Supply Chain May 2021

May 2021 | supplychaindigital.com

ClearMetal: Fuelling Visibility in Ocean Freight READ NOW

Source-to-Pay Providers FIND OUT

Beyond the Buzz: BCG’s Dr Stefan Gstettner on Industry Jargon READ NOW

SAP Whitepaper: The Intelligent Future of Industry 4.0

Dril-Quip: Digitalisation and delivering on ESG

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THE

SUPPLY CHAIN

QUEEN

IBM’s Sheri Hinish, a.k.a the Supply Chain Queen, on the importance of diverse hiring, creating equitable workspaces, and being a rebel with a cause FIND OUT MORE

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The SupplyChain Team EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

RHYS THOMAS EDITORIAL DIRECTOR

SCOTT BIRCH

PRODUCTION DIRECTORS

GEORGIA ALLEN DANIELA KIANICKOVÁ PRODUCTION MANAGERS

OWEN MARTIN PHILLINE VICENTE JENNIFER SMITH

PRODUCTION EDITOR

VIDEO PRODUCTION MANAGER

MEDIA SALES DIRECTOR

CREATIVE TEAM

DIGITAL VIDEO PRODUCERS

SALES AND MARKETING DIRECTOR

JANET BRICE

OSCAR HATHAWAY SOPHIA FORTE SOPHIE-ANN PINNELL HECTOR PENROSE SAM HUBBARD MIMI GUNN JUSTIN SMITH REBEKAH BIRLESON

KIERAN WAITE

SAM KEMP EVELYN HUANG TYLER LIVINGSTONE

DIGITAL MARKETING EXECUTIVE

KAYLEIGH SHOOTER PROJECT DIRECTORS

TOM LIVERMORE JAMES RICHARDSON KARL GREEN

JAMES WHITE

JASON WESTGATE MANAGING DIRECTOR

LEWIS VAUGHAN

CHIEF OPERATIONS OFFICER

STACY NORMAN PRESIDENT & CEO

GLEN WHITE

EDITOR'S LETTER

Panasonic’s $7.1bn vote of confidence The firm’s multi-billion acquisition of Blue Yonder underlines the true value of supply chain digitalisation.

“The deal only serves to underline what we in the industry know all too well”

SUPPLYCHAIN DIGITAL MAGAZINE IS PUBLISHED BY

Few in our digital community will have inhaled sharply at the announcement in April that Blue Yonder is to be acquired by Panasonic.

The long-rumoured acquisition was, in many eyes, an inevitability. Some may have raised an eye brow at the figure the Japanese electronics firm will pay to enter the supply chain management arena.

The $7.1bn Panasonic will pay to make Blue Yonder a wholly-owned subsidiary is, after all, an eye-watering investment. But for most supply chain leaders, the deal only serves to underline what we in the industry know all too well: the true value of effective, transparent supply chain management.

Panasonic’s gamble - a sure thing roll of the dice is a vote of confidence in the critical nature of digital transformation. Inefficient, opaque supply chains can be a company’s weakest link, as evidenced by the disruption of the past 18 months. But businesses that move with the times will find their supply chain to be the catalyst for growth and a stabilising force to weather the challenges that industries will continue to face long after the disruption of the pandemic has passed.

RHYS THOMAS

Rhys.Thomas@bizclikmedia.com

© 2021 | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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28th - 30th 2021 A BizClik Media Group Brand

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Over 5 Stages:

Main Stage Procurement Stage Supply Chain Stage Sustainability Stage Tech Expo Stage

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CONTENTS

Our Regular Upfront Section: 10 Big Picture 12 The Brief 14 Global News 18 People Moves 22 Legend:

Marc Engel 24 Five Mins With:

Jim Bureau

36

Technology

Realising End-to-End Transparency in the Supply Chain

26

46

INDUSTRY 4.0 Intelligent Products Report

INDUSTRY 4.0 Intelligent Factories Report

SAP Whitepaper

SAP Whitepaper

68

ClearMetal

Superior Ocean Freight Visibility

56

Diversity

Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion with the Supply Chain Queen

80

Supply Chain

Beyond the Buzz: Dr Stefan Gstettner Talks Supply Chain

92

British Telecom Global Services India

Delivering Through Disruption

104

Procurement & SupplyChain Live

Listen Now

108 TELUS

Leading the IT Procurement Transformation

130

Dril-Quip

The Transformative Power of Digitalization

118 Top 10

Source-to-Pay Providers

144

J-Tec Material Handling Driving Growth in Asia

BIG PICTURE

10

May 2021

Weaker links Taiwan

The Wushantou Reservoir in Taiwan paints a grim picture. The country’s worst drought for 50 years has got some experts suggesting it should divert tropical storms to secure rainfall. Why does this matter? Taiwan produces around two thirds of the world’s semiconductors, and that process requires significant water – which is currently in short supply – heaping further pressure on flagging production and long supply chains stretched to breaking point. supplychaindigital.com

11

THE BRIEF “YOU SHOULDN’T BE USING JUST ONE SOURCE OF DATA AND IT SHOULDN’T BE STATIC DATA. IT SHOULD BE DYNAMIC BECAUSE THAT’S HOW THE SUPPLY CHAIN REALLY WORKS” Chris Mazza

SVP, Customer Experience and Business Development ClearMetal  READ MORE

“WE DEFAULT ON CURIOUS, AND WE WANT TO ENCOURAGE OUR PARTNERS TO CONTINUE TO SHARE THEIR IDEAS AND INSIGHTS” Michael Wells

Vice President Supply Chain Dril-Quip  READ MORE

“THE MORE WE INVEST IN DIGITAL, THE MORE TIME WE CAN DEDICATE TO STRATEGIC SOURCING, MEETING WITH OUR SUPPLIERS, UNDERSTANDING NEW TECHNIQUES AND INNOVATIONS” Vanitha Prabhu

Global Procurement Manager BT Global Services India  READ MORE

12

May 2021

BY THE NUMBERS

Survey of 298 supply chain professionals - Gartner

Improving diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the supply chain

44%

59%

Percentage of businesses that don’t have any kind of initiative or are still considering starting one

Supply chain organisations that have some form of objective to improve any dimension of DEI

20%

Percentage of businesses that are taking action with enterprisewide initiatives

36%

Percentage of businesses that are taking action with some form of initiative

25% HBCUs 30%

of Black Americans who graduate with STEM degrees come from HBCUs (UNCF, 2015)

generate US$14.8bn in economic impact annually and graduate 50,000 graduates per

READ MORE

READ MORE

of supply chain organisations have cloud computing in their business READ MORE

IS GENERATION Z DRIVING THE AUTONOMY OF SUPPLY CHAINS?

 PANASONIC AND BLUE YONDER Panasonic plans to purchase the remaining 80% stake in Blue Yonder for US$5.6bn, combining their individual expertise to accelerate the autonomous supply chain.

 DHL EXPRESS AND FIAT PROFESSIONAL

Now I know what you're thinking - what are 'Generation Zers'?

In simple terms, Generation Z is represented by those born between 1997 and 2012. Pierfrancesco Manenti,

DHL Express partners with Fiat Professional to further the electrification of lastmile delivery. As part of the partnership, DHL Express purchased the first 100 units of Fiat's new, 100% electric, E-Ducato.

Research Vice President at Gartner’s Supply Chain

 TESLA

practice, says that “the oldest Gen Z’ers have just

At the company's quarterly earnings call, Elon Musk told investors that the company has had “some of the most difficult supply-chain challenges that we've ever experienced in the life of Tesla.”

started their careers. In 10 years, they’ll be supply chain managers.”

So what is business-driven hyper-automation?

Defined by Gartner as an approach that organisations adopt to rapidly identify, vet, and automate business processes, “Hyper-automation involves a combination of technologies that include robotic process automation

 EUROPE

(RPA), machine learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI)

The Food and Drink Federation (FDF) has released its February food and drink trade snapshot. The findings revealed that EU exports were down by 40.9% compared to 2020.

and many others.”

How can supply chains prepare for the future?

Taking the opportunity to attract and hire Gen Z'ers to maximise their digitalisation efforts, supply chain leaders over the next five years are expected to roll out more coordinated and impactful RPA initiatives as the

 EVERGREEN

technology matures.

Impounded by Egyptian authorities in Ismailia, Evergreen’s Ever Given container ship is facing legal action for the salvage operation cost and lost transit fees. Figures have been reported at US$900mn.

Following RPA’s maturity, between 2025 and 2030, Gartner expects many hyper-automation technologies to mature and enter mainstream adoption.

Beyond 2030, all low-value supply chain activities will be largely automated – an expectation of the Gen Z workforce. As such, employees will focus their efforts on higher-value tasks.

W I N N E R S MAY21

L O S E R S

supplychaindigital.com

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GLOBAL NEWS

1

UNITED STATES

Gartner Reveals Global Semiconductor Revenue Grew by 10.4% Gartner’s latest findings reveal the world’s semiconductor revenue grew by 10.4% in 2020, indicating that despite supply chain disruptions, demand remained high for the technology.

14

May 2021

2

GLOBAL

Supply chains are turning to green solutions for the future With the constant threat of climate change to the world and economy, along with pressure from the public and regulators, global carrier businesses are trying to come up with solutions to help drive greener operations.

3

5

EGYPT

GLOBAL

Ever Given impounded

by Egyptian authorities

Covid and the supply chain: What is the latest?

Freedom followed by impounding. On April 14, local Egyptian authorities impounded the now free vessel, seeking legal action for the salvage operation's cost and lost transit fees.

Authorities claim that they are owed US$900m.

In the world's largest COVID19 vaccination campaign, more than 726 million doses have been administered across 154 countries.

4

JAPAN

Panasonic set to acquire Blue Yonder in $5.6bn deal “Accelerating the autonomous supply chain,” Panasonic plans to acquire the remaining 80% stake in Blue Yonder, “Combining Panasonic’s strength in industrial engineering, IoT and edge technologies with Blue Yonder’s AI/ML-driven supply chain and commerce solutions,” to intensify customer value.

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+ 1200 CHARTERS

CALL TODAY! +1 866-456-5988

in 2020 www.apexglobe.com info@apexglobe.com

Apex Logistics Increases Air Charters by 225% in 2020 Apex Logistics International increased total air charters from 500+ flights in 2019 to over 1200 charters in 2020. While some 50% of usual airfreight was deeply disrupted by the pandemic, the constant disruption forced the airfreight supply chain industry to immediately adopt an innovative approach, focusing on results over processes, making fast, smart decisions, and embracing outside trends quickly and effectively.

In 2020, E-Commerce sales jumped by more than 30% as consumers who followed stay-at-home orders and social-distancing measures discovered convenient and reliable online shopping options with faster delivery times. Spiked demand for time-sensitive personal protective equipment (PPE), consumer electronic devices, groceries and essential products, combined with the halt in ocean vessel movement, kept aircrafts flying during the pandemic.

Apex responded swiftly to the challenge by expanding commercial airfreight capacity and scheduled charters by over 225%. This move to increase dedicated charters supported retailers with flights that allow for faster recovery at destination, virtually eliminating terminal delay issues. This model extends to origin and destination services, where they control these processes by utilizing their own Container Freight Station (CFS) facilities.

While many outsource this work to 3PLs, Apex delivers these critical services in house.

Although industry challenges on both supply and demand side may likely persist through 2021, Apex is committed to meeting and exceeding customer needs with continued expansion of services to do what they do best, deliver passion.

FOLLOW US:

WE

DELIVER PASSION

PEOPLE MOVES MARK MANDUCA FROM: CITI GROUP TO: GXO LOGISTICS (XPO LOGISTICS SPIN-OFF) WAS: MANAGING DIRECTOR, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF EQUITY RESEARCH NOW: CHIEF INVESTMENT OFFICER With a track record of leading the top European transport research teams, Mark Manduca has been appointed as Chief Investment Officer of XPO logistics spin-off business - GXO Logistics.

Harnessing his 15 years of experience in equity research, Manduca will be responsible for analysing growth opportunities, optimisation of its asset portfolio, overseeing its UK pension investments, and ensuring that the company’s investment case reaches a global audience.

Manduca joins GXO Logistics from CitiGroup, where he was Managing Director/Associate Director of Equity Research. Prior to CitiGroup, Manduca spent eight years at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and five years at Insight Investment, where he was Managing Director and Associate Analyst of Equity Research, respectively.

18

May 2021

"Manduca was named the number one European transport research analyst

by Institutional Investor for the eighth consecutive year"

DEREK BUTTS FROM: WORKDAY TO: BLUE YONDER WAS: VP, CORPORATE STRATEGY AND DEVELOPMENT NOW: EVP, CHIEF STRATEGY OFFICER

ALEXANDRE CARVALHAL

Derek Butts has boarded Blue Yonder as Executive Vice President, Chief Strategy Officer after 13 years at SaaS firm Workday.

In his new role he will oversee strategic investments and partnerships, market expansion, and product incubation.

"Derek’s experience in capital allocation strategies, product management, talent development and building out an ecosystem will be highly relevant to Blue Yonder’s growth path ahead,” said Blue Yonder CEO Girish Rishi.

FROM: SAP TO: GREYORANGE WAS: CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER AND SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF FINANCE NOW: CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER

With more than 30 years of experience in the world of finance, Alexandre Carvalhal has joined GreyOrange - a global software provider that modernises fulfilment operations - as Chief Financial Officer.

Carvalhal comes to GreyOrange from SAP where he was Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President of Finance, taking over the role from Vartul Jain. supplychaindigital.com

19

Bringing the Community to LIVE Broadcast from London to the World

September

28th - 30th 2021 A BizClik Media Group Brand

Featuring:

Keynote Speakers LIVE Roundtable Q&As Networking Lunch Inspirational Presentations

Over 5 Stages:

Main Stage Procurement Stage Supply Chain Stage Sustainability Stage Tech Expo Stage

EARLY BIRD TICKETS

Creating Digital Communities

LEGEND

MARC ENGEL CHIEF SUPPLY CHAIN OFFICER UNILEVER

A

ppointed Chief Supply Chain Officer (CSCO) in 2016, Marc Engel has a long history with Unilever dating back over 25 years.

Engel has an MSc in applied physics from the University of Groningen, Netherlands, and has held various job titles with Unilever, even working a short stint at Shell plc.

His time with Unilever has sent him around the globe, having worked in Singapore, Scotland, England, Brazil, Switzerland, Kenya and London. His comprehensive experience of sectors relating to supply chain operations, including production, distribution, procurement, finance and strategy, have opened doors for Unilever over the past few years.

Before his time as CSCO, Engel worked as Unilever’s Chief Procurement Officer (CPO), driving global procurement of third-party goods and services and was active in the implementation of the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan aims “to bridge the divide to a fairer, more socially inclusive world. A world where we all live with, rather than 22

May 2021

25+

Years working with Unilever

“[The Unilever Sustainable Living Plan aims] to bridge the divide to a fairer, more socially inclusive world” at the expense of nature and the environment,” according to Unilever.

To achieve this, Engel played an important role in enriching Unilever’s supplier relationships and established the company’s ‘Partner to Win’ programme.

Engel has been a member of a number of executive boards, including those at A.P. Moller-Maersk, Kenya Association of Manufacturers, SCM and IDH. He speaks very highly of the IDH, Sustainable Trade Initiative, which he served as a member of the IDH Supervisory Board from 2009 to 2012.

“I worked with IDH in East Africa and in my current role. I was in Davos in early 2020 when we launched the IDH Farmfit Fund together with IDH. What I said then and what I say now is that IDH is one of the few organizations I know that is both mission-driven and action-oriented,” said Engel.

“IDH gets things done. They speak business language and see business as a driving force for sustainable change. I like that thinking.”

FIVE MINUTES WITH...

