The Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) and CSCMP’s Supply Chain Quarterly hosted its first annual 3 Vs of Supply Chain Innovations Awards Contest on Monday evening at the 2023 CSCMP EDGE Conference in Orlando, Florida. The awards honor both the 25th anniversary of Art Mesher’s 3 Vs Framework (visibility, variability, and velocity) and CSCMP’s 60th anniversary.
Companies were asked to share their organizations’ best use of the 3 Vs in supply chains and/or their startup success stories. Over the last few months leading up to the EDGE Conference, the awards committee received more than 50 submissions. After reviewing all the submissions, the committee selected several finalists to present their innovations live to a panel of judges at the EDGE Conference.
The 3 Vs Business Innovation Award
The first presentations of the evening included the top three finalists for the 3 Vs Business Innovation Award: transportation optimization company Provision AI; Local Line, a supply chain platform for regional food systems; and artificial intelligence planning software company Transvoyant.
Each company conducted a short five- to seven-minute presentation. Judges asked follow-up questions, and then after all the presentations, they selected a winner.
This year's inaugural Business Innovation Award was given to Local Line for its software-as-a-service (SaaS) sales platform for farms that provides local food sourcing for grocers, restaurants, and distributors. By creating a better food supply chain, Local Line has reduced food mile savings by 612 million miles year-to-date and increased farmers' profit margins from $0.14 per $1.00 to $0.84 per $1.00.
Best Overall Startup/Early Stage Award
The second contest was for the Best Overall Startup/Early Stage Award. The finalists for this award included SemiCab, a collaborative transportation platform; Autoscheduler.AI, a warehouse resource optimization platform; Isometric Technologies (ISO), a logistics performance intelligence platform; and Strella, a biosensing platform to reduce food waste.
The judges selected ISO as the winner of the inaugural Best Overall Startup/Early Stage Award (pictured above: John Stauffer and Brian Cristol accepting the award). ISO's Logistics Performance Intelligence platform provides shippers, brokers, and carriers with the ability to accurately measure the total cost of transportation.
ESG Award
When the committee was reviewing the finalists for the Innovations Award, they realized they needed to create an Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Award to honor a company going above and beyond to help create a smarter, more sustainable future.
This year's ESG Award was given to Strella for its biosensor technology, which predicts the shelf-life of fresh produce. The technology has prevented 20 million pounds of food waste.
