Instrumental to Olymel’s success over the last 12 months, and throughout its history, are the company’s people. Despite the firm’s speedy rise to prominence, Olymel remains true to its roots

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and employees are still a key priority. Previously honored as Quebec’s ‘Employer of the Year’ at the annual Mercuriades Awards, as well as ‘Best HR Practice in Canada – Private Fleet’ by Trucking HR, Olymel offers a safe, fun environment for its staff, with competitive pay and job security.

Aligned with its goal to give back to the community, Olymel proudly works with several new immigrant associations to support the integration of its members by offering employment opportunities.

Olymel has also established itself as a Canadian leader in seeking resources from abroad with its temporary foreign workers program. Immigration regulation enables companies to hire a maximum of ten per cent of the number of employees per operating site. Since its initiative launched, the company has developed ties with several French-speaking countries, which enabled it to hire approximately 1200 employees. Nearly 50 per cent of these individuals have already obtained permanent resident status and became permanent workers. Olymel is in the process of acquiring 600 new temporary foreign workers this year.

Lizotte Machine Vision

From our perspective, Olymel has chosen to invest in our automated solutions to cope with labor shortage and to relocate their employees in more valuable positions. This strategy allows them to use machine vision in applications where the task is repetitive and where the result need to be recurring. Their team of leadership are continually challenging themselves in all they do to achieve continuous improvement. It is why they wanted us to custom build various applications to perfectly fit their specific grading and sorting needs.

Each system being tailor made, gives them the freedom to integrate the needed technologies to fit their inspection goals. From the ejection mechanism to the required footprint, everything is taken in consideration during the configuration of each system.

Over the last year, the partnership that we have developed with Olymel is important to us since they have given us their trust and loyalty. We are looking forward to strengthening this relationship along with developing many other innovative technologies all based on their needs.

Olymel

Cascades

Cascades are proud to recognize Olymel as a Strategic Partner At Cascades, we believe that we can deliver a superior customer experience by better understanding our customers’ needs and expectations. We are committed to offering sustainable and innovative packaging solutions that will help our customers achieve their goals and create value for their business. If you need to protect, wrap or call attention to your products, there are no better options than ecodesigned solutions from Cascades.

Today, we salute Olymel’s outstanding collaboration throughout our long-lasting business relationship and are excited for the bright future ahead.

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The company has also been working on ways to maximize its social media connectivity with the introduction of live interaction, and continues to improve its swift hiring process. “The main challenge for us is fulfilling the labor needs in our plants, distribution centers and transportation units, where most of our hires reside,” Alexandre states. “Of course, there are new technologies that reduce staffing requirements, but the need for people in our business will always be high. It’s a competitive job market out there right now, but that is why we try and differentiate ourselves, finding more and more creative ways to be a great employer. This includes the Kaisen Project, which has involved the development of isolated cabins for our forklifts operating in freezers, organizing shuttle systems for workers from Montreal, and improving our training and integration plan.”

In order to reduce pressure, mitigate human error and improve health and safety in its plants, Olymel regularly implements new technologies to help support its workforce. In 2019, for example, the company brought in Isaac software to manage its fleet with a driver centric solution. The tool enables a paperless environment by providing drivers with live feedback on their driving methods

and complying with electronic logbook regulations at the same time. Along with engine, braking and g-force information, the Isaac data is used to provide a scorecard to drivers each month with financial compensation provided accordingly. It has also assisted in reducing fuel consumption, optimizing assignment instructions, and developing a more proactive approach to planning.

More recently, Olymel has installed automated packing equipment at its plants. Linked to collaborative robots, the systems can carry out tasks that previously required employees to perform heavy lifting or repetitive movements.

Similarly, the company has introduced a high definition vision system for improved quality and accuracy, as well as machine learning to facilitate the execution of more consistent, better standardized products.

“Labelling compliance is one area that is critical for export to certain countries, so we are currently working with authorities like the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to be as transparent as possible,” Alexandre reveals. “Upgrading our technology and processes is really paying off for us in this area and across the board. We are now compiling data from various components, including

vibration, heat, micro-delays, and pressure. We can then use AI to upgrade our maintenance program and other similar initiatives.”

As Alexandre suggests, automation is playing an increasingly large role in the food industry, particularly in the areas of food safety, product consistency, labor shortage mitigation, and employee utilization. However, the implementation of automation often involves various challenges, such as space constraints and equipment adaptability. In order to manage this reality, as well as associated obstacles, Olymel has developed a partnership with Lizotte Machine Vision (LMV), a Canadian manufacturer of custom-built in-line quality control and grading solutions for the global food processing sector.

Together, both companies have been able to identify and deliver a range of solutions using LMV’s tailor-made systems.

“Exploiting color cameras, lasers, and x-ray technologies, LMV manufactures custombuilt systems designed according to individual

the system will inspect, sort and grade product in real-time and sort out non-compliant product from the processing line. This high level of machine adaptability gives our plants a wide range of flexibility within their processes.

“One system LMV developed for us inspects both sides of a chicken breast for blood spots, discoloration, fat, and remaining skin, ensuring that each breast is compliant with Olymel standards. The second application was developed to inspect chicken gizzards for color defects, ensuring that only non-contaminated gizzards are sent for final processing. LMV has also introduced its added value meat sorter to Olymel, allowing in-line inspection for a wide range of defects.

From pork belly grading to bacon slice sorting to poultry product inspection, we continue to collaborate with LMV to deliver high-level machinery automation.”

