Christopher Shepard is business development manager at ORBIS Corporation.
The second annual 3 V’s of Supply Chain Innovation Awards Contest is in full flight at CSCMP’s EDGE Conference, recognizing companies that have used the 3 V’s Framework (variability, visibility, and velocity) to achieve success.
I’m repeatedly asked, which companies use their supply chain networks as their anchor of corporate competitiveness, embracing variability, harnessing visibility, and competing with velocity?
The top supply chain networks I admire demonstrate a clear “competitive moat” with their supply chain networks and have a market-based strategic advantage. While I somewhat appreciate the historical answers to the question, “Who are your top supply chains?”¾the answers to this question tend to be based on the tactical views of balanced scorecards, return on equity or assets, and how supply chains impact business performance. However, my top supply chains are above that fray.
I am a true believer that strategy is very different from tactics. So, I put a different lens on the question. My top supply chains are my industry “icons”: Intelligently Curated Orchestration Networks. Companies that see their supply chain networks as strategic assets embrace variability, harness visibility, and compete with velocity by deliberately curating their supply chain network.
The supply chains I admire use their supply chains not just as logistical tools but as strategic weapons, transforming them into powerful engines of market-based advantage to rise above the competition. These companies Intelligently Curate and Orchestrate their Network.
Which companies have redefined the role of supply chains, turning complexity into opportunity and positioning themselves as leaders in the face of uncertainty? Three companies that are using their supply chain networks as an anchor of corporate competitiveness are Banner Engineering, Tracegains, and Altana.
At the heart of Banner's success is its ability to embrace variability by harnessing the visibility of their customer's wants and needs and a deep understanding of their suppliers' capacities and capabilities. This insight allows them to embrace variability by serving multiple industries with thousands of different products at an unmatched velocity. Banner doesn't merely adapt to change; it thrives on it. Each year, they introduce over 30 new products, consistently creating solutions that customers love.
Minneapolis-based Banner Engineering, founded in 1966, has emerged as a leading designer and manufacturer of industrial automation products. With a portfolio of more than 10,000 products, Banner serves multiple industries, including automotive, food and beverage, pharmaceuticals, packaging, electronics, materials handling, and logistics. Their extensive range includes award-winning sensors, wireless systems, machine safety equipment, indication devices, and LED lighting.
Banner's supply chain is not viewed as a cost center but as a strategic advantage. By leveraging a network of 5,000 engineers and support personnel, Banner has built a 360-degree view of its ecosystem. This finely tuned machine allows them to recombine ideas, technologies, and processes while continuously delivering value. It's this interconnectedness—between customer needs and supplier capabilities—that enables Banner to stay ahead of the competition, not just today but in the uncertain future that lies ahead.
The company's engineering prowess is a key factor in its success. Banner designs and engineers products that create a preferred customer lifecycle experience. Their ability to combine and recombine with speed, quality, consistency, and support is unparalleled. Design engineering and orchestrating the supply chain have become Banner's competitive advantage.
Banner's approach to innovation is about velocity—the ability to accelerate innovation, design new solutions, and respond to customer needs at a speed unmatched by their competitors. This is the secret of supply chain mastery. It's not just about being fast or efficient; it's about seeing the interconnections and using that visibility to continuously create new products and services with velocity.
Banner's global impact is significant, with operations on five continents and a worldwide team of over 5,500 employees and partners. In fact, a Banner product is installed somewhere in the world every two seconds. The company's commitment to personalized service and attentive support, offering both face-to-face and virtual interaction with customers, has helped them solve tough applications and advance manufacturing processes globally.
Banner Engineering's success stems from its ability to embrace variability, harness visibility, and compete on velocity. By leveraging their engineering knowledge and relationships with customers and suppliers, Banner continues to innovate and provide cutting-edge automation solutions for manufacturers worldwide.
TraceGains' success can be directly tied to empowering manufacturers to embrace variability through their massive catalog, which allows them to rapidly increase the velocity of product introduction and their ability to harness visibility and embrace variability, enabling a high-velocity "ingredients to product" supply chain. The company has positioned itself as a de facto standardizer of processes and methods for sourcing, building trust that allows its ecosystem to rapidly source, assemble, and reassemble ingredients-based products with unmatched velocity, quality, and process assurances.
Founded in 1998 and headquartered in Westminster, Colorado, TraceGains has emerged as a pioneering force in the food and beverage industry. The company's innovative platform provides a 360-degree view of a hyperspecialized ecosystem, connecting ingredients manufacturers with consumer product manufacturers across a vast network of 75,000+ supplier locations and 525,000+ ingredients/items.