JIM BUREAU CEO OF JAGGAER Q. WHAT IS DATA ANALYTICS, AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT FOR ORGANISATIONS TO UTILISE?

» Data analytics is the process of collecting, cleansing, transforming and analysing an organisation’s information to identify trends and extract meaningful insights to solve problems.

The main benefit for procurement teams that adopt analytics is that they’re equipped to make faster, more proactive and effective decisions. Spend analysis and other advanced statistical analyses eliminate the guesswork and reactivity common with spreadsheets and other manual approaches and drive greater efficiency and value.

As procurement continues to play a central role in organisational success, adopting analytics is critical for improving operations, meeting and achieving key performance indicators, reducing staff burnout, gaining valuable market intelligence and protecting the bottom line.

Q. HOW CAN ORGANISATIONS USE PROCUREMENT ANALYTICS TO BENEFIT THEIR OPERATIONS?

» Teams can leverage data analytics to tangibly improve performance across

all procurement activities - identifying new savings opportunities, getting a consolidated view of spend, understanding the right time for contract re-negotiations, and which suppliers to tap when prioritising and segmenting suppliers, assessing and addressing supply chain risk and more.

Procurement can ultimately create a more comprehensive sourcing process that invites more suppliers to the table and gets even more granular about cost drivers and other criteria.

Procurement analytics can provide critical insight for spend management, category management, supplier contracts and negotiations, strategic sourcing, spend forecasting and more. Unilever, for example, used actionable insight from spend analysis to optimise spending, sourcing, and contract negotiations for an especially

“ The main benefit for procurement teams that adopt analytics is that they’re equipped to make faster, more proactive and effective decisions” 24

May 2021

unpredictable industry such as transport and logistics.

Whether a team needs to figure out ways to retain cash, further diversify its supply base, or deliver value on sustainability, innovation or diversity initiatives, analytics can help procurement deliver on organisational needs.

Q. HOW IS DATA ANALYTICS USED IN SUPPLY CHAIN AND PROCUREMENT?

» Data analytics encompasses

descriptive, diagnostic, predictive and prescriptive data.

Descriptive shows what’s happened in the past, while diagnostic analytics surface answers to ‘why’ those previous events happened.

This clear view into procurement operations and trends lays the groundwork for predictive analytics, which forecasts future events, and prescriptive analytics, which recommends the best actions for teams to take based on those predictions.

Teams can leverage all four types of analytics to gain visibility across the supply chain and identify optimisation and value generating opportunities.

Take on-time delivery (OTD) as an example. Predictive analytics are identifying the probability of whether an order will be delivered on time even before its placed, based on previous events. Combined with recommendation engines that suggest improvement actions, the analytics enable teams to proactively mitigate risk of late deliveries, such as through spreading an order over a second or third source of supply.

Advanced analytics is a research and development focus for JAGGAER, and we expect procurement’s ability to leverage AI to become even stronger and more impactful. supplychaindigital.com

25

INDUSTRY 4.0

Intelligent Products Report

26

May 2021

FEATURE HEADER

supplychaindigital.com

27

Consumers now expect every product they buy to be delivered their way: in their colours and with their chosen combination of capabilities KEITH ZOBOTT

GLOBAL VICE PRESIDENT OF DIGITAL PRODUCTS AND PROJECTS

28

May 2021

INTELLIGENT PRODUCTS REPORT

INTRODUCTION

Intelligent Products Intelligent Products take many forms and are redefining the relationship between manufacturers and end users

I

ntelligent Products take many forms and are tough to define. A custom t-shirt in colours chosen by a consumer and shipped to their door is an Intelligent Product. So is an industrial machining unit using sensors and IoT to collect data and inform operators of maintenance issues or how processes could be more efficient. A mobile device is both of these things: aesthetically distinct and operationally customised by the user.

The only truly consistent characteristic is that demand is growing, and manufacturers unable to adapt and deliver will fall behind the curve.

Intelligent Products is one of the four pillars of SAP’s Industry 4.0 initiative, alongside Intelligent Factories, Intelligent Assets and Empowered People. Keith Zobott, Global Vice President of Digital Products and Projects, describes Intelligent Products as “very complex devices, whether they're aircraft or machinery, but with some common threads in all of them”.

Here he explores how both consumers and enterprises stand to benefit from the wider adoption of these connected and customised smart products, from greater customer satisfaction, to cost savings and fundamental improvements in the way businesses design, manufacture and deliver.

The IoT in manufacturing market size is projected to grow to

$45bn+ by 2022 marketresearch.com

SAP INDUSTRY 4.0

EXECUTIVE INTERVIEW

Custom Products for the Connected Customer Keith Zobott, Global Vice President of Digital Products and Projects at SAP explores the fundamentals of Intelligent Products, and the benefits for both consumers and manufacturers

Y

ou’ve probably used an Intelligent Product, whether you realised it or not.

Cars which use sensors to remind drivers to refuel, or cameras to assist their parking, are Intelligent Products.

The custom case protecting your mobile device is an intelligent product, too. They all share fundamental characteristics, including the ability to adapt to their environment or how they're being used, the ability to minimise maintenance costs, or maximise performance, and the ability to be personalised by customers.

But the concept is far reaching and can broadly be divided into two categories: aesthetic customisation and performance optimisation.

“At SAP we’re tackling both of those things,” says Keith Zobott, Global Vice President of Digital Products and 30

May 2021

KEITH ZOBOTT

Projects at SAP. Zobott uses a pair of exercise shoes as an example of how a product can be both, simultaneously. A runner may buy a pair of smart shoes to help improve their performance. The footwear can track their movements, distance travelled, the locations they visited and other common data points that wearables on the market can already measure. But they can also pinpoint specifics such as foot positioning while taking a stride, or which part of the foot is taking most of the pressure.

On the other side of the equation, a consumer may simply want a shoe that looks great. “We know that consumers now expect every product they buy to be delivered their way: in their colours and with their chosen combination of capabilities,” Zobott explains. “So SAP is building an ecosystem that allows manufacturers to provide products that

FEATURE HEADER SAP: WHITE PAPER

are unique to consumer needs, but in a way that is quick and efficient.”

INTELLIGENT PRODUCTS IN BUSINESS The positives Intelligent Products bring to end users are obvious, but manufacturers also stand to reap their own benefits as they gain traction.

“We already see the need for Intelligent Products in a lot of machinery today, whether it's industrial machinery, or aircraft and automotive machinery,” says Zobott. “I would say that’s rooted in the fact that OEMs want to reduce the total cost of ownership of this equipment. And manufacturers can take advantage of this flexibility to optimise both the non-recurring costs related to the cost of developing an asset or a product, as well as the recurring costs that are built into a product.

“Others are benefiting by leveraging a product platforming strategy, which enables them to drive reuse significantly within their particular product families,” Zobott adds. “We're gathering all this

SAP has integrated design solutions connecting the data that allow manufacturers to provide unique products for consumer needs

really interesting data, but if we don't find a way to reconstitute that data in an efficient way in the next design, what good is it? These are just some of the ways it adds value.”

Once implemented, the model perpetuates a cycle of self improvement. “Every process, every tool, and every set of data feeds back at every stage to continually learn and improve,” Zobott continues. “So businesses can understand more about the engineering assumptions that were made early in the design process, and either validate or invalidate them.

“From a business standpoint, what we're really talking about here is the future of changing the whole experience, instead of just changing the product or service you're selling.

The most expensive things for an airline operator, for example, are delays and cancellations. So there is tremendous supplychaindigital.com

31

SAP INDUSTRY 4.0

Keith Zobott from SAP talks about digital products in Supply Chain

value in reducing those by just a fraction through gaining more insights into the performance of an engine or any aircraft system. Using this data, you can maybe tweak maintenance intervals to avoid any unwanted delays and cancellations.

The benefits to customer satisfaction and other costs can be dramatic.”

What we're really talking about here is the future of changing the whole experience instead...

32

May 2021

THE KEY IS GETTING STARTED A digital transformation journey of this magnitude can rapidly become “overwhelming”, Zobott admits. The initial and most common hurdle to overcome is often organisational: how siloed a company’s departments are and how much data they share, from procurement and supply chain, to engineering and manufacturing.

The COVID-19 pandemic exasperated this issue. Organisations that were once only partially disconnected have become more fragmented and siloed.

“It really validated the need for improved collaboration capabilities, to be more connected and have resilient processes,” Zobott says. “Many companies are now looking at Intelligent Products and how

INTELLIGENT PRODUCTS REPORT

SAP can help them reach their business goals. They are especially interested in our digital thread concept. That’s not simply connecting the dots, but connecting processes and actually breaking down those organisational barriers so that businesses can begin to get visibility upstream and downstream in these processes. That's a key part of our design operation strategy.”

Here SAP is leveraging its vast wealth of expertise, data and integrated platforms to guide businesses of all sizes through their digital transformation. “These are expensive investments, they are hard projects to successfully accomplish, and they can

Our digital thread concept is not simply connecting the dots, but helps break down organisational barriers take anywhere from 18 months to five years depending on how comprehensive they are. At SAP we’re delivering packages that allow customers to access rapid start capabilities. That can be in product lifecycle costing, or maybe in manufacturing through the cloud. We’re creating those on-ramps to make it easy for our customer to try out these capabilities and see if it works for them, and then build on it. The key thing is getting started.”

KEITH ZOBOTT TITLE: GLOBAL VICE PRESIDENT OF DIGITAL PRODUCTS AND PROJECTS Keith's background includes over 30 years of experience with product development, discrete manufacturing, Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), advanced analysis tools, and portfolio & program management. Keith led initiatives in large, complex, global organizations to reduce time to profitability, drive increased customer value, and increase cross-functional process integration. Currently, leading SAP’s Digital Product & Projects solution management organization where our customers’ digital twin begins and initiates our design to operate digital transformation journey toward becoming an Intelligent Enterprise.

Industry 4.0 technologies, including Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), are leading to significant disruption across manufacturing industries.

Before joining SAP, he held various global leadership roles including developing strategic plans for Enterprise Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and other product development enabling technologies for multi-billion-dollar global businesses.

SAP INDUSTRY 4.0

INTELLIGENT PRODUCTS BY THE NUMBERS

36% vs 33%

Profit margin of smart products compared to other goods, on average

1 in 3 sales are generated by products

with embedded smart devices or intelligence

67%

of manufacturers produce finished products with embedded smart devices or intelligence

46%

of manufacturers are focused on embedding smart devices into products...

45%

…Yet of manufacturers face challenges accessing the required technologies

34%

face challenges finding suppliers capable of delivering high quality smart devices 34

May 2021

29%

still struggle to clearly define the customer needs or where smart products can add value Source: MPI/SAP

FEATURE HEADER INTELLIGENT PRODUCTS REPORT

Types of Industry 4.0 products created by percentage of manufacturers Our company’s finished products with embedded smart devices and/or intelligence

27%

Parts/components for other manufactures' products with embedded smart devices and/or intelligence

31%

Industry 4.0 software for manufactures' products

42% 40%

23% Some products

42%

Many products

Financial impact of the application of Industry 4.0 products in past year by percentage of manufacturers

Increase more than 10 percent

17% 16% 43% 42%

Increase 6-10 percent

27% 28%

Increase 1-5 percent

Branding and market awareness

Differentiating products in the market

Source: MPI/SAP

42%

37%

26%

Fluids/substances for other manufactures' products with embedded smart devices and/or intelligence

Customer support

39%

27%

Materials devices for other manufactures' products with embedded smart devices and/or intelligence

by percentage of manufacturers reporting “significant improvement”

41%

28%

Smart devices for other manufactures' products

Biggest areas of improvement through Industry 4.0 products

30%

8% 9%

No change Decrease No Industry 4.0 currently or planned

0% 1% 5% 5%

supplychaindigital.com

35

TECHNOLOGY

REALISING

END-TO-END

TRANSPARENCY IN THE

SUPPLY CHAIN

36

May 2021

TECHNOLOGY

IBM, DHL and CIPS discuss the importance of end-to-end transparency in the supply chain and how an organisation can realise its potential WRITTEN BY: GEORGIA WILSON

Mark Miller, Program Manager Products, DHL Supply Chain (Americas)

Jonathan Wright, Managing Partner, Service Line Leader, IBM Services

Duncan Brock, Group Director, CIPS

C

ritical to many aspects of the supply chain and its process, those without supply chain transparency stand to impede their decision-making capabilities due to the lack of real-time information. “It is necessary to have access to the right real-time data, to know where goods are, and how processes work,” says Jonathan Wright, Managing Partner, Service Line Leader at IBM Services. “It also makes real-time collaboration with outsourcing partners and suppliers next to impossible, which reduces a company’s ability to be flexible.”

Presenting unique challenges to the industry, “these known cracks in global supply chains are part of a range of concerns for executives, addressing them is critical to the vision of future supply chains.”

Why is end-to-end transparency important in the supply chain?

Real-time data and technology have transformed from a ‘nice-to-have’ to a ‘necessity’. Generating granular, realtime, security-rich data about supply chains, coupled with technology (robotics, automation, hybrid cloud, IoT, edge computing, and blockchain) can power intelligent workflows.

“These ‘Intelligent Workflows’ are AI-driven, embracing automation where possible, and facilitate horizontal integration and adjustments across functions, providing supplychaindigital.com

37

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TECHNOLOGY

“ The key is understanding that nothing short of endto-end supply chain visibility will provide the agility needed to deal with unforeseen risks and unexpected disruptions” MARK MILLER

PROGRAM MANAGER PRODUCTS, DHL SUPPLY CHAIN (AMERICAS)

360-degree visibility of the supply chain and potential disruptions. It’s no coincidence that recent research shows that leading supply chain organisations use real-time intelligence 34% more often than their peers,” says Wright.

By harnessing intelligent workflows to improve reliability and reduce risk, Wright adds that “intelligent workflows can help companies address dilemmas (workforce dislocation, inventory issues, and customer service disruptions) caused by the pandemic or other crises. As we move forward, it’s tough to predict the parameters of a post-pandemic world. But intelligent workflows can help build a smarter, more resilient global supply chain and narrow the gap between unimaginable and anticipated.”

Agreeing with Wright, Mark Miller, Program Manager Products at DHL Supply Chain (Americas), says, “the COVID-19 pandemic exposed a number of vulnerabilities with today’s supply chains, causing unexpected disruptions and shortages. The experience

highlighted an important fact that a number of supply chain managers already knew - supply chain visibility and transparency is a must.

The key is understanding that nothing short of end-to-end supply chain visibility will provide the agility needed to deal with unforeseen risks and unexpected disruptions.”

What does end-to-end transparency mean?

“End-to-end visibility means being knowledgeable about every aspect of your supply chain to ensure a better and consistent customer experience. It enables your supply chain to more effectively and quickly react to unforeseen risks, as well as changing customer and market demands. It can also allow you to make more informed business decisions through visibility solutions like DHL’s MySupplyChain when it comes to moving products and fulfilment centres closer to customers.” supplychaindigital.com

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TECHNOLOGY

How does the supply chain industry achieve end-to-end transparency?

Often a daunting task for most companies to pursue solo, “achieving end-to-end supply chain transparency can often require partnering with a third-party logistics (3PL) provider that has knowledge, experience and has invested in visibility tools and digitisation to manage the data flow,” says Miller, who explains that DHL’s own MySupplyChain tool is an example of this type of platform, “providing customers [with] a view of inventory positions, warehouse order visibility and transportation tracking across the entire network, enabling you to turn newly-available, end-to-end supply chain operations insight, into a competitive advantage. The ability to drill down into indecisive data, track-and-trace, and to share files has been a large, game-changing initiative for DHL Supply Chain and its customers.”