In 2021, Olymel plans to review its distribution network, implement new demand planning tools, pursue data valuation through BI and

on sustainability in its supply chain, selecting and differentiating potential partners in line with their green credentials.

“Companies like Cascades provide us with a lot of expertise on environmentally friendly packaging materials, helping us to find solutions like recycled fibers and high density cardboard to reduce our carbon footprint,” Alexandre remarks. “Most recently, Cascades offered us new optimized box portfolios and modifications using AI, which can really help to generate savings. The company also works closely with our R&D department to test green packaging solutions like carton or 100 per cent recycled plastic trays.

“Cascades, and similar partners, are part of what makes our supply chain so special,” he adds.

“Olymel has been strengthening for over 25 years, and our suppliers have been a part of that. With the continued support of our partners, all signs suggest that Olymel will be able to continue to feed the world, with passion, for many years to come.”

inspection, grading requirements, and space limitations,” Alexandre reports. “Consequently, LMV has delivered a wide range of systems for Olymel to fulfill specific needs in our poultry and pork operations. Depending on the application,

AI, and improve and formalize its sales and operations planning process. Though expansion, diversification and modernization will continue to act as guiding pillars for the organization’s future, Alexandre believes Olymel will also focus

Olymel www.olymel.com Products: Pork and poultry products

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Arandell

The Marketer’s Printer of

Choice

By building meaningful relationships with its clients and conducting business with a holistic approach, Arandell produces the highest quality catalog solutions on the market

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ased out of Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, Arandell is a peoplepowered, planet-minded, catalog solutions provider. A medium-sized alternative, with sufficient size and scale to match corporate printers, the company retains the customer service model of a ‘momand-pop’ business, while delivering the type of unparalleled craftsmanship that appeals to serious marketers seeking a printing partner.

“By handling brands with the utmost care and quality, we have accumulated a vast

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number of clients from all over the United States that trust us as their print partner,” begins Jake Hoffman, Arandell’s Director of Marketing Solutions. “In addition to the manufacturing of the catalogs themselves, we also handle a lot of the distribution and coordination through the postal service on behalf of our clients.”

In the last decade, Arandell’s business has undergone several important changes, as Jake goes on to detail. “Previously, our typical customer base was blue-chip, high volume

accounts made up primarily of retailers whose stores you would find within malls and on famous streets across the country,” he says.

“Wind the clock forward to today, and we are seeing a major influx of direct-to-customer and digitally native brands approaching us for work. It means that we are seeing lower run lengths with clients focused on more targeted mailings more frequently throughout the year.”

For both larger and smaller clients, Arandell has found itself becoming a go-to supplier

of printing services. “Being a medium-sized organization, we offer significant operational scale to fulfill our clients’ larger orders, as well as the cost savings you would expect from the larger national or international players,” Jake states. “We have continued to keep a hands-on, customer-centric approach which has been a part of Arandell’s DNA since the

beginning. By truly listening to our clients we can deliver value-added services and solutions, and this is how Arandell has transitioned itself from being not just a manufacturing company, but a service provider. We look to get a clear understanding as to how a catalog fits into a clients’ whole marketing mechanism, and with that knowledge, we develop solutions that will

make the catalog as successful as possible, and continue to drive long-term value.”

As Director of Marketing Solutions, Jake’s role involves taking a consultative approach towards its clients, both existing and new.

This means understanding their respective challenges and aligning the right data and analytics to form the appropriate solution. “If you take an e-commerce client as an example,” Jake explains, “they clearly have a strong grasp of all of the digital elements of communicating with their customers, however, there has to be a smooth transition if a business is to cross over from a digital ecosystem into the mail stream. These two worlds are very different, and where Arandell can help is in ensuring that the data that is coming out of the client’s digital channels is translated accurately onto the mail side so that the right customers receive the right message at the right time.

At the end of the day, the most expensive component of any mail piece is the actual postage itself, so you must be 100 percent confident that the people you are mailing to are the correct people.

“Among the other things that we have looked to implement from a supply chain perspective – and for the benefit of our clients – is to bring a lot of postal savings services and techniques into the business. What this means is that we will combine several different mail

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Arandell

GF Puhl

GF Puhl has been serving Arandell since the late 1980’s. GF Puhl began in 1983, so the companies have literally grown up together over the past 30+ years. It all started with a single blower system modification and has grown into three complete baler systems with trim and dust collection in the Menomonee Falls facility. Working with John Reinert, Arandell’s in house engineer has been and continues to be a pleasure. Arandell has always approached projects like Puhl in a collaborative way resulting in the most efficient and effective installations.

If you are interested in working with Puhl on baler, trim and dust collection projects, please give us a call at 615-230-9500 or email us at sales@gfpuhl.com.

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files into one mail stream and sort it ahead of time, so that the postal service doesn’t have to. This results in postal savings and better deliverability. It is also important to note that we work with a whole host of different companies, from data service providers and marketing agencies to logistics firms and even other printers whose capabilities may differ from our own, to create a network that can be

utilized to solve the problems or challenges that our clients face.”

To facilitate its growth in recent years, the company has undertaken a consistent level of investment in its plant and equipment.

This includes a state-of-the-art prepress department, which includes one of the industry’s most efficient heat-set web pressrooms, and a robust in-house bindery

operation. One of the other areas that Arandell is currently focused on is the deployment of automated equipment – such as automated palletizers and machine stackers – in part as a response to labor shortages that the whole industry is facing. Also, rather uniquely, the company incorporates co-mailers in house, as opposed to using a mail consolidator.