TraceGains' supply chain network serves as both a graph and an intersection point, mapping suppliers against product requirements, quality credentials, and manufacturer pedigree requirements. This comprehensive view forms the foundation of the company's competitive moat, providing unparalleled insights and capabilities to its clients.
The power of TraceGains' platform is exemplified by its approach to ingredient taxonomy. For instance, an ingredient as seemingly simple as garlic is meticulously categorized within their network, from raw and organic to processed, chopped, and packaged in specific container sizes. This granular level of detail enables precise matching and sourcing capabilities.
TraceGains' intelligent network continuously monitors global events through “horizon scanning,” tracking adverse events, import refusals, and recalls. This real-time intelligence allows customers to remain informed about issues relevant to their specific ingredient needs, avoiding unnecessary concerns about unrelated incidents.
A key strength of TraceGains lies in its commitment to standardization and curation. Working closely with large customer advisory groups, the company has developed standardized data formats for numerous forms and data types, including allergens, nutrition, sustainability, and supplier and item risk assessments. This standardization significantly reduces friction in the supply chain, as suppliers can enter data once in a standardized format, which then automatically propagates to all their customers on the network.
TraceGains rapidly accelerates the velocity its customers can source, assemble, and reassemble its products. By leveraging artificial intelligence and standardizing data across its network, TraceGains enables manufacturers to source, assemble, and reassemble products with unprecedented speed and precision. The company's approach transforms potential chaos into order, using the power of its supply chain network to anticipate disruptions and act proactively.
Their supply chain’s main strength? Turning chaos into order. TraceGains has turned variability into its greatest strength, enabling a supply chain that is as agile as it is reliable and capable of meeting the unique demands of each customer while sourcing from the most appropriate suppliers with the highest fidelity at velocity.
Altana enables its customers through its supply chain network to embrace variability by providing a digital, dynamic, universal global supply chain map. By harnessing visibility through its federation, Altana allows for the standardization of multi-party workflows, enabling companies to combine, recombine, monitor, and surveil their supply chain at high velocity.
Founded in 2018 and headquartered in New York City, Altana has emerged as a force in supply chain network management by operating on an even larger scale, connecting governments, logistics providers, and businesses around the globe through a federated system of supply chain intelligence, offering unprecedented visibility and insights into global value chains.
Central to Altana's innovation is its proprietary "federated learning" architecture. Unlike traditional centralized data models, Altana has pioneered a decentralized, "hub-and-spoke" approach. This revolutionary design allows customers to share intelligence without ever exposing their underlying data, thereby maintaining data sovereignty, privacy, and security for all participants in the network.
The Altana “knowledge graph” is a testament to the power of this approach. It now comprises more than 2.8 billion shipments, tracking over 500 million companies and 850 million facilities down to the part-site level, with more than 125 million distinct facility-to-facility relationships. This vast network creates a common operating picture of the world's interconnected supply chains, spanning across governments, logistics providers, financial services companies, and other associated service providers.
Altana's Value Chain Management System enables real-time visibility into supply chains that cross borders and industries. For instance, a top global retailer uses Altana to understand potential upstream exposure to forced labor in its value chains, ensuring compliance with the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. Simultaneously, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) uses the same system to enforce this law, while logistics giants like Maersk utilize it to model global value chains for the shipments they handle.
This interconnected ecosystem allows for unprecedented coordination and streamlining of compliance and enforcement activities. Parties that would otherwise be unable to share data due to fragmentation, silos, and interoperability issues can now view the same network relationships, remediate compliance exposures, and act collaboratively to facilitate trusted trade and avoid disruptions at borders.
The impact of Altana's innovation extends far beyond individual companies. By creating a shared source of truth for global supply chains, Altana is helping to recalibrate and rebuild secure and trusted supply chains on a global scale. This approach aligns with key principles of supply chain network competitiveness: embrace variability, harness visibility, and compete with velocity.
My industry ICONS have turned their supply chain networks into competitive weapons. They’ve learned that variability is not a hindrance but a source of strategic advantage. Through their supply chain networks, they enable their customers to embrace variability, harness visibility, and compete on velocity, which is what sets them apart. Like a finely organized complex adaptive system, they have curated and cultivated their hyperspecialized networks to achieve something competitively differentiated.