Wright identifies three core focal points for any organisations looking to achieve endto-end transparency in the supply chain: 1. Drive innovation-to-value with intelligent workflows “COVID-19 has proven, companies with flexible, agile, and transparent supply chains are able to better respond to disruptions,” says Wright, who believes it's important to: • Adopt an ‘inside-out’ approach to digital transformation by partnering that data with robotics, automation, hybrid cloud, connected IoT, and edge computing.

• Incorporate wisdom from external sources that provide weather, demand fluctuation, and other essential logistical data.

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With the need for quick response and time to value increased by the impact of COVID-19, “companies should start with implementing AI-driven solutions that integrate with their current state architecture to accelerate toward a digital supply chain, these can start adding value in less than a month,” adds Wright.

2. Strive for autonomy through automation “Leverage automated processes and selflearning software,” says Wright. “Emulate the top-performing supply chain organisations with workflows that are self-learning, selfcorrecting, and self-directing,” freeing up resources to focus on higher-value work.

TECHNOLOGY

End-to-end transparency trends in the supply chain Reflecting on the current industry landscape, Wright, Miller and Duncan Brock, Group Director at CIPS, identify three key trends in the industry: intelligent workflows, ecommerce, and digital processes.

Intelligent workflows At the centre of five key supply chain trends - customised customer experience, selfcorrecting operations, agile operating models, transparent, ethical networks, and dynamic computing configuration - Jonathan Wright, Managing Partner, Service Line Leader at IBM Services, identifies intelligent workflows as a key trend in the industry that can power responsiveness in the supply chain.

Ecommerce With the rise of ecommerce driving consumer expectations for quick, easy and reliable access to products, “gaining end-to-end visibility of your supply chain ensures a more agile supply chain focused on better customer experiences,” says Mark Miller, Program Manager Products, DHL Supply

Chain (Americas), who explains that having greater visibility into how your supply chain is performing, combined with inventory and capacity data,“allows you to make informed decisions on inventory placement to move fulfilment closer to consumers.”

Digital processes “Generally, the trend is companies are moving towards full transparency, supported by digital processes that can give them more detail more easily and at each stage of their supply chain,” adds Duncan Brock, Group Director at CIPS. “there is more pressure from boards and investors to understand the supply chain more deeply and for more detailed reporting.”

As a result of COVID-19, the supply chain industry will reflect on their response to the outbreak and what they could have differently, “this will inevitably lead to a deeper dive into all the stages of their procurement and supply chain processes and could result in not only different suppliers but potentially new products and operations.”

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TECHNOLOGY

3. Impart agility with instant and transparent insights.

Finally, “embrace agile operating models, which can provide near-instant insights in support of an organisation’s workforce, ecosystems, and fluid work unit teams,” says Wright, who expects to see these operating models to be a top competitive advantage over the next three years.

What technology is being used to realise the value of end-to-end transparency?

“It does depend on the business goals and what’s already in place,” says Duncan Brock, Group Director at CIPS. “Our research into digitalisation of supply chains found that 30% of companies had cloud computing in their business,” making it easier to access information across the entire business.

Alongside cloud computing, Brock adds that “24% of firms have stores of big data with a wealth of customer information at their fingertips, though many firms are still unclear how they can use this goldmine effectively, the data is a rich source of risk and opportunity.”

The benefits of end-to-end transparency “Modern-day supply chains are complex and huge with diverse supplier networks coupled with a global consumer community. Running a smooth supply chain operation while avoiding disruptions was hard already. 3PLs like DHL Supply Chain can provide 360degree visibility across several key areas like track and trace, inventory, operational performance, business analytics and customer service. Gaining visibility into the supply chain means ensuring complete transparency through the process.”

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IBM CHQ in Armonk, NY, USA

TECHNOLOGY

“Known cracks in global supply chains are part of a range of concerns for executives, addressing them is critical to the vision of future supply chains” JONATHAN WRIGHT

MANAGING PARTNER, SERVICE LINE LEADER, IBM SERVICES

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“ With so many support functions in place, it is becoming increasingly difficult for companies to plead ignorance about what’s happening in their supply chains” DUNCAN BROCK

GROUP DIRECTOR, CIPS

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TECHNOLOGY

The challenge of end-to-end transparency • The complexity of looking at every tier in the supply chain, and the resources needed to make the exercise useful and robust • Concerns over sharing information and undermining competitive advantage • The accuracy of the information collated • Definitions of what constitutes transparency may differ between sectors

Other types of technology being used in the industry include radio frequency identification (RFID). While not new to the industry, the technology is becoming smaller, which increases its range of uses to support the automation of inventory management. “These tags can store data, and so goods can be pinpointed to a specific location or actual supplier or producer, making identification of any problems so much easier. Consumers are becoming more interested in this too as they want more detail on where goods are coming from,” adds Brock.

With the levels of technological sophistication rapidly increasing, “companies are hard-pressed sometimes to keep up,” says Brock. “But with so many support functions in place, it is becoming increasingly difficult for companies to plead ignorance about what’s happening in their supply chains. And that can only be a good thing.” supplychaindigital.com

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INDUSTRY 4.0

Intelligent Factories Report

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FEATURE HEADER

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All of our customers have initiatives that are looking at how they're going to change for the future MIKE LACKEY

GLOBAL HEAD OF SOLUTION MANAGEMENT FOR DIGITAL MANUFACTURING

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INTELLIGENT FACTORIES REPORT

INTRODUCTION

Intelligent Factories Intelligent Factories are meeting the demands of today and defining the future of manufacturing through SAP’s Industry 4.0 initiative

T

he manufacturing sector has pioneered global shifts in commerce and trade since the first industrial revolution brought affordable consumer products to the masses. Automation, a commonplace feature in factories and production plants for generations, increased efficiency, delivered better value to stakeholders and customers alike, and placed safety at the forefront of the workplace. Today, assailed on all sides by the global disruption of a prevailing pandemic, regionalised geopolitical complexity including Brexit or trade wars, and customer demands that can shift with the wind, manufacturers stand on the digital transformation of Industry 4.0, the next seismic shift.

Positioned at the centre of this industry shift is the Intelligent Factory, a self-optimising, data-driven strategy that will define the future of manufacturing and production. Agile enough to overcome unforeseen disruption and prescriptive enough to drive and shape the direction of consumer habits and expectations, Intelligent Factories

promise to revolutionise the quality, customisation and speed of delivery in everything from specialist medical equipment to consumer running shoes.

The result is an industry that realises change is a necessity rather than a means to a competitive edge. “All of our customers have initiatives that are looking at how they're going to change for the future,” says Mike Lackey, Global Head of Solution Management for Digital Manufacturing at SAP. Lackey is at the forefront of SAP’s Intelligent Factory initiative, driving agility, efficiency and resilience, to deliver on the customer demands of today.

Here he explores the Geopolitical benefits this model upheaval brings to efficiency, can fluctuate resilience, and agility, demand between and outlines how SAP is guiding businesses through their digital transformation journey to future growth and innovation.

400% 50%

capacity down to

capacity

SAP INDUSTRY 4.0

EXECUTIVE INTERVIEW

The Intelligent Future of Manufacturing

I

SAP’s Mike Lackey explores the benefits Intelligent Factories bring to efficiency, resilience, and agility, and how SAP is guiding businesses through their digital transformation journey to future growth and innovation

n light of global disruption and shifting customer demand, the manufacturing sector finds itself faced with too many questions and not enough answers. The solution is Intelligent Factories, says Mike Lackey, Global Head of Solution Management for Digital Manufacturing at SAP. Rather than promising a one-sizefits-all solution, the model is infinitely configurable and as varied as the business cases and disruptions it aims to solve.

Lackey describes the system as “self optimising”. Driven by data, the Intelligent Factory can react to immediate issues, as well as improving over time to minimise disruption and boost efficiency in the long term.

“As the factory is producing more intelligent products, and as it incorporates more intelligent assets, you’re able to collect more data than ever before,” Lackey explains. “But it’s not just about more data, it’s about 50

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looking at the real data that impacts the business and acting upon it. To bring cost, customer, and supplier data all down to the shop floor, that’s what we mean by the Intelligent Factory.”

MIKE LACKEY

INTELLIGENCE IN THE PANDEMIC ERA The COVID-19 pandemic has been an eye-opening experience for business leaders, accelerating the rate of change across all industries.

Though the global outbreak is the most extreme circumstance, manufacturers are all too familiar with the disruption of global events beyond their control.

Geopolitical upheaval such as Brexit and global trade wars brought their own set of complications to the sector in 2020, while earthquakes, tsunamis and other natural disasters can be equally damaging, as evidenced in the ongoing shortage of semiconductor chips.

In these situations, demand can fluctuate between 400% capacity down

INTELLIGENT FACTORIES REPORT

to 50% capacity, or more. With Industry 4.0, businesses are able to consolidate their entire global operation, shifting production on a global-level.

“Wherever operations are based, whether Asia, Europe or North America, businesses cannot look at each plant as a single silo. They must look at all plants in their global operation, and how best to leverage those to deliver on all their customer demand. By building standardisation and intelligence into those plants, they can understand where to move production. They can see the impact on their business.”

Lackey considers the prevailing congestion in global ocean freight and shipping, and whether flying goods could be a suitable alternative.

“That adds an exponential cost, but by bringing all of that data together, professionals can clearly assess what the impact will be on the business, on profitability, and on the actual ability to

To bring cost, customer and supplier data all down to the shop floor to aid decision making that's what we mean by the Intelligent Factory deliver. All that data together gives them the ability to make the decisions to best support their customers.

RISE OF THE INTELLIGENT CONSUMER With more information at their fingertips than ever before, the intelligent consumer is another major forcing factor for manufacturing. Demand for more personalised products is growing at both an enterprise and consumer level, alongside expectations that they are produced from sustainably sourced materials, and delivered in a time frame of their choosing. Responding to that demand will be critical for growth, says Lackey: “They’re willing to pay for that level of customisation,” Lackey says. “And the companies that are offering that level of customer service, that are customer driven and are making decisions based on data-driven information, are the ones that are going to succeed. When you start going from mass production to mass customisation, though, you still have to hit volumes. There’s still a production plan to adhere to, and high supplychaindigital.com

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SAP INDUSTRY 4.0

Mike Lackey from SAP talks about Supply Chain

quality standards - all of which must be delivered with the resources on hand.

Bringing intelligence to the process allows manufacturers to respond faster and achieve these outcomes.”

Here Intelligent Factories come into their own. Quality control at every step of the process creates a virtuous feedback loop, empowering

All that data together gives them the ability to make the decisions to best support their customers 52

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employees and leveraging data to eradicate missteps sooner, rather than as a reactionary step. AI and ML technologies which “can see more than the human eye” can automate this process, freeing humans to spend time on value-add tasks.

“The result is more quality throughout the entire system,” Lackey says. “You’re demanding more quality from your suppliers, more quality from the design phase, and you have better visibility into your planning.

That makes everything that comes together on the shop floor even stronger, and the quality level goes up exponentially.”

INTELLIGENCE POWERED BY SAP Intelligent Factories is, in many ways, the culmination of SAP’s industry

INTELLIGENT FACTORIES REPORT

defining Industry 4.0 initiative: operated by Empowered People, leveraging Intelligent Assets, to produce Intelligent Products.

“We’re tying everything in to digital supply chain, how assets are managed, the OEB, and keeping machines running at 99.9% uptime and efficiency. SAP is also bringing in the environmental and sustainability concerns, ensuring we know if the materials are sustainably sourced and processed, the carbon footprint of the factory, and what that means to corporate compliance reporting. And then there’s

The innovation that we're delivering can take our customers through that entire journey, fully integrated throughout the supply chain health and safety, guaranteeing workers are operating safely. And SAP brings that all together.

“The innovation that we're delivering can take our customers through that entire journey, fully integrated through end-toend business processes,” Lackey says.

"We're delivering value with all the assets and the innovation and the applications you need for digital transformation that is connected through your supply chain.

And that's a big win for our customers when they have the agility and resilience to respond to changing customer demand eliminating waste and complexity.”

MIKE LACKEY TITLE: GLOBAL VICE PRESIDENT OF SOLUTION MANAGEMENT, DIGITAL MANUFACTURING Mike Lackey joined SAP in 2008 through the acquisition of Visiprise and is the Global Head of Solution Management, Digital Manufacturing. With previous roles at Visiprise, NetVendor and Teradyne Manufacturing Software Group, Mr. Lackey has a unique set of knowledge that covers both manufacturing software and design collaboration along with over 30 years of experience in the manufacturing sector. Early in his career, he started as a manufacturing engineer with DCA/ Attachmate, which provided him with invaluable first-hand knowledge and understanding of how SAP customers can use SAP’s Digital Manufacturing Solution Portfolio to improve their global operations. Mr. Lackey earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology and an MA in Business Administration from Mercer University with dual concentrations in International Business and Marketing.

SAP INDUSTRY 4.0

INTELLIGENT FACTORIES BY THE NUMBERS

$210 billion

Investment in Industry 4.0 is expected by 2026 Source: Facts & Factors

8 10

70%

in manufacturers agree intelligent automation will help their business improve results

of manufacturers in “pilot purgatory”, unable to scale smart factory innovations

Source: 2020 IBM Institute for Business Value

Source: McKinsey

59% 88%

of manufacturers say Industry 4.0 will have “significant impact” on the industry in next five years

of manufacturers forecast an increase in smart devices and embedded intelligence in their production processes within two years…

46%

…despite this just of company executive have full access to the data access they need for Industry 4.0 analytics and planning Areas of biggest performance improvements from Industry 4.0

85%

Machine reliability and uptime 54

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84% Product quality

83% Customer Satisfaction

Source: MPI/SAP

FEATURE HEADER INTELLIGENT FACTORIES REPORT

Top challenges of Industry 4.0 Network capacity to handle Industry 4.0

18% Network capabilities to handle Industry 4.0

Adapting existing technologies

Impact of Industry 4.0 in next 5 years 4%

Limited impact

6%

33% Some imapct

No impact

24%

19% 19%

20%

Assembly

28%

Warehousing

Welding

37% 40%

29%

Packaging

37% 39%

27% 26%

33% 39%

26%

38%

25% 24%

Fabrication/ Stamping

22%

Additive Manufacturing

22%

Some application

Source: MPI/SAP

30%

Document Management

Heat-treating

39%

30%

Shipping/Logitistics/ Transportation

Maintenance

Significant imapct

Incorporating smart devices and embedded intelligence

Processes where smart devices and embedded intelligence has been applied

Plating or Painting

56%

Identifying opportunities and benefits

33% 43% 38%

Significant application

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DIVERSITY, EQUALITY, AND INCLUSION WITH THE

SUPPLY CHAIN

QUEEN

Sheri Hinish, also known as the Supply Chain Queen, shares her thoughts on the future of work, diverse hiring and creating inclusive cultures WRITTEN BY: LAURA V. GARCIA

S

heri Hinish. A.K.A., the “Supply Chain Queen”, considers herself a Rebel and eternal student who loves bringing out the best in people and building back better in supply chain transformations. In her current role, she is a senior leader supporting IBM's Global Supply Chain Transformation teams with a focus in Sustainable Supply Chain, Omni-Channel, and innovation.

She has been recognised as a 2021, 2020 & 2019 Supply & Demand Chain Executive "Pro to Know," the "People's Choice 2020 Global Woman in Supply Chain Leader,” Corporate Vision Excellence award recipient for “2020s Most Influential Leader in Supply Chain & Technology.”

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DIVERSITY

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Creating Digital Communities in Sustainability

DIVERSITY

“ The future of work is human, female, diverse, and sustainable, a future that I hope everyone advocates for” SHERI R. HINISH

IBM GLOBAL PARTNER AND OFFERING LEADER, SUSTAINABLE SUPPLY CHAIN

Hinish is also a Masters Candidate at Harvard University with an emphasis in Sustainability, is certified in Corporate Sustainability & Innovation by Harvard University and Organizational Leadership by Cornell University and holds two credentials from Rutgers University with highest distinction (Beta Gamma Sigma), an MS in Supply Chain Management, and a MiniMBA, in Digital Supply Chain. But we’re not done yet. She also holds a BS in Business, Supply Chain Management (Summa Cum Laude) from the University of Maryland and is a licensed IBM Design Thinking Co-Creator, Project Management Professional (PMP), and Lean Six Sigma Greenbelt.