Having these pieces of equipment internally gives Arandell greater flexibility and shorter turnaround times compared to its competitors.

Coming into 2020, Arandell was riding a wave of near double-digit growth. Now, having used the last year to reflect on its activities, processes, and ways of operating, it is heartened to have experienced a strong start to 2021. “The Covid-19 pandemic has driven the whole industry – and indeed much of the world – to make changes and improvements to the way we all operate as businesses, and to embrace different technologies,” Jake says. “I think I can speak for ourselves and our customers when I say that we have now wrapped our minds around what the pandemic means in terms of things like remote work and using technology to communicate with people or customers. This, in turn, has allowed us to evolve and diversify some of our service offerings as well as our revenue streams. With that in mind, the outlook for the coming year is extremely positive.”

Looking ahead, Jake foresees the company examining digital forms of printing, which will allow it to further capitalize on the changes it sees occurring within its industry. “One of the things to keep an eye on is what the United States Postal Services chooses to do in terms of things such as pricing increases,” he states. “Such changes can have a big impact on the product types clients will utilize in their marketing mix. Therefore, we must diversify our platform to support a broader range of product

types that help complement the catalog.

“A separate challenge for the print industry as a whole going forward is that it generally has an aging workforce. This means that we as a collective need to come up with innovative and unique ways of attracting younger people into the industry. For our part, we will continue to do our best to bring in a talented and diverse mix of individuals into Arandell. Our

primary focus in the coming months will be on diversifying the type of printing work that we deliver, and attracting the right people to support the growth of our organization.”

Arandell www.arandell.com Products: Catalog printing

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Palmer Logistics

Endless opportunities

ahead

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Customer-driven and family-oriented, Palmer Logistics is a fast-growing warehouse and third-party logistics company unafraid to embrace technology and invest in the future

S Brett Mears, President of Palmer Logistics

ervice, Trust, Integrity and Respect – these are the four key values at the foundation of Palmer Logistics, a Houston-based warehouse and third-party logistics (3PL) company on a trajectory of growth. Founded in the 1960s, the firm has been led by the Hermann family for generations and in 2021, William Hermann remains the company’s CEO, whilst his son, Brett Mears, runs day-to-day operations as President. The focus on family is reflected in the way Palmer Logistics operates. By empowering its employees and finding exceptional supply chain solutions, the company strives to be a premier third-party provider with a personal touch.

“What sets us apart at Palmer Logistics is our commitment to do right,” Brett Mears declares. “Our success is derived from our integrity, our service mentality and our core values. We are a service provider, so we want to help everyone we come into contact with.

Customers trust us because we honor our commitments - we do what we say we are going to do. And finally, we respect our coworkers and clients, and value the respect we gain as a business in return.”

Palmer Logistics’ value-centric culture is evident in the way the company supports its employees and the wider communities in which it works. Alongside the launch of a new human resources management system and the funding of local initiatives, the company has recently established a corporate partnership with Houston’s Project Protect Our Children, a 501c3 nonprofit that helps educate young people on the dangers of social media and human trafficking.

“That partnership allows our employees to be paid by the company while performing volunteer work for Project Protect Our Children,” Brett says. “Not only is it an incredibly worthy cause, but our participation has helped us build an organization that people believe in. Communication and the accessibility of management is important, but to really get the most out of people, they need to buy in to your organization and what it stands for. Our presence in the community, and our commitment to helping others, plays a role in encouraging our workforce to go above and beyond.”

Since Brett took over at Palmer Logistics in 2002, the company has grown by close to 700 per cent. Today, Palmer Logistics boasts three million square feet of warehouse space across

14 sites in Texas. The storage space is available for a wide array of commodities, including hazardous and non-hazardous chemicals, and food grade and general commodities. Along with general third-party receiving and storing work, the company also offers more specialist services, such as customized reporting, labeling, repackaging, contract facility management and more. With annual revenue and spend increasing by around 11 per cent per year, Palmer Logistics recently invested in a brandnew facility.

“We had a lease expiring on an aging 118,000 square foot site in downtown Houston, so rather than renew that, we decided to build a new facility out in Baytown, which is about 30 miles east,” Brett reports. “Close to shipping ports, making it ideal for import and export volumes, the new site is more sustainable, almost triple the size of our previous site, and hosts much larger hazardous materials and temperature-controlled capacity.

“We opened the new facility in December 2020 and immediately moved in one of our Tier One accounts. We’ve also signed up Huntsman International LLC and are about to start moving in a global coatings manufacturer.

It’s a fantastic, extremely secure site and we still have room to grow and add additional businesses in there as well.”

As part of its ongoing investment into upgrading and modernizing the business, Palmer Logistics will be training all its facility managers to become Lean Six Sigma yellow belts in 2021, as well as implementing a new warehouse management system (WMS) later this year. By embracing modern technologies and converting its facilities to full RF warehouses, the company hopes to better connect its customers electronically.

“It’s a big, exciting implementation,” Brett states. “We’ve picked a system that we are confident will give us all the functionalities to streamline efficiencies and take this business forward.

“I’ve been to several warehouses in Europe and I think they are great examples of how the 3PL market can leverage technology,” he continues. “In the US, we have these big, sprawling warehouse complexes, and I think there is an opportunity for us to really drill down into how we can better use our space, get more product into the building with racking systems and then better leverage technology to enhance productivity.

