Jaymie Forrest, managing director for the Supply Chain & Logistics Institute, welcomed the group and introduced John Mariotti, author of The Complexity Crisis and President/CEO of The Enterprise Group. During his keynote, Mr. Mariotti discussed "Managing Complexity for Profitable Growth" and explained where complexity originates and why it goes unmanaged as well as the consequences of complexity and how they influence supply chains and ultimately entire companies.
Building on the keynote discussion, Dr. Don Ratliff, Executive Director of the Georgia Tech Supply Chain & Logistics Institute, focused on the "Root Causes of Supply Chain Complexity". He suggested "it is not complexity or its growth that is the problem, but the fact that the capability to manage this complexity has not been growing at he same rate". He discussed this "Complexity Gap" and its drivers such as globalization, the changing logistics environment and slow advances in decision technologies. Dr. Ratliff then covered his "top ten" root causes for supply chain complexity: uncertainty, variability, synchronization, lumpiness, scope, speed, diversity and restrictions.
The first day of the forum ended with Kate Laneve, Director of Sales Operations, NCR Corporation and her presentation "Bringing Order to Chaos: Shaping Your Market by Pattern Analysis". Ms. Laneve promoted, "By guiding your sales force to offer your most popular configurations, you can begin to shape market demand, take control of the bus and drive directly to your desired destination!" She then illustrated how NCR was able to speed up their sales cycle, cut lead times, increase win rates, decrease error rates, increase responsiveness to buyers, and decrease the amount of time to train new salespeople through using customer buying pattern analytics to segment the market and push configuration recommendations to sales.
The second day of the meeting opened with a Supply Chain Complexity Forum led by Chris Gaffney, Senior Vice President - Product Supply System Strategy, Coca-Cola Refreshments. Mr. Gaffney opened with a video that briefly discusses complexity and references a diagram of the U.S. counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan. The attendees discussed what connections or ideas mirror their environment and how they address supply chain complexity in their organizations. Mr. Gaffney then provided an overview of the internal and external challenges that The Coca-Cola Company faces as its portfolio evolves with an overview of the end-to-end operations of Coca-Cola Refreshments, the strategies taken to fulfill its changing customer & portfolio and the actions that CCR is taking to mitigate complexity.
After the forum, Matt Melrose, Vice President, Lean Operations, LeanCor LLC and Thomas Molleur, Former Vice President of Supply Chain for Saint-Gobain Abrasives presented a case study on "Reducing Complexity of Inbound Logistics Through Pipeline Visibility, Process Discipline and Lead Time Reduction". The case study provided an overview of the strategies and tactics collaboratively executed by Saint Gobain Abrasives and LeanCor to deliver operational improvements and measurable financial results. The session closed with a discussion addressing theory versus operational reality and the lessons learned.
Dr. John Bartholdi, Director of Research, Georgia Tech Supply Chain Logistics Institute closed the meeting with his talk "Preparing the Warehouse for Complexity" where he discussed current and evolving ideas for making the warehouse more nimble, so that it can readily adapt to changes in workforce availability, customer purchasing patterns, and even business models. Signaling automation and worker automation
The two-day biannual forum will meet again in May of 2013 for its Spring joint meeting with the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals' (CSCMP) Atlanta Roundtable. To learn more about Georgia Tech's Supply Chain Executive Forum, visit http://www.scl.gatech.edu/scef/.
]]>For the past three years, faculty, staff, and partners of the Georgia Tech Supply Chain & Logistics Institute’s IFC have contributed their thoughts on various aspects of the food chain to Food Logistics Magazine under a column called Cool Insights.
Previous installments of the Cool Insights column:
Food Logistics, September 2012: Nick Pacitti, co-founder of Sterling Solutions LLC, authored the Cool Insights column titled “The New Dilemma for Fresh Programs.”
Food Logistics, July/August 2012: Nick Pacitti, co-founder of Sterling Solutions LLC, authored the Cool Insights column titled “Fresh Needs Fast—Rail is Up to the Challenge.”
]]>For the past three years, faculty, staff, and partners of the Georgia Tech Supply Chain & Logistics Institute’s IFC have contributed their thoughts on various aspects of the food chain to Food Logistics Magazine under a column called Cool Insights.
Previous installments of the Cool Insights column:
Food Logistics, July/August 2012: Nick Pacitti, co-founder of Sterling Solutions LLC, authored the Cool Insights column titled “Fresh Needs Fast—Rail is Up to the Challenge.”
Food Logistics, June 2012: Donald Ratliff, executive director of the Supply Chain & Logistics Institute (SCL), and Amar Ramudhin, director of SCL, authored the Cool Insights column titled “An Integrated Framework for Managing Standards and Operations of the Food Industry.”
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WHEN & WHERE
With a poverty rate in both France and the United States of about 14%, urban poverty in developed countries is an unfortunate reality. When poverty affects our neighbor, it affects us all.