As if that weren’t enough, she’s also the founder of the Supply Chain Revolution podcast.

In short, the lady has creds. But despite her sweet smile and polished exterior, she is not here to play. Hinish is known for

her straight talk. Refusing to pull punches, she “calls ‘em as she sees ‘em”. And she’s amassed quite the following because of it.

As you may already know, Hinish is a leading advocate for sustainable supply chains and 'supply chain with purpose' across social media and professional networks.

But what surprised me most about the Queen was that supply chain wasn’t initially part of her plan. “Growing up, I didn’t know anyone in supply chain. Supply chain wasn’t a career choice or even part of “my plan”. I’d like to say that I found supply chain on my journey, but it was more of a series of things that didn’t really pan out and looking back, it was curiosity that fueled the career change for me,” says Hinish.

It seems not even the Queen herself stepped into supply chain, but like so many of us, found herself serendipitously there.

Something that perhaps will change if she has her way. “I believe supply chains can save the world, and I’d like for supply chain to be accessible as a career path to everyone. When we think about the future of supply chain, it’s my hope that women — like supplychaindigital.com

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Supply Chain Queen Welcome

my daughter Aryanna – and new generations won’t have to endure some of the barriers that many women in our field have faced.

One hundred years is too long for gender equality, for access, representation and inclusion.”

Supply Chain Digital garnered Hinish’s thoughts on the future of work, diverse hiring and creating inclusive cultures. And she had plenty of them.

Hinish on The Future of Work “The future of work is human, female, diverse, and sustainable, a future that I hope everyone advocates for.”

“If you’re looking for a recipe, diversity is the first step, but you have to create equitable spaces to get the employee experience right.

Trust, fostering belonging, and embracing the very thing that makes us human – our differences and emotional connection through purpose and values. This is the future of work across global supply chains.”

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“Another one of the biggest changes I see is companies are moving away from cost competitiveness to risk competitiveness, which involves a sea-change in design where organisations‘ think global but act local.’

This involves rebalancing risk where the digitalisation of supply chains can connect operational excellence and sustainability, driving real, measurable progress. Supply Chain organisations are no longer thought of as cost-centres, but foundational to growth delivering new value that forms the basis of trust, transparency, and responsibility for brands.”

“This tension between cost and value coupled with the acceleration of digital has forced top leaders to innovate, and supply

DIVERSITY

chains have to connect the dots between social & environmental issues and business solutions where purpose is the great connector. So, transitioning the traditional, linear way of working to a sustainable supply chain or inevitably a circular economy requires a new mindset and an appetite to be business un-usual.”

“ If you’re looking for a recipe, diversity is the first step, but you have to create equitable spaces to get the employee experience right. Trust, fostering belonging, and embracing the very thing that makes us human” SHERI R. HINISH

IBM GLOBAL PARTNER AND OFFERING LEADER, SUSTAINABLE SUPPLY CHAIN

Diverse hiring, closing the supply chain talent gap “Talent is everywhere, but access is not.”

Hinish is hugely passionate about that which drives her. Diverse hiring and building ‘new collar’ alliances with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) is one of those things. Hinish is hugely passionate about that which drives her. Diverse hiring and building a pipeline for "new collar jobs", highly technical roles that don't necessarily require a traditional degree in that field, take intentional action. As careers continue to evolve and new roles emerge, such as supply chain has, hiring for skills will be critical for capturing the best talent. At IBM, our partnerships with HBCUs give the company an advantage for sourcing highly skilled talent in emerging industries like quantum computing.

HBCUs generate $14.8 billion in economic impact annually and graduate 50,000 graduates per year, she says. “I started my academic journey at an HBCU, and when you talk about the talent shortage in STEM and supply chain, undeniably, the nation’s HBCUs help to address this need.”

“25% of Black Americans who graduate with STEM degrees come from HBCUs (UNCF, 2015). HBCUs are the institution of origin among almost 30% of black graduates of science and engineering doctorate programs yet continue to be under-funded and, frankly, under-engaged juxtaposed supplychaindigital.com

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DIVERSITY

with predominantly White institutions when it comes to building pathways in strategic recruiting for STEM and supply chain.”

“IBM believes it has a critical role and responsibility in meeting this challenge and in shaping the Black experience in STEM from high school to ascendance in corporate America. Through new collar programs such as P-Tech, Open P-Tech, 21st-century apprenticeships, and our Emb(race) initiative, providing access to STEM education, earnas-you-learn career experience, and earning an Associate’s degree at no cost – these are programs happening right now that create a pathway for hiring into IBM.” “The America of tomorrow will look fundamentally different from today. The economic viability of our world will depend on the choices businesses make about whether all people are able to meaningfully contribute to and participate fully in our economy. Without oversimplifying a very complex transformation of corporate America, leaders should embrace the opportunity that comes from putting racial equity at the centre of its business innovation and growth by doubling down on HBCU pathways for ‘new collar skills’ in STEM.” Shifting Mindsets and Creating Inclusive Cultures “I want to talk a bit about how to make diversity, equity, and inclusion real in organisations because there’s no shortage of programs and initiatives, but it hasn’t equalled more progress. Why? Equity and equality are terms that are often used interchangeably, but they are not the same thing. However, in a diverse workplace where differences exist, people need support in different ways. Equity requires an organisation to acknowledge that everyone 62

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“ The America of tomorrow will look fundamentally different from today. The economic viability of our world will depend on the choices businesses make about whether all people are able to meaningfully contribute to and participate fully in our economy” SHERI R. HINISH

IBM GLOBAL PARTNER AND OFFERING LEADER, SUSTAINABLE SUPPLY CHAIN

DIVERSITY

has different needs, experiences, and opportunities and respond accordingly,” says Hinish.

To that end, she offers us a formula for shifting mindsets and creating inclusive cultures: 1. Create a culture of intention and insist on making room.

• Employers and managers need to take an empathetic and inclusive approach toward their employees.

• Encourage flexibility aligned to individuals’ personal and professional needs and sponsor the future pipeline of women leaders. Move from a program mindset to a growth mindset where everyone is accountable.

• Always ask who’s missing in the room. Set rules of engagement and reward/recognise those who drive change.

• IBM example: IBM’s focusing on empathy through initiatives such as training managers on empathy and mental health awareness; as well as a grassroots, company-wide commitment to respect boundaries when working from home – the IBM grassroots “Work from Home Pledge.”

2. Pair bold thinking with big commitments.

• Make gender equality a formal business priority. Drive accountability - with specific, measurable goals across every level of leadership. supplychaindigital.com

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• IBM has also invested in its 21st-century apprenticeship programs, a successful pathway to an in-demand technical career that expands access to individuals with no previous experience working in the technology sector. We have seen firsthand the impact of this program and its ability to position individuals for success in family-sustaining careers. IBM apprentices receive training as cybersecurity analysts, mainframe system administrators, project managers, digital designers, software developers and more.

4. Apply specific crisis-related interventions.

• Create programs to bring women back into the workplace and invest in the future pipeline with skills programs that make it easier for women to enter highgrowth fields.

• Reduce the barriers to family-sustaining careers with an emphasis on skills-based hiring over traditional degrees. In North America, IBM has stripped the four-year degree requirement for over 50 per cent of its roles.

• Benefits like backup childcare support and mental health resources, and flexible work locations and schedules can be key.

• IBM example: In the US, four additional weeks of flexible, paid emergency leave that can be used in increments of hours, days or a month-long stretch to care for family members as needed during the pandemic, as well as emergency backup childcare options. In addition, programs to reduce the stigma of mental health issues, plus new mental health resources and benefits like counselling.

3. IBM examples:

5. Use technology to accelerate performance.

• IBM has a Tech Re-Entry Program, a sixmonth paid ‘returnship’ for technical professionals who have been out of the workforce for 12 months or longer. So far, 99% of participants have been women.

Since the COVID-19 Pandemic, we have seen a 167 per cent increase in enrollment over the previous year.

• Hardwire fairness into screening, use digital tools for communication and feedback to surface what’s working and what’s not, and invest in collaborative tools and teaming practices that allow women and men to engage effectively in physical and remote environments even after the pandemic abates.

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“Talent is everywhere, but access is not” SHERI R. HINISH

IBM GLOBAL PARTNER AND OFFERING LEADER, SUSTAINABLE SUPPLY CHAIN

• IBM's Talent Transformation unit can help clients achieve fairness across their talent lifecycle, like talent acquisition or development. We do that by infusing inclusion into core processes, partnering to build a diverse pipeline with programs like P-TECH, and applying data and AI to drive equity.

• IBM example: We focus on understanding how women are doing – what they need, through surveys – so that we are designing programs and benefits that support them best. Mini pulses provide data-driven insights on the impact COVID-19 has had on women's careers, as well as how all employees are doing in the face of external and internal issues, such as the pandemic, racial injustice and shifts in business strategy and organisational changes.

Hinish is a vocal leader with heart, championing for the good of our planet and the good of its people. Supply chain with purpose is her mantra. But let us not get it twisted, profits and purpose are not contradictory terms. As the Queen herself says, supply chains of the future empower the human experience, strategically champion stewardship, and create change that is impactful, equitable, viable, and profitable.

Perhaps it’s a mantra we should all adopt. supplychaindigital.com

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CLEARMETAL

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CLEARMETAL

SUPERIOR OCEAN FREIGHT VISIBILITY WRITTEN BY: RHYS THOMAS PRODUCED BY: JAMES WHITE

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SVP Christopher Mazza on leveraging data-driven visibility to navigate ocean freight while delivering superior customer experience

O

n 16 March a ship transporting goods to the USA weighed anchor and left the UK’s Port of Southampton three times.

In reality, of course, the vessel departed just once. But what could be the opening of a pulp mystery novel will be a familiar story to most supply chain and logistics professionals. In a world of muddy data and fragmented digital tools, even the most definitive steps in a shipment’s journey are mired in inaccuracies – the repercussions of which can ripple throughout and disrupt the entire value chain.

“It's important to understand what that true departure date and time was, because that's going to impact the predictions and the actual, in fact, arrival of that ship, and the freight on it, to the next port of call,” says Christopher Mazza, Senior Vice President, Customer Experience and Business Development at ClearMetal.

Mazza is a seasoned ocean freight professional with decades of experience on the ocean carrier side, in container leasing and all things involving containers, ocean terminals, rail terminals, trucks, trains, and ships. “That’s where I learned the business on the operational side,” he says. He joined ClearMetal five years ago, a Silicon Valley startup established in 2014 with a mission to eradicate reporting inaccuracies and

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Christopher Mazza, SVP, ClearMetal

CLEARMETAL

CLEARMETAL

ClearMetal’s Continuous Delivery Experience (CDX) in Supply Chain & Logistics

improve supply chain visibility around the globe. “It's a little bit more complicated than that; that's just the basic premise,” Mazza jokes. “But if you ship containers all around the world and you have complex global supply chains, like all of our customers do, we’re your guys. We’re the people that can track every container, every ship, every shipment, every purchase order, every sku.”

Some of the world’s biggest multinationals, consumer products brands and energy giants rely on Clear Metal’s

62%

of ocean shippers rate the overall quality of their current ocean-logistics data as average, below average or poor Source: “Identifying Current Challenges in Ocean Container Shipping,” a survey of more than 200 ocean-shipper respondents conducted by Supply Chain Dive.

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solutions everyday. From Unilever and Exxon Mobil to British American Tobacco, all ClearMetal’s customers share two things in common: they are very complex, with sprawling international supply chains.

Fuelling the engine in ClearMetal’s proprietary platform is data, a resource that, like any other, requires refinement. Running dirty data – datasets riddled with errors or bloated with inconsequential figures and details – through artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning (ML) systems will result in a poor final product. ClearMetal’s solution aims to solve that.

“Early on, we realised that although we had some generous partners and ocean carriers who gave us literally years’ worth of shipping data, most of it was almost unusable,” Mazza says. “High quality data has been promised for decades and nobody has really realised that promise, yet.”

He returns to the hypothetical ship that reportedly departed Southampton three

CLEARMETAL

“ We’re the people that can track every container, every ship, every shipment, every purchase order, every SKU”

CHRISTOPHER MAZZA TITLE: SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE AND BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT INDUSTRY: LOGISTICS & SUPPLY CHAIN LOCATION: CALIFORNIA Chris has over 30 years of experience in container shipping, transportation, logistics and the supply chain industry as an operator and in developing and deploying technology solutions to address core industry challenges. Prior to joining ClearMetal, Chris has held executive leadership positions in the technology sector at XVELA (part of Navis) and International Asset Systems (now Blume Global). Prior to moving into the technology sector Chris worked for leading ocean carriers and lessors including Maersk Line, DSRSenator Linie and Triton Container International. Chris graduated from Rhode Island College and holds an M.I.M from Thunderbird.

CHRISTOPHER MAZZA

times in one day: “What we're able to do using our proprietary technology is take all the data we're getting from the ocean carriers, mesh that with the data we're getting from our satellite provider – and dozens of other sources – and then very accurately be able to say, ‘Hey, they told us there were three different departures, but there's only one true departure, and here is that true departure’. The knock on effect is not only is it more accurate for our customer and their customers, but it's more accurate in allowing us to be able to better predict what's going to happen next.”

This data ecosystem is a powerful resource in the hands of ClearMetal’s engineers, analysts, scientists, and proprietary tech. Pooling data from customers, partners and publicly available sources, this is not a simple case of interpolation, but of leveraging data to define the “true picture” of the supply chain, Mazza says. “That is a big different for us, this ability to associate all that data.”

As more customers come on board, the system improves. Scale, in this instance, increases the volume and the flow of data, and therefore accuracy and

EXECUTIVE BIO

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE AND BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT, CLEARMETAL

CLEARMETAL

predictive capability. Where other systems become bloated and less effective the more they grow, ClearMetal’s platform becomes reinforced; it’s a virtuous cycle.

“Fundamentally we're a machine learning and AI company,” Mazza says. “And the more data we get, the more accurate our machines become in discerning quality data and the more accurate our predictions become. Every incremental customer that comes on board, means all of our customers benefit, because the quality of data increases and the accuracy of the predictions increases.”

ClearMetal is fundamentally concerned with the reality of the supply chain, rather than the best case scenario – those rigid plans that work only when every cog and every gear is well oiled and operating as it should. And as we all know, just one cog grinding to a halt can bring the entire machine whirring to standstill. “Our concept is, you shouldn't be using just one source of data and it shouldn't be static data,” Mazza says. “It should be dynamic, and it should be continuously flowing to you, because that's how the supply chain really works.”

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CLEARMETAL

“You shouldn't be using just one source of data and it shouldn't be static data. It should be dynamic […] because that's how the supply chain really works” CHRISTOPHER MAZZA

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE AND BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT, CLEARMETAL

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Invaluable as they are, ClearMetal’s solutions are not solely centred on data sets and number crunching. Customer experience lies at the heart of what marks ClearMetal apart in a fiercely contested marketplace.

“It's a hyper competitive world out there for all of our customers, and what we see again and again is that, while our customers appreciate the operational benefits and realise financial benefits from the use of 76

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2014

Year founded

Logistics Software Industry

CLEARMETAL

our system, one of the biggest drivers they have is this customer experience idea,” Mazza says.