“We are not employing technology to reduce

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Palmer Logistics

National Property Holdings

At National Property Holdings (NPH), it’s all about logistics. Each and every day, the professionals at NPH put this belief into practice – the development, construction, leasing and management of port accessible industrial facilities that create measurable advantages for its clients. The result… Industrial developments that work harder – and smarter – for your bottom line.

Palmer Logistics has long relied on NPH for the perfect union of industrial assets, proven expertise and the capacity to orchestrate complex turn-key developments in strategic locations. As a full-service real estate developer, NPH is well equipped to develop and construct your unique build-to-suit and design-build projects.

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headcount - we are growing by at least 10 per cent each year - we are doing it because our existing headcount can handle some of the growth we expect to see across the next decade.

We want to be ready for that.”

Riding an irrepressible growth surge for nearly 20 years now, Palmer Logistics’ success has been

headlined by some major projects in recent times. In 2020, the company worked on an EDI solution with a multinational conglomerate firm, one of Palmer Logistics’ largest accounts.

With that customer looking to reduce cost, increase efficiency and better position itself in the marketplace, Palmer Logistics implemented

EDI to SAP solutions for the client, helping to process around 200 orders a day for the business across five divisions.

“It wasn’t a perfect implementation to begin with, but I think we adjusted early on and after a few months we were giving the client a much better service at a better price point, distributing their goods with an optimized solution,” Brett reveals. “We put in racking, we put in packing tables and we put in new technology. I think they are now very pleased and are even looking to expand the scope of outsource because of the work we have done for them.”

The close relationships that Palmer Logistics builds with its clients have never been more important than over the last 12 months when the company was forced to tackle the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic. By communicating clearly with its workforce and putting employee safety first at all times, the company was able to continue delivering on its mission. For Brett, the pandemic reinforced the importance of making lasting connections with customers, employees and vendors.

“I think the most rewarding thing about this job is that, although we have these wonderful systems and technologies, it is still a people business,” he asserts. “We have had a lot of growth over the years and it’s great to have a meaningful impact on the lives of those

around us. Employees, customers and vendors – that is the lifeblood of this business and this industry.”

Strengthened by the knowledge it has gained from past projects, Palmer Logistics is now looking forward to the rest of 2021 as it continues to build relationships with clients and expand into new regions. With technology advancing at a rapid pace, the company will also be looking to embrace the latest equipment and processes to help increase speed and improve order visibility. All in all, and with these goals in mind, Brett is confident that the next decade at Palmer Logistics will be a successful one.

“I think there are tremendous incentives to be had in 3PL warehousing for clients, and our services continue to add value for customers across the US,” Brett remarks. “As a business, we are now looking to expand out of Texas and grow exponentially. Over the next five years, I expect we will be opening new facilities in complementary markets and I wouldn’t be surprised if we doubled in size by 2026. As you can see with our new site and even newer WMS, we are developing the technology and infrastructure to support growth for the next ten years.

“Once we finally get through this Covid-19 pandemic, I think we are in for some exciting times ahead,” he proclaims. “The signs are all encouraging and I think that the glass is

definitely half full. We have done a lot within the last year to readdress our organizational structure and get ourselves in a position to adopt technology that will revolutionize our business. We still have a lot of work to do, but I am invigorated like never before. I feel like a child at Christmas because there are endless opportunities ahead of us.”

Palmer Logistics www.palmerlogistics.com Specialty: Warehouse and third-party logistics services

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COE Distributing

Staying ahead of

trends

By connecting people and products to create an inspiring working environment, COE Distributing aims to be the most successful and respected source of furniture in the United States 66

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national office furnishings distributor and manufacturer, COE Distributing (COE) operates with a mission of creating inspiring work environments wherever its customers – who are typically resellers or dealers – are working.

Family-owned since 1947, COE began life as a typewriter repair and office supply store, which was established by Clara L. Ewing.

Today, the business is run by Clara’s grandson, President and CEO J.D. Ewing, who initially

took over the wholesale business at the age of 19, running it as the sole employee. Over time, J.D. grew COE into its present-day form, where it has 118 team members operating across three distribution centers and its headquarters in Uniontown, PA. “COE sources high-quality office furniture and products from around the globe and delivers to all of the United States and the Caribbean,” J.D. begins. “Said products include an extensive line of seating, conference room

setups, executive office setups, and a large offering of laminate with a multitude of color options. With the onset of the pandemic, we have also shifted and now offer new product lines that are specific to Covid-19 solutions, which include acrylic screens and panels, brackets, hand sanitizer units, work-fromhome and schooling from home office setups, antimicrobial products, and products that promote a safe return to the workplace.

“Meanwhile, in terms of services, COE offers

great marketing tools, including numerous eCatalogs, daily email campaigns and product promotions, and the ability to check stock and order products online through an individual login. Products are featured on My Resource Library, including spec sheets and the products are included on Giza 2020, which is a software that helps visualize and plan a space.

COE also offers pricing tiers for customers, along with annual rebates, and we have our own private label brand, OfficeSource, which

deals in multiple national, state, regional, and local contracts.”

The company’s success in recent years have seen it named as one of the fastestgrowing private companies in North America

by Inc. Magazine on its Inc 5000 list eight years running. It has also been recognized regionally in Pittsburgh as a fast-growing, privately owned local company since 2013, and was chosen as a Pittsburgh Top Workplace by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. J.D. himself

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COE Distributing COE Distributing’s President and CEO J.D. Ewing

has similarly been honored multiple times for the Ernst Young Entrepreneur of the Year and Smart 50 Business awards.