During France-Atlanta 2012, members of the French-American community will tackle this problem hands-on. Following two community projects in the metropolitan areas of Atlanta and Metz, in partnerships with Atlanta Habitat for Humanity and the French NGO Habitat et Humanisme, a roundtable discussion by these leading NGOs will put the focus on the fight against urban poverty.
On November 6, guest speakers from Habitat for Humanity and Habitat et Humanisme will come together for a public discussion at Georgia Tech to share their organization’s models through a recap of the two French-American community projects and discuss the current and upcoming challenges of access to housing in developed countries as well as urban poverty in general.
FEATURED SPEAKERS
To attend, please register at: http://www.france-atlanta.org/spip.php?article182
For more information visit www.france-atlanta.org.
The conference, now in its fifth year, is being held for the first time in Asia, where humanitarian response is especially critical. In 2011, Asia accounted for 86.3% of reported disaster victims worldwide.5 In addition, Malaysia is the hub for humanitarian logistics in Asia, hosting key facilities such as the United Nations Humanitarian Response Depot (UNHRD) and the Red Cross (IFRC) Regional Logistics Unit. Activities will encourage discourse among participants through plenary panels, interactive workshops, educational workshops, innovation posters and facility tours. Discussions will focus on the role of logistics in areas such as disaster response, health systems and food security as well as highlight the unique logistical challenges for humanitarian response in Asia. Ideas will be shared around emerging themes such as extending the reach of specialized nutrition products, exploring the role of social media and big data during crises, and examining the unique challenges for logistics in urban settings. You are welcome to email your ideas for panel themes, workshop topics, and potential speakers/facilitators to humlog2013@mit.edu or humlogconf@gatech.edu.
For more information about the conference program, please visit http://www.humanitarian.gatech.edu/humlog2013 and http://misi.mit.edu.
]]>5 Guha-Sapir D, Vos F, Below R, with Ponserre S. Annual Disaster Statistical Review 2011: The Numbers and Trends. Brussels: CRED; 2012.
For the past three years, faculty, staff, and partners of the Georgia Tech Supply Chain & Logistics Institute’s IFC have contributed their thoughts on various aspects of the food chain to Food Logistics Magazine under a column called Cool Insights.
Previous installments of the Cool Insights column:
Food Logistics, June 2012: Donald Ratliff, executive director of the Supply Chain & Logistics Institute (SCL), and Amar Ramudhin, director of SCL, authored the Cool Insights column titled “An Integrated Framework for Managing Standards and Operations of the Food Industry.”
Food Logistics, April/May 2012: Susan Wilkinson, a Subject Matter Expert with IBM Global Business Services, authored the Cool Insights column titled “The Value of Supply Chain Visibility: Traceability is Just the Start.”
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Higher fuel costs, slow steaming, the increasing trend toward bigger and bigger ships and the widening of the Panama Canal are some of the factors that are putting a lot of strain on the container shipping industry to the point that the current liner services may not be sustainable. This will have big impact on shippers that rely on frequent and increasingly time definite shipments. The big questions are how did the current condition of the industry come to be and what can shippers do to prepare for the changes ahead?
A bit of history: the idea for using shipping containers is attributed to Malcom McLean who got the idea in the 1950s while waiting for his truck to be unloaded onto a ship and thinking that there had to be a way to load ships in hours rather than days. This fundamental vision of speed and efficiency motivated the development of cellular ships, land based container cranes and faster container ships, and enabled the revolution of global trade between Asia, North America and Europe.
During the period from 2002 to 2008 global trade grew at a roughly linear rate of about $1 trillion per year and since most of this trade is transported on container ships, shipping lines were highly motivated to increase capacity in order to retain or increase their market share. They invested massively in bigger ships because the latter have more capacity and are more cost effective to operate (estimates vary from about 8% to perhaps as much as 30% on long hauls). The economic recession caused global trade to decrease from more than $15 trillion in 2008 to less than $12 trillion in 2009. This 20% drop in trade meant that there was suddenly an excess in capacity resulting in a drop of revenue for shipping lines. Slow steaming was introduced as a means of reducing operating costs. Modern container ships are designed to run at top speeds of about 25 knots. Slow steaming meant reducing their speed to about 20 knots or lower. When their speed is reduced the amount of fuel consumed per mile is reduced (e.g., a 20% decrease in speed results in about a 40% decrease in fuel consumption). Maersk line, which is one of the pioneers of slow steaming, claims that in 2010, 73 percent of the Maersk Line fleet was slow steaming at engine loads below 40 percent and this saved around 2 million tons of CO2.