At ClearMetal, that concept is delivered through the CDX, or Continuous Delivery Experience, a dedication to the operational and financial benefits of visibility and accuracy underpinned by tailored solutions that ultimately empower professionals, rather than further complicate their route to

growth and operational excellence. Mazza says the industry has evolved beyond the traditional B2C and B2B models, where a blurrier distinction could better be described as “people to people”. “There isn't a huge difference, other than scale and the amount of money involved, with buying a pair of sneakers for yourself on Amazon, or our customers selling hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of goods in 10 containers.” supplychaindigital.com

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“ We've had great success so far, but we want to have more of it; we want to serve more of the industry” CHRISTOPHER MAZZA

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE AND BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT, CLEARMETAL

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That principle extends into partnerships with the sector’s biggest players. ClearMetal works with the likes of SAP, Oracle, Blue Yonder “because our customers already do”.

Seamless integration and combining expertise makes sense, says Mazza. “If our customers have spent millions of dollars on a super high quality Blue Yonder, Oracle or SAP install, they want to get their return on investment. What we allow them to do with better data is to realise that investment and get those returns that they expected. We believe in building that ecosystem together, and our contribution is to fuel all of those applications with better data.”

CLEARMETAL

These are natural, two-way partnerships “because most of our customers are their customers”, Mazza says. “With Blue Yonder, while it’s a relatively new relationship, it’s very strong. We're learning a lot about their applications and the direction they're expanding some of their tools, like Luminate, working closely to help them not only show how our data can help fuel those systems, but again, where we have joint opportunities with customers to work closely together. ClearMetal very much takes a collaborative, open approach.

We realise that while people love our application, perhaps the most valuable thing that we offer is the high quality data and

how that data can act as an accelerant for many of these systems.”

Successful as it is, Mazza and the executive team have great ambitions for the business and the methods through which it can bring further clarity to the sector. “We're a growing startup,” Mazza says. “We've had great success so far, but we want to have more of it; we want to serve more of the industry.

A year from now, I'd like to say, ‘There are many more folks with a better control of their supply chain through the use of our data and our systems’.”

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SUPPLY CHAIN Dr Stefan Gstettner, Partner & Associate Director BCG

SUPPLY CHAIN

BEYOND THE

BUZZ:

DR STEFAN GSTETTNER

TALKS SUPPLY CHAIN

We go beyond the buzzwords Q&A style with Dr Stefan Gstettner, Partner & Associate Director at BCG, on some of supply chain's most pressing issues

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WRITTEN BY: LAURA V. GARCIA

hen you sit down with someone as knowledgeable and experienced in supply chain as Dr Stefan Gstettner, Partner & Associate Director at Boston Consulting Group (BCG), you don’t mince words. And so I didn’t. I milked every moment, and the man was gracious enough to even let me sneak in a few extra questions.

So we did this one Q&A style. Let’s dig in.

We hear so much about tech and digital transformations that it seems we’ve forgotten about humans along the way.

Could you explain to me the concept of a “bionic supply chain”?

“The digital supply chain transformation is not just the technology transformation, and that's why we are promoting the concept of the bionic supply chain so heavily because it's mainly humans driving advancements in supply chains. But today, they are augmenting their capabilities or mentored by technology. So we need to take a humancentric approach to all the change that is going on in supply chain transformations.

“Then we need to have an equally savvy view on the technology opportunities and how we can make technology help the humans to drive supply chain management.

Then there is the next step, which goes into cognitive, i.e. intelligent, automation of supply chains. And I do believe that will play a huge role. However, the human aspect will never go away. It will only change. There will probably be less human interaction. It will definitely become more demanding human interaction. But the principle remains the same. It will be the perfect blend between humans and technology that will drive the desired outcomes.”

Extreme market volatility is yet another immense challenge being faced, bringing a lot of disruption to business planning. Along with the logistical issues previously mentioned, supply chains are now dealing with dramatic shifts in both supply and demand and feeling the failings of deterministic models, which previously proved more reliant. supplychaindigital.com 81

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Stefan Gstettner: Digital supply chain transformation is not a technology transformation | BCG

Could you lend your thoughts on how new technologies can help with this?

“From my perception, there are two schools of thoughts on this. The first one is let's manage volatility by becoming better at predicting volatility. That encompasses advanced demand planning, forecasting, demand sensing, and demand shaping to anticipate better and then to be better able to respond to it. That's the first school.

“The second school says, look, not all volatility can be anticipated, so let us be agile and respond to volatility as it comes. And I don't believe in predicting volatility because, per definition, it's quite hard to predict

volatility. I would say the truth is somewhere in the middle.

“I see the best companies doing both.

Investing in becoming better to predict what is predictable, also be realistic, but still being high-end in capabilities to predict the future because with AI and some forwardlooking indicators, predictions have become much better even for volatile demands.

Then, building agility into the supply chain remains super important in logistics, in manufacturing, also upstream to suppliers and the combination between building an affordable degree of agility in the supply chain plus becoming better in predicting

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“I think that there has been a too long phase of putting forward technological concepts without really understanding and explaining what exactly they are good for” DR. STEFAN GSTETTNER

PARTNER & ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, BCG

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volatility. I think that is the sweet spot to overcome the issues here.”

“ I see the best companies doing both. Investing in becoming better to predict what is predictable” DR. STEFAN GSTETTNER

PARTNER & ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, BCG

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When it comes to all the new tech that is available, I think it’s difficult for people to gain an understanding of the maturity level and think perhaps it’s too early to make the jump. Would you be able to give us a high-level view of this?

“Supply chain particularly doesn't do a good job at overcoming the buzzword level of explaining things. And I think putting forward super buzzwords, like control tower, digital twin, AI, and not to mention blockchain, in the end, it doesn't help if we are not able to explain what exactly we mean. But then, more importantly, what exactly we want to achieve with the term.

“I think that there has been a too long phase of putting forward technological concepts without really understanding and explaining what exactly they are good for. So, therefore, I also sense some degree of frustration with our clients to say, look, these are all nice technological concepts, but ultimately they will not work, and I will not be able to deploy them.

SUPPLY CHAIN

Dr. Stefan Gstettner TITLE: PARTNER & ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR COMPANY: BCG INDUSTRY: CONSULTANCY LOCATION: GERMANY

“Therefore, I think it's always imperative to turn it around from a technology and solution discussion to a business discussion.

What is the business future we are preparing for? And then, in a dedicated effort, looking for solutions to respond to those challenges.

What we call them doesn't really matter. It's more important to have a solid approach to implementation that’s agile, very customer-centric, employee-centric and solution-centric in place rather than hopping on technology trends and hoping that they will do good.”

Prior to Covid 19, you offered a Master Course about the future of Supply Chain Management through MIT, and you say, “Supply chains will look fundamentally different in 10 years. They will turn into agile networks of players, each one of them operating in the sweet spot of capabilities.

At the same time, there will be a drastically increasing challenge to manage this complexity and synchronise the networks.”

Covid-19 has drastically escalated both the need for agility and the challenges you speak

To say he’s had an impressive career in supply chain management would be putting it mildly. Dr Stefan Gstettner holds a doctorate degree in Supply Chain Management from the University of Cologne and is a passionate topic expert in supply chain management and logistics with vast experience in supply chain transformations.

Over the last few years, Dr Gstettner has published numerous articles, including "Death of supply chain management" in Harvard Business Review and "Does your supply chain need a blockchain?" in collaboration with the MIT Media Lab. “I must say if I look at the past 20, 25 years that I have worked in supply chain, I think it has always been super exciting, but then it got more and more exciting the further it went on. From the early times when I did my PhD in supply chain management, that was so long ago that you could hardly call it supply chain management, then I was in retail in executive roles, and that was another super exciting time.

“And now it’s been nine years that I’ve been with BCG, which has been extremely exciting with all the digitisation going on and helping our clients in taking large steps in digitising their internal supply chains. And that I think is the most fascinating of times.

To use this technology at scale and identify where we can help our clients to really drive value through those technologies.” supplychaindigital.com 85

SUPPLY CHAIN

“ Supply chains will look fundamentally different in 10 years. They will turn into agile networks of players” DR. STEFAN GSTETTNER

PARTNER & ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, BCG

of. The agile network you describe sounds like a utopia as we see very few successful transformations. Business complexity is often given as an excuse. Could you lend us your thoughts on how companies can tackle this challenge?

“There was an article I co-wrote in 2018 in the Harvard business review called The Death of Supply Chain Management that resonated quite well in the community because what we said is there is no logical reason why many of the supply chain decisions couldn't be made by machines in the future rather than people because, in supply chain management, it very often comes down to rational trade-offs. It's not about instincts, and it’s not about pure experience or gut feeling. It's about having, for example, to trade-off between service level versus inventory? And there are rules and formulas for this, and so there is no reason for this to be tasked to humans.

“Something that is brought forward, the autonomous supply chain or the lights off planning or self-driving supply chains-even more of those buzzwords-- although fundamentally I agree that there's no reason why these shouldn't happen, there are fundamentals that need to be in place in order to realise something like this. We haven't built the bottom of the house, let's say, and therefore we are not quite ready to build the roof. And at the bottom, there are 86

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really fundamental questions. Like, have we segmented our supply chain well? Do we have our KPIs in order? Are we sure that we have set the right balance regarding the KPI target values? Do we have the right incentive schemes in place? As well as the previously mentioned topics such as capabilities.

“So again, conceptually, I think it's easy.

And to be honest for us as consultants, it's, of course, easy to put on paper that this will happen. But then practically, as we see, this is where the challenges come in. I think that is the task that we all have in supply chain, to have this North Star as a desirable target state of mind. And then we relentlessly work on the fundamentals and then on the technology to achieve this. Because I think for companies, it's desirable to have this end state in place

SUPPLY CHAIN

because it will make companies much more agile, much more responsive to customer needs. And that's what we ultimately want in supply chain management.”

I loved your comment on rational tradeoffs. If you don't mind, I would like to sneak in a question, because I think that is where people have a lot of difficulties, in setting a formal process for that and understanding that they're going to, let’s say, give up on price a little bit to mitigate some risk or increase safety stocks.

How do you come up with a way to quantifiably balance those things, as you said, rationally?

“Absolutely, and that is a discussion that we very often have with our clients. One additional element to this is scenario capabilities. So if we want to play through certain scenarios, for example, let me take the Integrated Business Planning (IBP) process, which is typically a monthly planning process, which in the midterm synchronises demand with supply.

And obviously, we cannot 100% foresee the future of demand. So we need to look into scenarios, and in those scenarios, it is all about making trade-offs. So if we allocate

SUPPLY CHAIN

some capacities to a certain market, it will do this to our inventory. It will do this to our overall EBITDA. It will do this to our overall costs. And then we have a second scenario where we probably have a different success profile, maybe less inventory, less cost, but then also a little bit less margin because it's lower margin products or lower margin markets.

“And now there are two difficulties. The first one is that obviously, there are millions of potential scenarios that we can play through to theoretically, practically not, but theoretically, because there are so many permutations of opportunities in complex supply chains. That's the first one. And the second difficulty is, putting values behind the trade-offs is inherently difficult because the link to the finance function very often in supply chains is underdeveloped. This 88

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makes evaluating potential impacts on supply chain KPIs in financial terms or the possible EBITDA impact of a certain decision, for example, relatively difficult.

“Those two points, struggling to find meaningful scenarios to discuss in an IBP process and then having a sound and agreed upon method for determining the financial implications of scenarios in place, make it difficult to make rational decisions.

And that's another imperative I think, for us to work towards being better at defining and financially evaluating scenarios.”

In terms of the scenario or what-if building, is there a new technology that can help with that?

“More integrated systems are coming to the market. And again, I'm not saying that the system resolves anything standalone, but

SUPPLY CHAIN

“ More and more, I would say there are systems even originating from financial planning and now going more into supply chain planning” DR. STEFAN GSTETTNER

PARTNER & ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, BCG

I think powerful systems which have these design criteria of linking volume-based supply chain planning with value-based financial planning in a very integrated fashion will be successful in the market.

“More and more, I would say there are systems even originating from financial planning and now going more into

supply chain planning. And I think this understanding has arrived at some highend planning system providers and our obligation now is to make it usable for our clients to use systems like this with the right data.

“This is a good example where, as a concept, perhaps one of the undefined buzzwords, digital twin, could be used to simulate scenarios. Meaning, a digital twin could provide a virtual representation of the internal supply chain with financial and volume data, creating a sandbox, if you will, where implications of varying scenarios and alternative decisions can be played out. This would allow you to fully analyse financial impacts and make better-informed decisions. And I think we will see it in the next five years.”

Supply chain risk management is another supplychaindigital.com 89

SUPPLY CHAIN

“ What I'm advising our clients to do is to think of the supply chain as a permanent set of risks” DR. STEFAN GSTETTNER

PARTNER & ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, BCG

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very relevant but massive topic. There are many areas of risk, and trying to identify and mitigate your largest threats can be an overwhelming task. What do you feel people are or aren't doing right in this area?

“Whenever I talk about risk management, I feel that it is too decoupled from the normal way of running supply chains because I often feel that most of the risk monitoring processes are set up in a supply chain agnostic way. And I do appreciate that there are some risks that are simply not associated with the supply chain. For example, major financial risks or reputational risks may not be as closely related, but then when it comes to supply disruptions, disruptions in factories, and so on, sometimes I don't feel that it is ingrained into the normal processes, like the IBP planning processes and the mitigating actions are too decoupled.

“What I'm advising our clients to do is to think of the supply chain as a permanent set of risks, which sometimes materialise and sometimes not. The ability to respond to both smaller and bigger risks is a capability that supply chains do need to have. There should be little to no gap between the processes, no artificial separation between the standard way of running a supply chain and a risk mitigation strategy. The goal should be to integrate those processes as closely as possible.”

“In risk monitoring activities, I think there's also too much gut feeling involved at the moment. So whenever we work on this topic, we bring in more data-driven, analytical ways of monitoring environments, and then having a better inflow into the risk mitigation discussion, but then putting it into the, for example, IBP planning courses to discuss it seamlessly with the other supply chain topics.”

And with that, he was off, and in my mind’s eye, triaging broken supply chains.

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BT GLOBAL SERVICES INDIA

DELIVERING THROUGH DISRUPTION WRITTEN BY: RHYS THOMAS PRODUCED BY: GLEN WHITE & CAITLYN COLE supplychaindigital.com

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COMPANY BT GLOBALNAME SERVICES INDIA

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Harnessing the power of digital is key to delivering on expectations through procurement, says BT Global Procurement Manager, Vanitha Prabhu

I

Vanitha Prabhu Global Procurement Manager, BT Global Services India

n a year defined by the disruption of the biggest global health crisis in living memory, the focus for Vanitha Prabhu, Global Procurement Manager, IT and IT Services at BT Global Services India, remains relatively unchanged. Based in India, Prabhu oversees IT indirect sourcing for Asia Pacific and globally, as a captive unit of the telecoms giant. The company offers managed telecom and IT services for a broad range of customers across the healthcare, finance and contact centre sectors. At a time when communicating remotely is at the heart of both professional and personal life, the company’s services are arguably more vital than ever.

Prabhu’s teams have been forced to overcome the same challenges all companies have faced during the past 12 or so months. But the fundamentals of her job, she says, remain the same: delivering value to stakeholders and suppliers inline with the group business objectives of BT. Creating stability and minimising disruption has been key to business continuity, and is built upon the core tenets of strategic sourcing, a critical process which Prabhu defines as the application of group-wide data, paired with consolidated purchasing power to find the best possible value in the marketplace. supplychaindigital.com

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BT GLOBAL SERVICES INDIA

“Our goals are to achieve lowest cost of ownership along with minimal supply chain risk”

Value, in this instance, understand what their does not necessarily strategy is and what mean most costtheir expectations are. efficient upfront; value Then we spend time can be measured by with our suppliers, to many metrics, and for understand how they're Prabhu that means going to fit into our delivering ecosystems, deliver the a “win-win proposition” services, come up with to BT, stakeholders and new plans and ideas, suppliers alike. Alongside and how they are going VANITHA PRABHU cost, procurement to improve efficiencies.