A lot of COE’s success derives from its ability to study the marketplace to stay on top of the latest trends. “Our Senior VP of Sales and Merchandising collaborates with manufacturer partners to develop new products, along with updates to any existing products COE may already be selling,” J.D. details. “New product ideas are also shared with clients and our sales reps to gather their feedback on how they

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believe it would perform in the marketplace.

In the past 12 months COE has shifted from an annual product launch model to a continual product launch model to allow products that are in demand right now to hit the marketplace.

“Examples of the great new products include our antimicrobial upholstery for much of the seating options, along with antimicrobial tops.

COE is also focusing on quality work-fromhome office setups, along with schooling from home setups.”

COE’s three distribution centers add

up to combined total of approximately 700,000-square feet of warehousing space.

Within these premises, the company utilizes Warehouse Management System (WMS) software to manage and maintain the more than $100 million (retail value) worth of inventory it holds at any one time. Each inventory location is given a specific location ID, which is scanned when a particular product is stored and when picked for orders. Each inventory item also has its own unique bar code, which allows material handlers to know that they have picked – or put away – the correct item.

The company has continued to make significant investment in recent times in both talent and technology. “Our talent investment has focused on adding and/or promoting three Director level teammates over the past six months,” J.D. continues. “We have also been focused on ‘digitizing the sales process’ over the past 12-to-18 months. One of the ways this initiative has been achieved is by working

Below: Two of the teams at COE, the engines that keeps the business going and growing

with Conexiom to automate the order entry process, thus eliminating the need to manually enter customer orders. Doing so allows our experienced and talented customer care team to provide value added services to the sales team and clients.”

Listening to J.D., it is clear a strong employeecentric culture exists throughout COE. “The team members at COE are the engine that keeps the business going and growing,” he enthuses. “The company culture at COE has always been about putting the team members first, because they are the difference makers.

This is achieved by offering extensive employee engagement opportunities that promote teamwork, fun, growth, and transparency.

These offerings include quarterly book groups, a Rising Stars program that helps create future leaders of the company, Employee of the Quarter luncheons, Warrior Helmet peer-topeer ceremonies that happen biweekly (which comes from our Proud Employee Engagement Partnership with the Pittsburgh Penguins, which began in 2019), and personalized birthday and anniversary celebrations.”

Given that it is an office furniture company, COE naturally faced challenges in 2020 at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. However, despite the impact this initially had on business, the efforts of J.D. and his team meant that it almost immediately began to find products to source and sell in the rapidly changing

marketplace. As a result, by September 2020, the company was celebrating its biggest sales numbers ever. This was also made possible by the company doing its best to navigate through the various supply chain challenges caused by the likes of factory closures and congested ports. In addition to ordering stock appropriately, COE’s purchasing team worked endlessly to get containers to the company’s facilities as efficiently as possible.

“The motto of the business in 2020 and 2021 has been ‘Strong Alone. Unstoppable Together’, and that is because we know that if everybody is aligned and we remain transparent from the top down, COE can achieve milestones and work through challenges that many other companies struggle with,” J.D. adds, before concluding with the company’s plans for this year and beyond. “Our goal for 2021, and beyond, is to remain the trusted source for office furniture and associated products, by studying and staying in front of the trends that are in demand in the current and future marketplace, and by listening to the wants and needs of our customers. The company also wants to continue to grow, both in terms of sales and in aligned and engaged team members, which will both be accomplished by the continued focus on employee engagement opportunities and transparency.”

COE Distributing www.coedistributing.com Specialty: Office furniture distributor

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IBM

A

s the world still reels from the impact of the global coronavirus pandemic, more and more companies are finding they need an expert, knowledgeable and reliable supplychain technology partner to help guide them through the transformed conditions in which they are now operating.

Increasing numbers are turning to one of the most well-known and respected names in the technology space – IBM. With a pedigree

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extending back to the origins of computing, IBM is ideally positioned to assist its clients as they seek to make their supply chains more effective and efficient. As Tom Cassell, a Supply Chain and Procurement Leader with IBM Global Business Services explained, the kernel of IBM’s approach is to create strong, mutually beneficial relationships with clients.

“We achieve this by focusing on them; their business, their strategy and objectives as an enterprise, their internal and external

stakeholders, and their definition of success.

And through this focus we articulate and demonstrate the value that IBM can bring in support of their supply chain transformations,” he stated.

But what brings them to IBM initially, given the plethora of supply chain partners out there? Tom stressed the importance of IBM’s ability to help clients improve supply chain performance through the fusion of process transformation, enterprise solutions and

“Across all industries, and across all elements of a supply chain, there has been and continues to be disruption. So, our clients are looking for way to rebalance their supply chains between two important factors – efficiency and resiliency

Right: Tom Cassell, Supply Chain and Procurement Leader with IBM Global Business Services

A different

balance

2021 will be the year of the supply chain and redefining risks, and IBM is ideally positioned to help its clients navigate the post-pandemic market

innovative technologies. “Our clients look to us to help them understand the leading ways to operate a supply chain from a process point of view; the best platforms to use in support of those processes, like SAP; and how to best apply innovations like Artificial Intelligence (AI) to complement that platform and deliver more value and better outcomes for their customers. That’s what IBM does better than anybody right now,” he emphasized.