While trade increased in 2010 and 2011, it remains well below what was expected before the 2009 drop. Slow steaming may have worked for the container lines in 2010 to offset much of the losses that they incurred in 2009. However, the $6 billion loss by the industry at the end of 2011 and the fact that the strategy is bad for the shippers are indications that this strategy is not sustainable. Slow steaming lengthens the trips and which means more in-transit inventory for the shipper. The result for more expensive products is that the increase in inventory cost is significantly greater. To make matters worse, many container shipping lines are adopting “super-slow steaming” at speeds of 12 knots or about 14 miles per hour. This more than doubles the in-transit inventory compared to running at 25 knots.
Today about 60% of all containerized cargo from Asia enters the US from the west coast. From there it travels mostly by rail to points east for further distribution. The other 40% travels through the Panama Canal to east coast ports. This “all-water” route is cheaper to the east coast but it takes 4 to 6 days longer and so shippers have more days of inventory in transit and thus higher inventory costs. With the widening of the Panama Canal in 2014, liners are betting on further reducing the cost of by using the bigger ships on this route. And ports all over the east coast are racing and spending large amounts of money to ensure that they are ready for the big ships.
So what should shippers do?
GT’s Supply Chain & Logistics Institute professional education course on Transportation and Distribution, the first to be held in GT’s Savannah campus, will give participants an overview of the complexities of transportation and distribution planning and educate them as to why this has become a critical corporate function. This course is focused on understanding the basic components of a global transportation and distribution system and its operation in terms of capacity development, freight consolidation, network alignment, and synchronization. It develops the principles, practices, and tools required to address all major issues and tradeoffs in domestic and international transportation including key financial and performance indicators for transportation and design of supply chains to minimize transportation and distribution costs.
Come join us in the beautiful coastal town of Savannah October 2-4, 2012. In addition to the course, participants will also hear from the key speakers such as the Executive Director of the Georgia Ports Authority, and tour the Savannah Port, the Intermodal Container Transfer Facility within the Garden City Terminal and the distribution facilities near port.
For more information, visit: http://www.scl.gatech.edu/professional-education/on-campus-courses/course.php?id=tdmgmt
]]>The forum was sponsored by Deutsche Post DHL, the world's leading mail and logistics group. U.S. Senator John McCain, Congressman Danny Davis, and Jeffrey Goldberg, national correspondent for The Atlantic, were among the speakers who presented at the event.
Ratliff is a supply chain and logistics expert with more than 30 years of experience as an educator, researcher, consultant, and technology business executive. As Executive Director of SCL, he provides leadership for the largest research program in the world devoted to the study of supply chains and logistics. As co-founder and President of the software company CAPS Logistics, he helped to pioneer the development of interactive software tools to design supply chain networks and optimize logistics processes.
]]>For the past three years, faculty, staff, and partners of the Georgia Tech Supply Chain & Logistics Institute’s IFC have contributed their thoughts on various aspects of the food chain to Food Logistics Magazine under a column called Cool Insights.
Previous installments of the Cool Insights column:
Food Logistics, April/May 2012: Susan Wilkinson, a Subject Matter Expert with IBM Global Business Services, authored the Cool Insights column titled “The Value of Supply Chain Visibility: Traceability is Just the Start.”
Food Logistics, March 2012: David Sterling, partner with Sterling Solutions and co-founding member of IFC, authored the Cool Insights column titled “Cold Chain Management Tools: Assessments and Audits.”
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For the past three years, faculty, staff, and partners of the Georgia Tech Supply Chain & Logistics Institute’s Integrated Food Chain Center (IFC) have contributed their thoughts on various aspects of the food chain to Food Logistics Magazine under a column called Cool Insights.
Previous installments of the Cool Insights column:
Food Logistics, March 2012: David Sterling, partner with Sterling Solutions and co-founding member of IFC, authored the Cool Insights column titled “Cold Chain Management Tools: Assessments and Audits.”
Food Logistics, January/February 2012: Nick Pacitti, co-founder of Sterling Solutions LLC, authored the ninth installment of the Cool Insights column titled “Cold Chain Technology is More Than Temperature Monitoring.”
]]>Forrest was also recently selected by the Supply & Demand Chain Executive asone of the 2012 Practitioner Pros to Know. This award recognizes exceptional supply chain executives atmanufacturing and non-manufacturing enterprises who are leading initiatives tohelp prepare their companies' supply chains for significant challenges ahead.
Forrest has over twenty years of experience in supplychain management services and solutions as a consultant, technology executive,and as an educator. She is responsible for strategic planning and developmentof industry outreach, research, and leadership initiatives in support ofexpanding SCL's global mission.
]]>Previous installments of the Cool Insights column:
Food Logistics, November/December2011: Amar Ramudhin, director at the Center forSupply Chain Management and Technology at the Georgia Tech Supply Chain &Logistics Institute, authored the Cool Insightscolumn, titled “The Need for a Standard Reference Model for Food Chains.”
Food Logistics, October2011: Nick Pacitti authored the Cool Insightscolumn, titled “Beyond Current Perishable Logistics Strategies and Processes.”
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