GLOBAL PROCUREMENT MANAGER leaders are now tasked That's where we try to BT GLOBAL SERVICES INDIA with combatting the evaluate our supply base most pressing issues threatening supply and our business stakeholders, and we try chains, namely risk-mitigation, agility and to collaborate with all of them to ensure we resilience. provide the best possible services.”

“Our goals are to achieve lowest cost of So how does one successfully deliver on ownership along with minimal supply chain these objectives? The answer in Prabhu’s risk,” Prabhu says. “To do this we spend a experience is leading with a collaborative lot of time speaking with stakeholders to mindset, and spending the time to explore 96

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BT GLOBAL SERVICES INDIA

how each and every business within the ecosystem can improve and grow.

“We always believe in a win-win position for both suppliers and BT,” Prabhu says. “When we onboard a new thirdparty supplier, we work with them in collaboration, because ultimately we are reselling the supplier’s products to our end customers. That means suppliers have to be very collaborative, they need to understand the BT ecosystem and the customer so that they can deliver upon our expectations, as well as our customers’ expectations.”

Keeping lines of communication open and maintaining these relationships is an ongoing process that goes far beyond onboarding, Prabhu explains: “It’s also how you manage the relationship throughout the lifetime of that contract.” BT conduct quarterly reviews to understand how all

VANITHA PRABHU TITLE: GLOBAL PROCUREMENT MANAGER INDUSTRY: CONSUMER SERVICES LOCATION: INDIA A keen leader ensuring accomplishment of functional objectives through effective team contribution by breaking down objectives into operational activities. Working with & guiding team members in executing activities with required means, knowledge, or opportunities.

16+ years of qualitative operational delivery experience in: •

Strategic Sourcing, Contract Management and Procurement Operations

•

Managerial Level Operational Reporting

•

Procurement Tools & Systems management

•

Exposure of managing all commercial aspects of complex contracts involving liaison with various departments for smooth operations of contracts.

•

Adept in handling a gamut of activities pertaining to opening/ evaluation of bids and negotiation, award &

EXECUTIVE BIO

review of contracts as per contract regimes, bridging contract agreement, settlement of contract claims and disputes •

An effective communicator with excellent leadership, planning, team management and relationship management skills and abilities in managing simultaneous projects.

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BT GLOBAL SERVICES INDIA

ADVERT PAGE GOLD parties are delivering on the contract, and hold meetings with suppliers to discuss how and where improvements can be made. Auditors, meanwhile, investigate security and data handling compliance; it’s a process of continued orientation.

“We identify whether any mitigation plan is required, and if so collaborative work towards that,” Prabhu says. “We also work on amendments and contract variations as and when required, so that they meet up to our expectations, as well as minimise and mitigate the risk to BT and our customers.”

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“ We spend more time on the value-add jobs rather than just a mechanical task” VANITHA PRABHU

GLOBAL PROCUREMENT MANAGER, BT GLOBAL SERVICES INDIA

BT GLOBAL SERVICES INDIA

In many ways the direction of Prabhu’s attention remains unchanged by the pandemic. The means the organisation uses to navigate the increasingly choppy waters of global procurement, however, are undergoing a dramatic digital transformation journey, equipping BT’s procurement professionals with the modern tools and resources to react to the ever shifting landscape.

"We believe in new ways of working,” Prabhu says. “We have been focusing more on artificial intelligence (AI), machine

learning (ML) and many more emerging technologies. The focus is on simplifying the actual process and minimising the time we are investing in these tasks. We have introduced many tools within procurement to ensure the life of our procurement personnel is simple but brilliant. We now have all the information, data, and everything else we require available in one click. We have also started a digital garage, which will help us to please an order and get what we want in one click. That is a power of digitisation.” supplychaindigital.com

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BT GLOBAL SERVICES INDIA

“We always believe in a win-win position for both suppliers and BT” VANITHA PRABHU

GLOBAL PROCUREMENT MANAGER, BT GLOBAL SERVICES INDIA

The result is a virtuous circle: greater levels of digitisation place more power in the hands of Prabhu and her teams to focus on meeting customer expectations and adding value. “We are driving new projects and implementing strategic tools like designed-to-cost, design-to-value, and teardown analysis. And the more we invest in digital, the more time we can dedicate to strategic sourcing, meeting with our suppliers, understanding new techniques and innovations,” she says. “We spend more time on the value-add jobs rather than just a mechanical task. It is really helping us to leverage our expertise to commit to the things that matter, rather than wasting our time on those unproductive jobs.” supplychaindigital.com

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“ The more we invest in digital, the more time we can dedicate to strategic sourcing, meeting with our suppliers, understanding new techniques and innovations” VANITHA PRABHU

GLOBAL PROCUREMENT MANAGER, BT GLOBAL SERVICES INDIA

Though COVID-19 placed further pressures on even the most basic procurement functions, Prabhu believes the outbreak was an energising testing ground for the unit’s new capabilities, and how procurement organisations can lead from the front in risk-mitigation. “We took a very proactive approach and we never waited long to act,” she says. “We started monitoring the performance of our suppliers, how they're doing, what the impact might be, and then ensuring there is business continuity so there is no impact to the supply chain.”

As the pandemic took hold of countries around the world, Prabhu’s teams were forced to wrestle not only with how quickly they reacted, but “how swiftly you are able to make decisions”. She uses the example of a supplier in China, which was unable to fulfil its obligations due to restrictions imposed in response to the virus. “Now you see the supply chain is getting impacted, so you have to ask what are the other sources of suppliers? Do you have in-country sourcing, or are there local country sourcing where 102

May 2021

you can quickly procure the services so that your supply chain is not disrupted? I don't want that experience again in future,” she jokes. “But we are prepared for those now.”

For Prabhu, the future holds vast opportunity. As a leader in India, she is something of an outlier: a woman in a senior leadership role in a country she says is more broadly prone to rewarding braggadocio above merit and experience.

“Procurement is a very male dominated area; there are very few women employees in the sector,” she says. “Oftentimes you find many capable women will think they

BT GLOBAL SERVICES INDIA

are not ready for a promotion when an opportunity comes up. Men are more likely to think they can take on the role, even if they are not yet ready. But BT does a lot to support women in the workplace. The BT TechWomen programme, which I joined about two years ago, really helped me to develop my professional self, build my brand and develop my career.”

Prabhu hopes to extend that professional develop to the rest of her team, regardless of gender. Using the new digital tools at their fingertips, she believes in empowering employees. “Once the job is given to them,

they need to own it end to end. I trust them, and I ensure that they get all the trainings, support and motivation they need from me so that they can deliver up to that expectation,” she says.

“They always come up with new ideas, challenges, and I always entertain people who want to come and challenge me, too.

That helps me to understand what my team expects from me, and help me to learn and grow along with my team.”

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EVENT PREVIEW

Procurement & Supply Chain

GO LIVE Join Procurement and Supply Chain Magazine editors for an industry-leading live event, discussing the hot topics of the day WRITTEN BY: OLIVER JAMES FREEMAN

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e will give your business the knowledge, network, and tools it needs to address all things Supply Chain and Procurement as we enter a new, technological era.

A Decade Disrupted As we entered the 20’s, a new decade was dawning; companies the world-over looked forward to digital transformation, digitisation, and a whole host of revolutionary technologies anticipated to disrupt the methods of yesteryear.

But, amid the hysteria of change, nobody predicted the fallout that would actually ensue: COVID-19. The novel 104

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EVENT PREVIEW

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EVENT PREVIEW

“ Procurement & Supply Chain LIVE in London is the natural brand extension and will for sure become the 'Flagship' goto event for Procurement & Supply Chain Leaders for many years to come” GLEN WHITE

CEO & FOUNDER BIZCLIK MEDIA GROUP

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May 2021

Coronavirus tore through the very links that hold the global supply chain together and brought the world to its knees. It exposed our overdependence on interconnectivity and brought the concept of globalisation into question - and to this day, the pandemic continues to rupture supply lines and disable business.

BizClik Media Group Ploughs On At BizClik Media Group, publishers of Supply Chain Digital and Procurement Magazine, our Editors watched the chaos from afar and, in an effort to make a difference, brought thought-leadership and exclusive industry-leader insight and guidance to the world.

Now, though, we’re evolving and are pleased to announce that Supply Chain Digital and Procurement Magazine will be hosting a hybrid event, in London, from September 28-30th, 2021, which will be broadcast live to the world.

“ Our 2021 event will be made up of physical, hybrid and virtual programs that suit the needs of our attendees, speakers and sponsors but rest assured, we hope to welcome everybody in person in London in 2022” GLEN WHITE

CEO & FOUNDER BIZCLIK MEDIA GROUP

September 28-30th; A Time For Change The event will have a comprehensive content programme featuring a fusion of senior industry leaders and expert analysts from the world of supply chain. This is truly an opportunity to learn new strategies and gain invaluable insights into issues impacting the future of procurement and supply chain.

From keynote addresses to lively roundtables, fireside discussions, to topical presentations, this 3-day show is an essential deep dive into your industry and an excellent chance to network with your closest partners and most valued customers.

Whether you’re representing a global giant or an innovative startup, Procurement & Supply Chain LIVE is an opportunity that you simply cannot afford to miss.

JAMES CALLEN

PARTNERSHIPS DIRECTOR BIZCLIK MEDIA GROUP

Join us at LIVE It's a really exciting time for BizClik Media Group, and we're really looking forward to bringing together the best minds in Procurement & Supply Chain for three days of insight, discussion and networking.

Through conversations with our audience for both Procurement Magazine & Supply Chain Digital, it became clear to us that it was time to bring these brilliant magazines to life, and we hope that as many of you as possible will be able to join us in September.

From global giants to innovative startups, you simply can’t afford to miss this opportunity.

Featuring: • Keynote Speakers • LIVE Roundtable Q&As • Networking Lunch • Inspirational Presentations Over 5 Stages: • Main Stage • Procurement Stage • Supply Chain Stage • Sustainability Stage • Tech Expo Stage

EARLY BIRD TICKETS

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TELUS

Leading the IT Procurement Transformation WRITTEN BY: LEILA HAWKINS PRODUCED BY: CAITLYN COLE/GLEN WHITE

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TELUS

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TELUS

Mariam Saad, Director of Procurement, IT & Technology Services at TELUS, discusses the importance of digital transformation and partner ecosystems

O

Mariam Saad, Director of Procurement, IT & Technology Services at TELUS

ne of Canada's largest telecommunications companies, TELUS, is leading the way in terms of digitally transforming its operations using advanced technologies to drive efficiencies.

In 2020 the organisation won the Digital Transformation Award under the AI-fueled Digital Transformation category from IT World Canada (ITWC). This award was presented to TELUS in recognition of its industry-leading innovation for AI chatbots and robotic process automation (RPA) solutions.

While TELUS became a national Canadian brand in 2000, its history dates back to the late 1800s when Alberta Government Telephones was founded to provide telephone lines for people in the western province. When the company was reorganised, it became part of the newly established TELUS Corporation, and sales of TELUS shares were the largest initial public offering in Canadian history up to that point, raising $896 million.

Following a merger with BC TELECOM, and acquiring Clearnet, TELUS is today one of Canada's largest technology companies and a leading national telecoms provider.

But as Director of Procurement in IT & Technology Services Mariam Saad tells us, now they are focusing on growing several new verticals including home security, agriculture, and health.

Saad has a background in sales. After studying international business and marketing she completed a leadership supplychaindigital.com

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TELUS

" Bringing our data into the Google Cloud Platform will enable us to clean the data, create actionable insights for teams, and integrate the data flow right across the organisation" MARIAM SAAD

DIRECTOR OF PROCUREMENT, IT & TECHNOLOGY SERVICES, TELUS

certificate in the Executive MBA programme.

She spent the first 10 years of her career in sales, specifically in IT sales, working for Compuware and Upland among others. Then she was headhunted by mining company Rio Tinto, who were looking for someone with commercial and business skills - Saad was a perfect match.

This led to working in procurement, and after 6 years at Rio Tinto she joined TELUS, initially as their Strategic Sourcing Manager for IT software and hardware. Within five years she moved up to her current role as Director of Procurement, IT & Technology Services, TELUS. "At TELUS, my role in procurement has been heavily weighted towards transformation of our overall capabilities," Saad says. "From a day-to-day delivery 112

May 2021

TELUS

MARIAM SAAD TITLE: DIRECTOR OF PROCUREMENT, IT & TECHNOLOGY SERVICES

EXECUTIVE BIO

COMPANY: TELUS Having studied business and completed a Certificate at the McGill Executive MBA programme in leadership, Saad's career led to her working in the three top industries in Canada: IT, natural resources and telecoms. Currently, Saad actively supports the Montreal Women's Network, and sits on the board of Business Development Committee for WBE. Saad is a mentor to numerous supply chain and procurement professionals, and is a mentor for MOSAIC, a multilingual non-profit organisation dedicated to addressing issues that affect immigrants and refugees in the course of their settlement and integration into Canadian society.

Additionally Saad is the proud mother of Maya, 13, and Michael, 7.

TELUS

TELUS Health’s IT Procurement Transformation

" We've built very strategic partnerships that have allowed us to build the fastest, highest quality network in the world" MARIAM SAAD

DIRECTOR OF PROCUREMENT, IT & TECHNOLOGY SERVICES, TELUS

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standpoint I support IT software, cloud, and the technology business."

The organisation has a clear goal: to become a software-first, cloud native organisation. Within procurement, key strategic aims are to reduce purchase order cycle time, and drive end-to-end integration across all TELUS platforms. To do this they are leveraging automation, artificial intelligence, and data analytics, all of which are helping them accelerate their digital capabilities.

Saad explains that this digital transformation is delivering four major benefits: reducing time, reducing risk, leveraging more innovation, and creating more actionable insights. "I would say the benefits are reducing time to source, reducing risks, leveraging more innovation

TELUS

and driving incremental value. in a digital format, in language Also bringing our data into the that is readable by both humans Google Cloud Platform will and machines. Typically run on a TELUS became a enable us to clean the data, create blockchain, they can also contain national Canadian brand in actionable insights for teams, and an algorithm that automates the integrate the data flow right across performance of the agreement the organisation." itself - in procurement and supply but its history dates back to the late "Reducing the time it takes chain, they are increasingly used to get the relevant data is our for inventory management and the biggest challenge" Saad adds. To automation of payments. address this they are deploying a range of The aim of these tools, Saad explains, is to advanced technologies like NLP, machine do the administrative work to enable their learning, advanced analytics and AI. teams to focus on leveraging relationships Deploying AI tools with hyper automation with suppliers, as well as innovation. is particularly important, to enable them While their priority is to develop their to automate tasks, and to aid end-to-end core competencies and enhance in-house visibility from suppliers. capabilities, only using third parties when Another important tool is smart necessary, their partner ecosystem is contracting. Smart contracts are written crucial to advancing the business, as

2000

1800s

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Saad says, "we've built very strategic partnerships that have allowed us to build some of the fastest, highest quality networks in the world."

Several of these have won awards, including Best Customer Service Strategy for their partnership with Samsung Electronics, and being named Cisco’s Cloud Partner of the Year for Americas-Canada.

Along with important partnerships with IBM, AWS, and Microsoft, in February this year TELUS announced a 10-year partnership with Google Cloud. "This will help us accelerate our digital transformation journey to become a software-first company cloud native organisation" Saad says.