The clients that IBM is assisting are looking

to reconfigure their supply chains, as the pandemic has revealed exposures and weak links that need to be strengthened. In fact, Tom pointed out that generally the supply chain is the area of its clients’ business models that has been most impacted by Covid-19. “Across all industries, and across all elements of a supply chain, there has been and continues to be disruption,” he said. “So, our clients are looking for way to rebalance their supply chains between two important

factors – efficiency and resiliency. For decades, we in supply chain focused on the efficiency side of that balance – extracting as much cost out of supply chains as possible and running them as efficiently as possible to drive financial value. But what Covid-19 revealed was just how vulnerable this approach left most global supply chains. Enterprises now realize that they need to strike a different balance that more appropriately considers supply chain resiliency. And one key way that we’re helping

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IBM

“To avoid disruptions and become more resilient, supply chains must employ a flexible structure of partners (suppliers, contract manufacturers, 3PLs, etc.) that can, when a disruption occurs, be quickly used to identify and leverage alternate sources of materials, logistics, production, whatever the case may be

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them achieve this new balance is through the use of what we call Intelligent Workflows.”

Intelligent Workflows enhance traditional business processes through the inclusion of innovations like AI, process automation and data analytics. They also complement established supporting platforms like SAP by providing additional capabilities that are now needed to help identify and prevent supply chain disruptions. “So, for example, in the spring of 2020, some of our clients in the consumer products industry shared that, as the pandemic continued to spread, their short-term demand patterns had become wildly volatile and therefore challenging to forecast,” Tom revealed. “This made sense – they were basing their forecasts on historical data that didn’t account for a disruption like the pandemic, while at the same time seeing huge volatility in consumer buying behavior.

So, we developed a demand sensing capability that combined proprietary IBM datasets, like our Covid-19 Risk Index, with IBM machine learning algorithms focused on short-term forecasting. This approach allowed us to account for the correlations and impacts from the pandemic and produce a short-

term forecast that more aptly addressed the volatility they were currently experiencing and expected to continue going forward. We then integrated this with their statistical forecasts in SAP to produce a comprehensive demand plan that was both accurate and reflective of what was truly happening in their markets. This is a great example of the value that Intelligent Workflows can bring to a supply chain area like Demand Planning.”

Through its work, IBM can help its clients to reach the optimal point in the efficiency/ resiliency balance, but to achieve this requires a supply chain to have certain capabilities, as Tom noted. “First of all, you need real-time visibility across the extended supply network.

This includes not just your own network and your tier 1 suppliers (those suppliers I buy directly from), but your tier 2/3/4 etc. (the suppliers my Tier 1’s buy from). For most companies, that’s currently a black hole, and actually one of the key causes of the major disruptions caused by Covid-19. Greater supply chain visibility, like that provided by some Control Tower solutions (IBM has a great one) provides organizations insights into what’s going on in their supply chains, where the

disruptive risks are most likely to occur, and how to best to mitigate those potential risks.”

Tom then highlighted the second essential requirement that clients need to establish and that is an agile and flexible network. “Covid-19 showed us how damaging it can be to a supply chain to be overly dependent on certain aspects of your supply chain - for example, a small group of suppliers for a critical component, or production from a specific region. To avoid disruptions and become more resilient, supply chains must employ a flexible structure of partners (suppliers, contract manufacturers, 3PLs, etc.) that can, when a disruption occurs, be quickly used to identify and leverage alternate sources of materials, logistics, production, whatever the case may be.”

Finally, as noted previously, IBM recommends that AI should be embedded into core supply chain processes: “From forecasting to procurement, and logistics to manufacturing, the most resilient supply chains going forward will be ones that have an AI capability used within all key supply chain processes,” he asserted. “This will allow supply chain professionals to find usable insights from

the ocean of data that most organizations now have, and apply those insights into finding vulnerabilities within their supply chains and taking the appropriate measures to avoid those risks. And it’s not just risk-avoidance that AI will help with, but also maximizing opportunities even when disruptions cannot be avoided.”

Having referred to both Control Tower and AI technology, Tom confirmed that he considers both these and some other solutions as essential for success in today’s complex supply chain environment, particularly in light of what we saw happen with the pandemic.

“You definitely need a proven platform like SAP that can provide that critical ‘blocking and tackling’ for managing a supply chain; you also need a Control Tower that provides visibility to everything that’s going on in that supply chain and can alert you to potential disruptions; and finally, you need innovative capabilities in the areas of AI, RPA, Blockchain and deep analytics to provide additional process and perhaps industry-specific functionality,” he declared.

“But the real trick here is that you really need to fuse these three technologies together into a single holistic approach that’s aligned

with an organization’s supply chain strategy and broader business objectives. That’s what’s going to lead to supply chains that can proactively identify and mitigate disruptive events like Covid-19.”

As Tom discussed the various stages and hurdles that need to be overcome to find the optimal ‘efficiency vs resiliency’ balance within the supply chain, it became clear that in fact, this is a considerable trial for businesses to overcome. “We’ve learned from the disruptions of 2020 that for most organizations it’s no longer sustainable nor practical to operate a supply chain too far to either side, but finding the sweet spot in this balance can be a real challenge,” he agreed.