Banner Engineering, TraceGains, and Altana use their supply chain networks and 360-degree view to a strategic advantage. Their relationships and knowledge of their federations' capability and capacity define their strategic positions, and their ability to harness surveillance and enable rapid recombinant behavior creates their moats.
The companies that will dominate the future understand that success is not just about making the right tactical decisions on a day-to-day basis; it’s about building the infrastructure that allows you to evolve and adapt to tomorrow’s challenges. Banner Engineering, TraceGains, and Altana are not just companies—they are supply chain ICONs. Shining examples of what can be achieved when you embrace variability, harness visibility, and compete on velocity.
They are, in every sense, flying above the fray.
Forklift batteries power the fleets at the center of facility operations. If your batteries are well-maintained, your team is empowered to drive efficient, sustainable, and productive operations. Given your forklift battery can also be as much as 30% of your forklift’s total cost, taking care of it is crucial not just for its longevity and efficiency, but in creating a safe, productive, and cost-effective facility. Improper battery care can create a financial strain on your company along with plenty of safety hazards.
Pulling from decades of experience helping some of the largest and busiest facilities across the country with their power management challenges, I’m sharing the most common mistakes that can shorten your forklift battery’s life by up to 60% or one to three years.
Most common forklift power system design mistakes
Four of the most common mistakes are associated with how a company designs its forklift power system, which includes not just the battery but also chargers and changers.
Most common forklift power maintenance mistakes
The remaining common mistakes focus on how a company maintains its batteries and chargers.
Your forklift batteries are the preservers of power at your facility. If properly cared for, they power smooth and reliable operations that keep downtime at bay. The unexpected can and will happen every single year—that’s just a part of business. But the expected, that is something we can prepare for. Companies that take a proactive approach to their power and their facility’s unique power are poised to take on any challenge with an uninterrupted power supply.
More than ever before, supply chain businesses are faced with dynamic conditions due to consumer buying trends, supply chain disruptions, and upheaval caused by other outside forces including war, political instability, and weather conditions. Supply chain companies, including warehouses, must be able to pivot quickly and make changes to operational processes without waiting for weeks or months.
As a result, warehouse management systems (WMS) need to be agile enough to make changes to operational processes and turn on a dime in today’s fast-paced world. Traditional warehouse management systems, however, are rigid and complex, not easy to customize or change. In addition, integrations—especially to modern technologies such as the internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning—can be problematic.
Furthermore, traditional warehouse management systems depend on the expertise, experience, and knowledge of software developers to hand code applications. This type of technical labor is costly and can be hard to find, leading to dependence on the WMS software developer. Whenever changes or customizations to traditional WMS are needed, experienced software developers are needed, and this effort is usually time-consuming and expensive.
One solution is to consider a warehouse management system built on a low-code application platform (LCAP). Unlike traditional warehouse management systems, software applications built on LCAPs are more flexible, adaptable to meet changing business requirements, easier to integrate, and scalable.
[subhead] What are low-code application platforms?
LCAPs give users a visual, drag-and-drop interface that allows them to create applications by assembling prebuilt components, integrations, and templates. This simplification of the software development process facilitates faster prototyping, iteration, and deployment.
It also enables application development to be open to nontechnical users who may have significant experience, knowledge, and expertise in warehouse operations. Nontechnical users can work alongside IT resources to automate workflows, create business rules, process flows, and data models. To do this, visual tools are used to replace the need for writing complex code. Event-driven triggers and actions are leveraged to automate repetitive tasks and integrate with other systems. This can lead to better alignment of operational processes within the warehouse.
Low-code application platforms may also include features to promote team collaboration. Multiple users can work on the same project simultaneously, and version control mechanisms help to ensure that changes can be tracked and managed efficiently. In case it becomes necessary, rollback can be used to return to previous versions.
Low-code application platforms include tools for deployment, hosting, and maintenance. Applications can be deployed by users to a variety of environments with only minimal configuration. Maintenance and updates can be handled within the platform, and automated testing and deployment pipelines are frequently used.
Seven benefits of LCAPs
There are many benefits to using an LCAP as opposed to a traditionally coded warehouse management system, including:
1. Adaptability and ability to customize. LCAPs provide significant value for a WMS due to the speed at which applications, features, and customizations can be developed and deployed. This can help to ensure higher customer satisfaction and the ability to adapt more rapidly to supply chain disruptions, changes in demand, and advances in technology.