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" I really take pride in driving our team members, allowing them the autonomy to select and take on their own projects" MARIAM SAAD

DIRECTOR OF PROCUREMENT, IT & TECHNOLOGY SERVICES, TELUS

TELUS

"We have these partnerships because they are mutually beneficial, and they really have a high degree of collaboration with a focus on a multi-year relationship and consistent business results. They enable our business customers to streamline their IT and network operations. These partnerships are crucial because they help us deliver on our priorities."

As part of this partnership, both companies will generate new industry solutions and strategies to drive growth in telecoms, healthcare, home security and agriculture.

Their focus on agriculture is a great example of innovation. Launched in November last year, TELUS Agriculture has the ambitious aim of digitally transforming the global food system. Using advanced data analytics and AI, the goal is to streamline operations and improve food traceability.

"TELUS is redefining the way healthcare and agriculture are delivered by increasing collaboration efficiency between healthcare providers, and providing consumers with fresher, healthier food, by creating systems that allow people to trace the origins of their food, which can lead to better nutrition and ultimately, health outcomes" Saad explains.

Despite forming relatively recently, TELUS Agriculture already supports more than 150 million acres of agricultural land, with a team of over 1,200 experts across the Americas, the United Kingdom, Europe, China, and Australia.

It's certainly something that sets TELUS apart, as Saad says, "other telecom companies here in Canada focus on media for example, but our focus is really on helping Canadians by delivering healthcare, We are helping Canadians live healthier lives by applying innovative technologies to revolutionise healthcare.

For agriculture, we are on a mission to tackle one of the most signifcant social challenges of our generation—feeding the world—while improving the quality and safety of our food by leveraging technology innovation and human compassion and home security, and in the future we will continue to invest in these key industries.

That's how we'll become the leading company in these sectors."

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TOP TEN

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TOP 10

SOURCE-TO-PAY

PROVIDERS Source-to-pay (S2P) is a process of finding a supplier of goods, negotiating with them, and contracting their services, culminating in the eventual payment for their work WRITTEN BY: OLIVER JAMES FREEMAN FRSA

I

n the modern world, source-to-pay (S2P) is heavily reliant on big data, digital networks, and the technology supporting them to create a seamless, efficient procurement process. Rather than segregating individual tasks in the procurement process, leading companies and multinational supply chain operators now aggregate activities on single, centralised platforms. Through this move, leaders can get an overview of their procurement operations, use data to improve performance, gain better spend analysis, and drive business value.

Today, Supply Chain Digital runs you through the top ten S2P platforms, with the assistance of HFS Research's industry-leading Top 10 Source-to-Pay Service Providers, 2020 study.

The Top 10 S2P service provider report assessed and scored service provider participants across execution, innovation, and voice of the customer criteria. The inputs to this process were detailed RFIs that HFS conducted with twelve service providers, briefings with leaders within service providers in the procurement sphere, interviews, and surveys with reference and non-reference clients, and publicly available information sources.

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TOP 10

10

Cognizant

Founded 1994 Cognizant, an American multinational technology company that provides business consulting, information technology, and outsourcing services, provides, according to HFS, “[a] technology-led procurement transformation approach with an integrated supply chain and F&A play”. The company, like HCL Technologies, has multi-tower capability across S2P, F&A, and supply chain, and “the synergies between IT and BPO services allow Cognizant to provide large-scale operational transformation opportunity.”

Cognizant’s S2P delivery headcount sits at just over 3,700, with key delivery locations across 25+ locations split between APAC, EMEA, LATAM, and North America. Slightly more private than their competitors, Cognizant has not disclosed their managed spend, but we know that they deal with leaders in the manufacturing, pharmaceutical, and broadcast satellite service providers.

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09

HCL Technologies Founded 1976

HCL Technologies is truly one of the giants in the information technology services and consulting sphere.

The company strives to deliver innovative technology solutions built around Digital, IoT, Cloud, Automation, Cybersecurity, and Analytics. With an industry-leading CPO like Eric Cohen at the helm, it’s unsurprising that HCL made HFS’s list for their commitment to expanding their “consult-to-operate S2P offering, backed by multi-tower BPO capabilities and technologyled solutions.”

HCL nearly doubled its managed spend, size, and scale of the company’s S2P practice due to the managed services expansion deal with Xerox, which pushes the total to almost US$60bn across key clients.

TOP 10

08 Wipro

Founded 1945 Wipro is an Indian multinational corporation that looks to build more adaptive “businessanywhere” frameworks to advanced technologies that fuel the intelligent enterprise, to help companies thrive in a world defined by disruption and field by transformative technology.

With an impressive managed spend of nearly US$130bn for a large selection of key clients ranging from a technology and connectivity solutions company with European roots to a global leader in branded lifestyle apparel, footwear, and accessories, Wipro’s smart S2P operations continue to show their value, with a key focus on customer experience, process re-imagination, and hyper-automation.

07

TATA Consultancy Services Founded 1968

TATA Consultancy Services, headquartered in Mumbai, India, is a global leader in IT services, consulting, and business solutions, with an incredibly large network of innovation and delivery centres. The company is currently “modernising the procurement function, guided by ‘Business 4.0’ philosophy and ‘machine first delivery model’ (MFDM)”, which should drive resilient, adaptable, and purposedriven S2P operations.

TATA currently manages a spend of approximately US$70bn for a number of well-known brands, including Marks & Spencers, Panasonic, and Dupont, through a 16,000 strong S2P FTEs, working across 28 key delivery locations including both North and South America, Europe, APAC, and the Middle East. supplychaindigital.com

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TOP 10

06 Genpact

Founded 1997 Genpact, a global professional services firm focused on delivering digital transformation by putting digital and data to work to create a competitive advantage, made it into HFS Research’s rankings, in part, for the sheer scope of their operation. With an S2P delivery headcount exceeding 16,600 in 70+ key locations across the Americas, Asia, and EMEA, Genpact is right “up there”.

The company is recognised for driving the “procurement OneOffice” by integrating process expertise, Triple-A Trifecta, consulting, and managed services, and currently manages a spend of approximately US$70bn for a worldleading beverage creator, British multinational tobacco company, and a global pharma firm, amongst others.

05 WNS

Founded 1996 WNS is known by over 200 companies worldwide as a global provider of business process management and outsourcing solutions. To HFS, that translates to “a sourcing and procurement ‘ecosystem builder’ bringing digital innovation through best-of-breed technology, market intelligence, and well-informed sourcing and category experts.

“High praise”, you might be thinking. High but deserved praise, indeed, off the back of WNS’s revenue growth of 45% with an addition of over 25 clients in 2020.

WNS has 3,500+ S2P professionals working in 24 key delivery locations across APAC, EMEA, LATAM, and North America, managing a spend of US$85bn for a leading aerospace and defence manufacturer, social media company, and a number of Fortuner 500s, to name just a few. supplychaindigital.com

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04 Infosys

Founded 1981 Infosys, according to HFS, is a “one-stop-shop” for sourcing and procurement consulting, managed services, and digital solutions. The market seems to say the same, with the company seeing exponential growth of 25% in 2019-20, adding over 25 clients. The company also gained an additional 400 consulting, field services, and B2B clients as part of HIPUS relationship a joint partnership with Hitachi, Panasonic, and Pasona, to offer a wider boutique of services through the power of collaboration.

Overall, Infosys’s S2P delivery headcount exceeds 5,700 S2P professionals and 650+ category experts, working in a myriad of key locations across APAC, EMEA, the Americas, and Sourcing Centre’s of Excellence in both India and Poland.

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03 IBM

Founded 1911 You probably expected to see IBM on this list; unsurprisingly, they made it onto HFS’s S2P podium, though their efforts to build “a cognitive S2P process through intelligent workflows powered by the Triple-A Trifecta (automation, analytics, AI), blockchain, and internal IBM procurement horsepower.”

The scale of IBM’s source-to-pay offering is immense, with US$329bn of managed spend and an S2P platform focus underpinned by a digital marketplace for a seamless, low-touch procurement and payment experience with global S2P transformation skills and capability, delivered as-a-service.

IBM’s clients include BBC, Dow Chemicals, and Telstra.

02

TOP 10

GEP

Founded 1999

GEP Worldwide, a leading global provider of strategic consulting, software, and managed services solutions to procurement and supply chain firms comes in at second on HFS’s list.

The firm is laser-focused on procurement services and technology, unlike most other suppliers that feature in the report, and their end-to-end S2P service offers integrated consulting, software, and managed services.

The company features an S2P delivery headcount in excess of 5,000 in twenty-one key locations across APAC, EMEA, LATAM and their home nation, North America. Between them, they managed a spend of nearly US$200bn last year for key clients, including Kellogg and Dupont.

“ The firm is laser-focused on procurement services and technology”

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Bringing the Community to LIVE Broadcast from London to the World

September

28th - 30th 2021 A BizClik Media Group Brand

Featuring:

Keynote Speakers LIVE Roundtable Q&As Networking Lunch Inspirational Presentations

Over 5 Stages:

Main Stage Procurement Stage Supply Chain Stage Sustainability Stage Tech Expo Stage

EARLY BIRD TICKETS

Creating Digital Communities

TOP 10

“We care deeply about what we do and the impact we have with our clients and communities”

Welcome to Industry X | Accenture

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TOP 10

Accenture

Founded 1989 Accenture is, as with previous years, unmatched when it comes to endto-end global S2P scale and scope.

With 42,000 projects per year and 16,900+ S2P full-time equivalents (FTEs), including 1,6000+ category experts delivering services from 33+ delivery locations for 510+ clients, Accenture offers its users the unique ability to provide a completely closed-loop, in-house solution that relies only on the consulting firm’s strengths in strategy consulting, operations, and technology.

The firm managed almost US$350bn last year for multinational industry leaders in food and beverage; financial services; oil and gas; mining; consumer packages goods; technology; healthcare; life sciences; professional services; industrial manufacturing, and others.

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DRIL - QUIP

THE

TRANSFORMATIVE

POWER OF DIGITALIZATION WRITTEN BY: RHYS THOMAS PRODUCED BY: THOMAS LIVERMORE

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Michael Wells Vice President Supply Chain

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Michael Wells, VP Supply Chain, leverages digitalization to achieve quality, delivery and cost goals and to create time to focus on ESG objectives

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ril-Quip, a leading manufacturer of drilling and production equipment for some of the planet’s most challenging hydrocarbon development projects, is using technology as a differentiator. With multiple, innovative, award-winning products to its credit, the company has broadened its technology focus with advanced software and data science to digitalise supply chain operations.

To Michael Wells, Vice President Supply Chain, the willingness to embrace technology and march to its own tune are what separates Dril-Quip from its competitors and allows the company to forge new paths into an increasingly digital future.

“We're very proud of our past and extremely excited about our future,” he says. “Historically, we have differentiated ourselves from others in the market by focusing on developing game-changing technology and enhanced products that significantly improve well economics, decrease environmental and safety risks and reduce carbon footprint. Now, we are applying advanced technologies to supply chain digitalization to move further down the path to sustainability.” supplychaindigital.com

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Dril-Quip: one of the world's leading manufacturers of offshore drilling and production equipment

Dril-Quip is built on a history of R&D and engineering exceptional products, but to remain relevant and competitive in today’s global market, action towards Environmental Social Governance (ESG) concerns and delivering an experience beyond the linear vendor mindset is key. These goals are central to Wells’ digitalization initiatives.

Wells joined Dril-Quip in November 2018 as its first supply chain vice president. Previously, he worked across every major industry apart from food and beverage, medical devices and healthcare, and he is bringing that multiindustry experience to bear upon Dril-Quip’s sophisticated but, until now, fragmented supply chain.

“I was brought in to help centralise everything from category management and sales and operations planning, to demand planning and traditional procurement,” Wells explains. “And what was interesting is that, what started off as a disadvantage, being a little bit behind our market in terms of centralising 134

May 2021

“ We don't look at our suppliers as vendors.

We buy hot dogs from vendors” MICHAEL WELLS

VICE PRESIDENT SUPPLY CHAIN, DRIL-QUIP

supply chain, became a massive advantage.

That’s because of two things. First, we didn't have an entrenched culture that we had to fight against from a supply chain standpoint.

Second, we didn't have the disadvantage of being the first mover in supply chain when it came to digitalization, so we were able to learn from a lot of other people's mistakes.”

The three ‘legs’ of digitalisation Dril-Quip manufactures a broad range of highly engineered products, including subsea

DRIL - QUIP

MICHAEL WELLS TITLE: VICE PRESIDENT SUPPLY CHAIN INDUSTRY: OIL AND GAS

and surface wellheads, subsea and surface production trees, mudline suspension systems, specialty connectors, liner hangers, drilling and production riser systems, tieback and blow-out preventor connectors and more — a comprehensive list that would fill dozens of column inches. Its primary customers are the major operators, integrated large independent, and foreign national oil and gas companies throughout the world. Ensuring these customers’ equipment needs are met involves an enormously complex network of vendors and other partners.

Digitalisation of the supply chain has been key to ensuring this network not only runs smoothly but adapts and evolves over time. Wells depicts digitalisation as a table supported by three legs, the first of which is data engineering. He draws a parallel here to Dril-Quip’s manufacturing and inventory processes: taking raw steel, transforming it through work centres and routing, and producing a finished product for the end user. “It’s the same thing with master data and data engineering,” he says. “We have

EXECUTIVE BIO

LOCATION: USA Vice President of Supply Chain for Dril-Quip, an oilfield services, and equipment manufacturing company.

Michael has over 20 years of leadership in supply chain and manufacturing in the Oilfield Services and Products, Automotive, Specialty Materials, Consumer Goods, Power Generation and Transportation Industries. At DrilQuip, created and designed the first corporate supply chain, functional team, integrating with manufacturing to execute an outsource model. Implemented global category management team, who led all domestic and international sourcing activities.

Developed logistics, sales & operations planning (SIOP), and warehousing leaders supporting 18 countries and four manufacturing centers in the United States, Singapore, Scotland, and Brazil.

DRIL - QUIP

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DRIL - QUIP

a master data process where we have this raw data and the metadata tied to it, and we put it through a series of processes in our system to get to the point where it becomes useable. It’s the exact same process that we would use for raw material.”

The second leg is the data analysis that turns finished data from the data engineering team into information, insights, and descriptive data that can be used to make decisions.

“ We have to have time to be able to go out and positively change the direction of where we're going” MICHAEL WELLS

VICE PRESIDENT SUPPLY CHAIN, DRIL-QUIP

Wells’ third leg — predictive and prescriptive analytics — closes the loop. “We use insight from analytics to predict a lot of things, not only for the customer, but for the supplier. And we are able to use that insight to help influence how we work with our customers and how we work with our suppliers.”

So, what was the aim of this significant investment in data science? “We saw digitalisation as a way for us to use the exact same processes with fewer resources more effectively and more efficiently than our competitors and to deliver products to our customers in a more consistent manner,” Wells says.

Time was also an important factor in the digitalisation equation – a form of currency that Wells wants to spend developing the more intangible, though no less important, facets of the business: ESG goals for environmental stewardship and diversity and inclusion. supplychaindigital.com

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“In supply chain, your day is usually split into two types of things: your goals and 'the storm’, which are the day-to-day tasks and challenges that come up. Now, to reach your goals, you must act upon those challenges effectively. Unfortunately, the storm often acts upon you if you don’t have the tools in place to rapidly resolve issues. With the proper processes, programs, and protocols in place, it is possible to make consistent progress instead of wasting valuable time dealing with the storm of the day. Two of the massive goals of our organisation focus on ESG — environmental sustainability and diversity and inclusion — but these are goals that are not typically achieved organically; we must take action to accomplish them.

“When we create time, like we are doing through digitalization, we gain a valuable resource that enables us to invest in, and act upon, our commitment to the critical practices and procedures and reasonable controls required throughout the supply chain, including contracts, processes, people, and suppliers at our worksite, to promote environmental sustainability. It is essential that we allow our folks to find and exploit those opportunities when it comes to reducing the carbon footprint of our operations, as well as help our customers reach their carbon reduction targets.”