“In some cases, ensuring adequate resiliency might result in additional costs in the form of incremental inventory in more risk-prone locations or more expensive suppliers located outside of typical sourcing regions like China; think of costs like these as a sort of insurance policy against disruption. Furthermore, there is still the pandemic to deal with, and all of the ramifications that it continues to bring. Some industries are permanently changed from this experience, and as a result many companies

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IBM

“I believe that IBM will continue to help our clients get the most out of their investments in enterprise platforms like SAP, and guide them to leverage the very latest in supply chain innovations to complement those platforms with advanced capabilities that drive successful outcomes for them and their customers

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must figure out how to properly re-imagine their supply chains in their ‘new normal.’”

The market is also changing fast and organizations have to keep up with a new and evolving set of customer expectations.

“Whether it’s fast and free shipping and returns or multiple selling channels with unique experiential elements to each, companies will have to keep a keen focus on their customers’ expectations and in some cases, reconfigure their supply chains in order to successfully do so,” added Tom. From Tom’s analysis, it is apparent that this is a demanding time for organizations that are trying to reorganize their supply chains. But as ever, with challenges come opportunities and Tom went onto highlight three areas that could be considered as vital starting points or prospects that cannot be ignored.

He began by reiterating the importance of Control Towers and the application of AI and data. “Control Towers are a great capability to start with, because they enable one of the key functions necessary to become more resilient to disruption – real-time, end-to-end visibility across the supply chain,” he recommended.

“Then to find that optimal equilibrium in the

‘efficiency vs resiliency’ balance, companies will have to leverage AI and a greater collection of data sources in nearly every element of their supply chain. Not doing so and they risk getting left behind.

“Now is also the time to look at organizational alignment and adjust your supply chain teams so that they’re able to operate in a more agile fashion in the face of potential disruptions. Companies should consider instituting more decentralized organizational models in their supply chain departments to drive empowerment and speed when it comes to decision making and problem solving.

“Finally, it’s a great time to align on a refreshed supply chain vision and implement a targeted set of key capabilities to help identify and safeguard against supply chain vulnerabilities. Companies need to create a vision for what their supply chain should look like given the vulnerabilities uncovered in 2020. What are its objectives, how it should operate, where is it vulnerable, and what key capabilities are needed to make its customers happy or to reduce risk in the network?”

Tom and his team at IBM have been

working incredibly hard with their partners to help them to overcome their supply chain challenges. But we mustn’t overlook the fact that IBM itself has also had to deal with the pandemic and make changes in order to maintain its exemplary level of service.

Tom described the changes that have been made and even pointed out that some of these have been so successful they will likely become standard practice. “At its onset, the pandemic presented a number of challenges for our services business. We and our clients were accustomed to working together in the same location, and of course as the virus escalated globally and restrictions began to rightly be implemented it became impossible to continue that approach. So, instead we very quickly developed a fully remote delivery methodology leveraging innovative capabilities in remote collaboration that enabled us to continue our inflight projects and even start new ones, all without missing a beat. In fact, this new approach has worked so well that even when we get back to whatever the ‘new normal’ looks like, we’ll likely continue to use elements of this model with our clients.”

The ability to respond quickly to outside

stimuli and be flexible enough to adapt to new requirements is what IBM’s clients are striving for. As the vaccine rolls out and research continues, we hope the coronavirus pandemic will soon be in the past. Looking forward, Tom trusts that IBM will remain a trusted partner for all its clients looking for assistance with their supply chain management in the years to come. “I believe that IBM will continue to help our clients get the most out of their investments in enterprise platforms like SAP, and guide them to leverage the very latest in supply chain innovations to complement those platforms with advanced capabilities that drive successful outcomes for them and their customers. Innovations will only continue to evolve, and IBM is committed to helping our clients understand where these technologies are headed and how they can be used to get to that optimal balance between efficiency and resiliency in the supply chain,” he concluded.

IBM www.ibm.com Specialty: American multinational technology company

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Royal Caribbean Group

Rough seas make

stronger sailors F

or many people, the name alone is enough to conjure images of turquoise seas and sunsets on wide horizons.

Royal Caribbean Group operates some of the most popular and recognizable cruise brands in the world - including Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Silversea Cruises - and has continuously redefined cruise vacationing for its guests since 1969.

Serving a large portion of the 30 million people that embark on cruises each year, Royal

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Caribbean has become known for its friendly and engaging service, adventurous itineraries and onboard innovation that includes a number of industry firsts, such as rock climbing, ice skating and surfing at sea. After years of hard work, the company has earned its reputation as a well-loved and respected vacation provider, and so it was with great sadness that the world received news of the challenges Royal Caribbean and its cruise sector colleagues faced in 2020.

“The travel industry has been hit extremely

Thanks to the power of collaboration and strong business relationships, the world’s second largest cruise operator, Royal Caribbean Group, is getting ready to bounce back after the Covid-19 crisis

hard by the Covid-19 pandemic, but you will not find a subset of the sector that has been hit harder than the cruise lines,” declares Paul Litvinov, Royal Caribbean’s Vice President of Global Supply Chain Management. “Rightly or not, cruising was perceived early on as something that

“As always, the safety of our passengers and staff was our number one priority throughout,” Paul adds. “In some instances, the crisis meant that there were no flights available so we sent ships from Florida to Asia full of crew. It’s our duty to keep our crew safe, so we were happy to do it.”

their businesses, smaller, independent companies suffered greatly.

With no sailing for nine months, travel advisors were affected more than most. Having forged excellent working relationships with its partners and suppliers in over half a century of business,

causes easy transmission of the virus and so all sailing was suspended. As opposed to hotels and airlines that are able to achieve some revenue in some parts of the world, cruise lines were not able to sail anywhere at all for many months.