LCAPs help solve the challenges faced by a rigid traditional WMS by making the WMS faster and easier to tailor to meet customer or business requirements without high-priced IT resources. This can translate into time and labor savings for the warehouse operator.
2. Integration. A traditional WMS often does not have the capability of integrating with cloud-based services, limiting the ability for it to take advantage of the cost benefits, flexibility, and scalability of cloud computing. In addition, it is often challenging for traditional warehouse management systems to integrate with automation technologies including robotics, autonomous guided vehicles (AGVs), conveyor systems, and other technologies.
Because LCAPs leverage built-in connectors as well as application programming interfaces (APIs) that facilitate integration with other systems, integration is seamless, ensuring a more efficient, cohesive ecosystem. This ease of integration can aid in unifying data across different systems to improve decision-making and information visibility.
3. Scalability. As a business grows, warehouse operations typically become more complex. This complexity typically leads to the need to handle increased volumes of data and more complicated workflows as well as expanded warehouse operations. This can present challenges for traditional warehouse management systems.
Low-code application platforms are able to scale more easily to handle increased volumes of data, more operational complexity, and additional functionality without a complete overhaul of the WMS. It is faster and easier to make quick adjustments on a WMS built on an LCAP. The system can easily scale up or down to handle new business requirements, changes in demand, and much more.
4. Security. Older warehouse management systems may lack the advanced security features required to protect sensitive data from cyber-attacks. Modern low-code application platforms typically include robust security measures to ensure that data is protected.
5. Up-to-date user interface and user experience. The outdated user interfaces commonly found with many older warehouse management systems can hamper productivity and lead to errors. WMS users need to have a streamlined user interface, designed to focus their attention on operations, without distractions.
Using a WMS built on an LCAP can improve the user experience and boost productivity. This is because LCAPs often feature intuitive, user-friendly interfaces that enhance the overall user experience. This makes it easier for warehouse workers to navigate the software, reducing errors and frustration.
6. Real time visibility. Older warehouse management systems may not be able to provide visibility into warehouse operations, inventory levels, and order status in real time. This can reduce the responsiveness to customer and market demands and delay decision-making.
One advantage of using a WMS built on an LCAP is that it can be integrated to IoT devices and sensors. This will enable the capture of real-time data on inventory levels, environmental conditions within the warehouse, equipment status, and more.
7. Data management. Today, with the popularity of online shopping, a WMS needs to be able to handle a high volume of orders with many individual items per order. A traditional WMS, which is designed to handle goods by the case or pallet, rather than by the individual saleable unit, may have performance issues, such as with data lock up or data retrieval, when handling large volumes of data.
Using a WMS built on an LCAP can facilitate the integration of multiple data sources into one unified platform, improving data accuracy and consistency. All data is available in one place. In addition, there are built-in tools for data validation, cleansing, and governance. This helps to ensure high data quality, essential for reliable real-time data visibility.
Transformative potential
Technology continues to advance. Software development continues to evolve. By taking advantage of low-code application platforms to simplify the software development process, supply chain professionals can ensure that they are able to keep up with these changes.
LCAPs enable rapid development, customization, and deployment of software applications, enabling businesses to respond to changing market conditions and technological advances. The result is notable cost and time savings, increased efficiency, and more effective operations. Using LCAPs, companies can take advantage of increased flexibility, scalability, and adaptability to be more competitive, drive operational excellence, and support growth.
Gartner recently published a report discussing the big changes being wrought by artificial intelligence (AI) for procurement. The analysis begins with some intriguing data points:
One of the reasons for the forecasted rapid adoption of AI is that the technology seems to respond to a key pressure point on procurement as a function: the lack of staff or staff with the right skills and experience. Staffing concerns are driving procurement organizations to increasingly lean on digital technologies, especially AI and automation, to help. Let’s explore Gartner's argument.
Substantial increase in interest
Thanks to the advancements in the technology skills of procurement professionals and decision support software, there has been a remarkable 17-fold increase in interest in AI applications for procurement in 2023 compared to 2022. Gartner's team anticipates a substantial surge in AI pilot initiatives in 2024. It also sees this as a trend expected to establish widespread acceptance and utilization of AI in procurement in the years ahead.
In particular, the application of GenAI is expected to expand throughout the entire procurement process—presenting opportunities to enhance both the speed and efficiency of operations within the department. For example, autonomous sourcing solutions driven by AI are progressively becoming more adept at handling responsibilities and decision-making that traditionally demanded the expertise of seasoned sourcing professionals.