Diversity and inclusion (D&I) is another ESG goal that is close to the heart of both Wells and the company at large.

Dril-Quip is working to increase the number of its employees that come from underrepresented groups and has developed outreach programmes with universities and nonprofits to support a more diverse pool of talent.

“By streamlining operations, we have time to positively change direction. Digitalization is an enabler because it provides the time 138

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$364.9mn REVENUE

1981

YEAR FOUNDED

1,400

NUMBER OF EMPLOYESS

Oil & Gas INDUSTRY

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necessary to advance these principles that we are 100 per cent committed to. We are convinced that our D&I initiatives will not only make us a better and more profitable company, but will improve our impact on society, culture, and the environment.”

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Profiting through partnerships According to Wells, Dril-Quip sees tremendous value in working with other like-minded companies to pursue mutually important objectives. Partnerships play a critical role, not just in fulfilling supply or services to support Dril-Quip’s day-to-day business functions, but also in shaping the company’s future.

DRIL - QUIP

“ We saw digitalisation as a way for us to use the exact same processes with fewer resources, more effectively and more efficiently than our competitors” MICHAEL WELLS

VICE PRESIDENT SUPPLY CHAIN, DRIL-QUIP

“We don't look at our suppliers as vendors.

We buy hot dogs from vendors,” Wells jokes.

“We don’t just say to them, ‘Just give us what we ordered, and we’ll pay for it’. We want something more from our suppliers and vendors; we want partners that truly connect with us. Traditionally, what you see is that a partnership is very ‘give and take’. It goes, ‘We want this, we want this, we want that’.

What we're trying to do is move towards an achievement-orientated relationship with our suppliers where we are working together toward the same goals.”

Würth, a leading supplier of everything from chemicals and components to tools, screws, and fasteners, is one such strategic partner that illustrates how this process of defining and working towards shared goals is working well. “With Würth, it's not them telling us what they're doing and how they're going to do it. It's not us telling them what we're doing, how we're going to do it. It's a shared sense of improving things for both companies by asking, ‘Why are we doing this?’.”

Collaboration between aligned partners is nothing new in business, but Wells explains that sharing values is not enough. In a healthy relationship, participants do not simply go with the flow. Wells is not only comfortable with constructive criticism, he encourages it.

“The most important question we ask is not, ‘Who is right?’, but ‘What is right?’,” he says. “Würth feels comfortable telling us where we're missing the mark because we've developed that relationship, and we're comfortable enough to listen to them because we value their opinion, and that’s powerful. That's a powerful way of looking at a partnership: to be able to say, ‘You supply us, and we're the customer, but your opinion supplychaindigital.com

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“ We default on curious, and we want to encourage our partners to continue to share their ideas and insights” MICHAEL WELLS

VICE PRESIDENT SUPPLY CHAIN, DRIL-QUIP

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is respected so much that if you think we are wrong, we're going to listen’. We default on curious, and we want to encourage our partners to continue to share their ideas and insights.”

Wells believes these goals will pay dividends financially and in the way they impact stakeholders, even though the goals are not explicitly tied to cost-savings or revenue generation.

Digitalization evens the playing field In Wells’ estimation, digitalization has become an “equalizer”, lowering the barrier of entry for smaller, minority-owned, and local suppliers to engage in the oil and gas industry, where once the high level of required capital cut them off. “With the focus of digitalization, these suppliers are on an even playing field, whether they are a $5m company or a several billiondollar company.”

In the coming 18 months, Wells hopes to lean further on digitalization to anticipate customer demands and help shape their futures. Like an athlete, he says that “when a customer thinks they want something, we start warming up.” That means taking stock of the playing field and assessing the assets of the team to identify strengths and shortcomings to make the best start. “It doesn't mean we're jumping into the game.

It doesn't mean we know what action we’ll take, and it doesn't mean we're committed to doing anything just yet. It does mean that when the customer calls on us, we can move quickly. We can get in the game right away, without any hesitation. Digitalization is the underlying strength that allows us to do that.”

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J - TEC MATERIAL HANDLING

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J - TEC MATERIAL HANDLING

DRIVING

GROWTH

IN ASIA

Process know-how, open control systems and independence from suppliers is leveraging business growth for J-Tec Material Handling in South-East Asia

WRITTEN BY: JANET BRICE PRODUCED BY: THOMAS LIVERMORE

O

pen control systems, an independent approach to suppliers and the skill to design tailor-made solutions is helping J-Tec Material Handling leverage its growth throughout South-East Asia.

Just three years after the Belgium-owned company - a wholly-owned business unit of its parent company Katoen Natie - put down roots in Rayong, Thailand they are driving growth across SEA as a process engineering partner to clients in the food and chemical industry.

“Part of our business plan focused on the possible synergies with Katoen Natie who have been in Thailand (and Asia) for more than 20 years,” said Arnaud Nelissen Grade, Sales Director Asia at J-Tec Material Handling.

“Aligning ourselves with Katoen Natie allows us to share resources like IT and HR more efficiently. But more importantly, it has resulted in a closer cooperation between the existing business units here which now makes our group quite unique in the region in terms of what we can offer to our clients. supplychaindigital.com

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“ In terms of growth we just got started, but we've already exceeded most company targets and expectations that we set up three years ago.”

ARNAUD NELISSEN GRADE SALES DIRECTOR ASIA, J-TEC MATERIAL HANDLING

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“We were also attracted to Thailand because it is a big market with a lot of investments going on in the food and the chemical industry. On top of that, J-Tec previously had some success with significant projects in Thailand - so we felt that we could easily build on those to gain momentum.”

For more than five decades, J-Tec has focused on its customer-centric approach and has retained its competitive edge in handling solids and liquids due to the fact it is totally supplier independent and offers clients open control systems moving away from the more standardised approach of most of their competitors.

“This means we can guarantee a customised solution for every challenge,”

J - TEC MATERIAL HANDLING

ARNAUD NELISSEN GRADE TITLE: SALES DIRECTOR COMPANY: J-TEC MATERIAL HANDLING LOCATION: ASIA

said Nelissen Grade who bridges the gap between Europe and Asia as he spearheads the rapid growth in the region.

Speaking from J-Tec’s Asian headquarters in Rayong, he said: “We don’t offer a onesize-fits-all approach; instead we listen to the client and use our in-house knowledge and tools to develop a tailored solution for their project.

“J-Tec acts as a partner during the complete process: from the conceptual design, on through detailed engineering, procurement and manufacturing, up until installation and commissioning, and if required training and maintenance.”

He pointed out the open control systems mean clients are not ‘handcuffed’ to J-Tec

EXECUTIVE BIO

INDUSTRY: INDUSTRIAL AUTOMATION Arnaud holds a Master Degree in Industrial Engineering from GroupT Leuven Engineering School.

Graduating in 2009, he spent most of his career abroad, mostly in China for Jan De Nul and in Rotterdam for Fabricom, working in various project and construction engineering roles.

After earning a Postgraduate Degree in Business Administration, he joined J-Tec in late 2014 where he immediately contributed to J-Tec’s success as a Sales Engineer.

In 2016, he moved to Thailand to spearhead J-Tec’s business development in SEA. Since then, he has devoted his time to putting J-Tec on the Asian map, taking the lead in Sales, HR and Strategy, establishing J-Tec Material Handling Ltd. as the regional HQ and focusing on building a sustainable foundation for J-Tec’s growth in the future.

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J - TEC MATERIAL HANDLING

“We have all the experience and all the competencies in-house at J-Tec but we just need to keep working on how to effectively apply this in Asia without really rushing it.”

ARNAUD NELISSEN GRADE SALES DIRECTOR ASIA, J-TEC MATERIAL HANDLING

if they want to extend the factory or system in the future. “Instead, we believe in delivering quality and that keeping this promise means J-Tec will hopefully be involved again in the future” he said.

Supplier independent Independence from suppliers is one of J-Tec’s key differentiators. “If we look back 50 years, J-Tec started as a representative of certain brands of component manufacturers. Over the years the projects became more complex and we evolved towards an engineering company,” commented Nelissen Grade.

“We knew our competitors and at that time, we made a very clear decision to start designing our own systems and become completely supplier independent in order to offer that additional flexibility.

“Today, in contrast with many of our competitors, we don't produce our own equipment. Most of the equipment in our systems are purchased from third parties, OEM for standard equipment and independent manufacturers for custommade equipment that we design ourselves, but is then manufactured by these third parties.

“The way we make a difference is by leveraging this strategy. We always focus on finding the real optimal process design for

any given application, which will then define which original equipment manufacturer (OEM) equipment we will source and where to source it. If it doesn't exist or if it needs to be custom made, we will design it and have it fabricated, typically in the region where the project is located.”

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Arnaud NelisseN Grade talks J-Tec Material Handling

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J-Tec is a company member of EHEDG The European hygienic engineering & design group.

“We are involved in several relevant associations related to our industry, the most important one being EHEDG. J-Tec is an active, contributing member of EHEDG and has been assisting in the development of the industry standards with regards to hygienic design for Dry Material Handling for more than 10 years now. Such collaborations help us stay up-to-date and highly relevant in what we do.”

1970

J-Tec Material Handling was founded in 1970.

140+

Number of employees

€50+mn Company revenue

Three-dimensional experience One way in which J-Tec is turning to technology to give them a competitive edge is offering customers a virtual tour of a proposed factory development. “By using the power of Virtual Reality (VR) we are able to elevate a factory design from a flat plan to a three dimensional experience,” said Nelissen Grade.

“It enables us to show the customer and let them discover their future factory before it's even built which also helps us in the design of our systems. If our engineers and our customers can walk around a realistic 3D representation of the plant, we can discover potential problems, find alternative solutions and adjust the design much faster and more efficiently which benefits both J-Tec and its customers.

“A small thing like being able to visualise their factory also adds an element of wonder for the customer,” he said.

Commenting on J-Tec’s digital transformation to Industry 4.0, Nelissen Grade said: “Like many companies, we have an Industry “4.0” plan that is being rolled out to improve and expand our services during and after projects.

“We are developing several technologies involving the use of big data related to the supplychaindigital.com

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systems we build. This can, in turn, lead to remote monitoring of certain metrics and KPIs, preventive maintenance and the further expansion of our internal know-how on how to design the best possible systems with optimal performance using realistic process simulations.

“Furthermore, we have accelerated our remote assistance program, finding ways to support our global customers without needing to be physically present, for example using AR, which has become highly relevant due to the pandemic.”

Future technology trends “For our industry specifically, we do believe and invest in big data and remote assistance and see this as a trend across several industries,” said Nelissen Grade.

“Also, hygienic design, contamination prevention… are big trends and we are continuously developing solutions for our clients in this regard, particularly in infant nutrition.

“Lastly, automation is gaining momentum even in countries with a lower labour cost.

Automation has many advantages such as a higher efficiency and accuracy, improved working conditions… but especially in these COVID times, it limits the required manpower needed in factories and prevents contamination to a large extent.”

Nelissen Grade helped spearhead the original business plan on the value of J-Tec moving into the Asia market.

“The ultimate goal was to set up an entity in Thailand that acts as a regional headquarters.

We will take the lead from here for our further expansion in the region. In terms of growth we just got started, but we've already exceeded most company targets and expectations that we set up three years ago.

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HQ

The company's headquaters are located in Antwerp, Belgium

8

Locations worldwide

2018

Year regional headquarters in Rayong, Thailand openned

J - TEC MATERIAL HANDLING

“This means we can guarantee a customised solution for every challenge,” said Arnaud Nelissen Grade, Sales Director Asia at J-Tec Material Handling, who bridges the gap between Europe and Asia as he spearheads the growth in the region.”

ARNAUD NELISSEN GRADE

SALES DIRECTOR ASIA, J-TEC MATERIAL HANDLING

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“ When it comes to highly advanced packaging systems, we have worked with Statec Binder on various occasions.

They share a lot of our values such as high quality and an impeccable service.”

ARNAUD NELISSEN GRADE SALES DIRECTOR ASIA, J-TEC MATERIAL HANDLING

“One of the targets we had was to grow a local team to perform key client-oriented activities like Sales and Project Management more locally. And so we grew from a fulltime equivalent of two to about 13 people permanently based in the office in Thailand in just three years. We are still actively hiring but with the mindset that we have only got started, so we are slowly building the foundation of a durable business.

“We have all the experience and all the competencies in-house at J-Tec but we just need to keep working on how to effectively apply that experience and competencies in Asia without really rushing it. There's no point coming to Asia just to be in Asia, we need to do it right. That is what we are focusing on right now.”

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4 ADVANTAGES OF J-TEC’S OPEN CONTROL SYSTEMS

J

-Tec’s open control systems is just one of the key differentiators setting them apart from most of their competitors. Nelissen Grade explains the main reasons why this gives the company such an advantage.

“The first is flexibility - which is something we're proud of because we are independent. We are flexible in selecting equipment and in the same way, we want to make sure that that flexibility is translated into the control system. More often than not, our main competitors have more standardized control systems that are not very flexible, based on their own equipment. J-Tec is different in that we also have limited standards that guide us, but every system is completely custom made based on specific needs of the project. This results in a more lean control system with smaller and cheaper hardware.

“Number two is that our systems are “open”. We are not like some of our competitors who design “black box” type systems which means the client needs their intervention if they want to expand.

We had an example of this when one of our key accounts in Indonesia actually contacted us. They wanted us to do an expansion to their factory, but in the end, they were forced to go back to the previous supplier because the control system was locked which would be very costly to change. Instead, we offer open and transparent control systems using building blocks that are then ‘assembled’ based on the process design. The blocks themselves may be protected, but the program itself is open-source and can be accessed by our clients directly.

“Number three is the fact that our independence from suppliers means that we work with a large variety of different

suppliers from all over the world. As a result, our experts have gained quite a significant understanding of how to control the variety of equipment. They often have a better understanding of how to control certain equipment as part of a broader system than the actual manufacturer of that equipment. This means that they can correctly use the specific characteristics of each equipment to optimise the performance through automation. And since these programmers are actually involved during commissioning on site, this greatly improves the efficiency, expedites commissioning and avoids all the hassle of finding bugs that would happen when using third-party programmers.”

“Finally, we are able to design a fully comprehensive control system involving all aspects of the production line, even for equipment that normally comes with its own control software. We can use our experience and know-how in using many different systems to program software for that equipment and integrate this in a single control system. As an example, whether the extruder itself is part of our scope or not, we can integrate it in a single SCADA system, avoiding the need for communication between various control systems from various suppliers.”

“In the same way Steve jobs did with Apple - controlling the product design from end to end: hardware and software - we are doing exactly the same with our control systems.”

“All these things means that we are very good at designing and offering control systems that are lean and simple - a single control system for the entire process, regardless of whether the equipment in that process is supplied by J-Tec or not.

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Partnership with Statec Binder Although we don’t have fixed partnership agreements with any supplier – one of our core strategies – we do have a list of preferred OEM that we tend to work with.

This follows a rigorous supplier selection process to make sure that our approved suppliers can support us and our customers in the best possible way.

“In the same way Steve jobs did with Apple - controlling the product design from end to end: hardware and software - we are doing exactly the same with our control systems.”

ARNAUD NELISSEN GRADE

SALES DIRECTOR ASIA, J-TEC MATERIAL HANDLING

One of J-Tec’s preferred suppliers is Statec Binder who offer high-performance packaging systems for open-mouth bags, FFS machines and related palletising and bagging systems used in a wide variety of industries for packing different products worldwide.

“When it comes to highly advanced packaging systems, we have worked with Statec Binder on various occasions worldwide. They share a lot of our values such as an impeccable service and a high quality and performance level. I hope that the global partnership can continue for many years to come.

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