Understandably, as the cruise industry battled the impact of the pandemic, its suppliers began to feel the strain. While Exxon, Coca-Cola and the rest of Royal Caribbean’s multinational partners were able to mitigate the damage of Covid-19 to

Royal Caribbean acted in solidarity with the travel sector in December 2020 and introduced Pay It Forward, a $40 million pool of funding available to qualifying travel advisors as they look to rebuild their businesses.

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Royal Caribbean Group

Paul Litvinov, Royal Caribbean’s Vice President of Global Supply Chain Management

Danish Decorations

Royal Caribbean Group has been our trusted partner for many years. We have supported them as Turnkey supplier of Public Areas both on their Newbuilds and on their refurb projects.

We have worked very closely with them on their refurb projects to develop true transparency on the projects through lean methods. As a Turnkey supplier we enter the process at a very early stage to support both the design phase as well as the technical planning phase. We follow the refurb project very closely during all phases to ensure the ship ends up with areas in the right quality, easy to maintain, fulfilling all given rules and regulations.

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The goodwill and cohesion on display in Royal Caribbean’s Pay It Forward campaign has been reciprocated in other areas of the industry.

Working closely with its long-standing suppliers, the cruise operator was able to extend payment

terms for many goods and services as the sector worked together to tackle the downturn.

“We continue to pay and we continue to honor our obligations as much as possible because we still have consumption in areas like technical parts,

fuel, and food for our crew, so we try and support suppliers that way. Of course, it is much less than what we operate with normally, but it is not insignificant and we are providing companies with business in a tough time.

“In addition to Pay It Forward, we have also created a workstream with Ernst & Young to guide smaller suppliers towards a more efficient way of applying for government assistance. The US has a lot of initiatives in place, such as the Paycheck Protection Program, to help businesses with loans and keep that workstream going.

“Right now, we are working with suppliers to understand their inventory position so that when we resume cruises, we can start pulling product that has been sitting on their shelves because it is good product, within the expiration dates. We just want to support these valued

partners. Our relationships have been built over many years of trust and collaboration, which is really helping us and them to come through this situation in a big way.”

Though it is difficult to confirm an exact timeline due to the unpredictability of Covid-19, the ongoing rollout of a vaccine for the virus means that Royal Caribbean is already preparing to bounce back. Short cruises out of Singapore were the first to return in December 2020, and the firm’s joint venture with TUI Cruises in Germany resumed sailing in a limited sense earlier this year.

Royal Caribbean aims to start operating on a larger scale as soon as possible, but customers will not be back on the high seas until the company and industry regulators are absolutely comfortable with cruise liner safety. In 2020, the

“Everyone is sick and tired of being inside and they want to take vacations.

Bookings are very strong for later this year and 2022. Just recently, a big oil company came to me and said they wanted to buy hundreds of cabins for its employees on the first cruise back, so we have a lot of reason to be optimistic. When we bounce back, I think we are going to bounce back in a very, very big way

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Royal Caribbean Group

company joined with Norwegian Cruise Line to form the Healthy Sail Panel – a taskforce of globally recognized medical and scientific experts that develop recommendations for establishing the strongest protocols in the travel industry. Panel-led rules and procedures will play a huge role when Royal Caribbean ships next leave port.

“It’s difficult to predict when things will get back to normal, but we are very focused and working extremely hard on our return,” Paul reveals. “We have new suppliers and we are buying a lot of medical equipment so that we can test people prior to the cruise and exclude any guests or crew if there are any unfortunate Covid-19 cases. We want to create an airtight bubble onboard, but ultimately the vaccine will help us the most. We are staying motivated and will start cruises as soon as it is safe.

“There is huge pent-up demand at the moment for people who really want to go on a cruise,” Paul continues. “Everyone is sick and tired of being inside and they want to take vacations. Bookings are very strong for later this year and 2022. Just recently, a big oil company came to me and said they wanted to buy hundreds of cabins for its employees on the first cruise back, so we have a lot of reason to be optimistic. When we bounce back, I think we are going to bounce back in a very, very big way.”

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2020 was a tremendously challenging year for Royal Caribbean, but the company has weathered the storm and is confident that smoother waters lie ahead. One thing customers can be sure of is that when the operator’s cruises return to the seas, they will still be among the most modern, innovative and revolutionary in the world.

“There is a very clear distinction between us and the rest of the industry. A lot of it comes down to that spirit of innovation that began when we brought out the monumental Voyager class back in the early 2000s,” Paul explains. “Our cruise liners have the most creative and advanced hardware in the market, from the world’s tallest viewing deck on a cruise ship to onboard replicas of Central Park and Coney Island. We were the first company to transform a private island into a blend of theme park and luxury resort in the Bahamas. We are almost the Apple of cruises in that way – we come

up with the features that people have never even thought of and before they know it, guests cannot imagine cruise ships without them!

“Up until the pandemic, Royal Caribbean had been smashing records year on year and we were really set up for huge success,” Paul summarizes. “I am confident that this success will resume once the crisis is over. We still have a lot of ships being built, including a brand-new cruise liner launching in April. I know 2021 won’t be easy, but we have exciting hardware ready for release, and we have great relationships with our customers, suppliers and travel advisors, so I think the future is very bright.”

Royal Caribbean Group www.royalcaribbean.com Services: Global cruise holding company