This expansion enables organizations to streamline sourcing events effectively, transforming them into a more accessible process. Consequently, individuals outside the professional sourcing realm, such as those in the line of business, can now define requirements, pinpoint supplier sources, and initiate and manage sourcing events. In essence, sourcing is evolving into a skill rather than merely a function.
As outlined by Gartner, failing to adopt AI technologies in procurement may place organizations at a significant competitive disadvantage in terms of cost efficiency and agility compared to their peers. To avoid falling behind, the analyst firm is advising procurement leaders to wholeheartedly embrace transformative technologies that will promote and cultivate collaborative relationships with suppliers.
Making AI your servant, not your master
To be clear, procurement professionals will remain pivotal decision-makers. While human decisions will be enhanced by GenAI, humans will continue to make a vital contribution via their knowledge, creativity, and insight.
The unique contribution of GenAI is its ability to generate fresh content, complete missing information, and formulate sample outcomes or scenarios. This capability will play a supporting role in strategic decision-making, augmenting the human decision-making process. Procurement organizations, for example, will want to use virtual agents to automate repetitive tasks, such as purchase request (PR) approvals, internal and external communication, and supplier approvals, enabling human teams to focus on other areas.
To make this work, procurement staff will need to adapt as technology changes the nature of their work, and companies will need to make attracting top talent a priority. Certain skills will be at a premium as AI becomes more prevalent in everyday operations.
This “future-proofing” of skills needs to occur along two axes. One axis is technical. The cornerstone of all AI models is high-quality data and that means organizations need to foster proficiency in data literacy. The ability to identify pivotal data elements influencing decision-making becomes paramount in unleashing the complete potential of technology investments. This ensures that AI incorporates the most relevant data for its intended purposes.
However, the human element will also remain crucial, and this is the second axis. The creativity of procurement staff will be even more highly valued than it is today, given that AI's limitations lie in comprehending problems lacking sufficient data or precedent. Here, skills such as critical thinking will be essential. It will also be important to make connections with internal and external stakeholders. As a result, the ability to make effective presentations and secure stakeholder engagement are also expected to be in high demand. Companies need to think long-term when it comes to professional development and prepare for a future when these capabilities will be essential.
As another analyst firm, McKinsey, has said, it’s the procurement leaders capable of demonstrating quantifiable and long-term value to the enterprise who will become strategic partners to the C-suite.
Moving the needle in procurement
While these predictions are close at hand, they can sound future tense. Yet leading global companies, like adidas, BT, Tesco, and Santander Bank, are already using AI to maximize returns on billions of dollars of spend via autonomous sourcing.
For example, telecommunications company BT is using an autonomous sourcing platform to manage two-thirds of the organization’s £13 billion annual indirect spend—a percentage that BT wants to increase over time to 100%. Buyers have so far put more than 1,000 projects through the platform, automating admin-heavy tasks and cutting go-to-market time for project delivery that made a difference in overall performance. The platform supports various sourcing scenarios, including requests for proposal (RFP), requests for information (RFI), requests for quote (RFQ), sole source, delivery of staffing, supplier panels, and more. It also enables the creation and customization of requirements and the collection of supplier responses in different formats. Consequently, BT reports that autonomous sourcing allows nonprocurement team members to effortlessly initiate a request “with one sentence.”
Clearly, procurement leaders should make plans now to leverage the full power of procurement AI and GenAI. As Gartner recommends, organizations need to start by:
But whatever you do, don't delay. CPOs need to start working with CFOs to introduce AI-powered sourcing quickly and secure the results the organization needs to meet the challenges of an uncertain global economy.
Why? Because this AI future is here today. As committed autonomous sourcing user BT has said, “We’re not thinking about if GenAI could help us. Instead, we’re doing it—and across billions of pounds of spend.”
In a male-dominated industry like supply chain technology, there is a growing opportunity for women to lean in and contribute their unique skills and perspectives. Research consistently demonstrates that diverse teams outperform less diverse ones, emphasizing the importance of inclusivity and gender diversity within the industry.
According to research by McKinsey & Company, companies with more than 30% female executives are more likely to outperform companies with only 10% to 30% of women leaders. The study also found more gender-diverse companies outperform the rest by 48%.
In light of this research, every supply chain company should take a moment to examine how to better diversify its leadership team and enable women to advance in the industry.
Strengthen the university-to-supply-chain pipeline
With no end in sight to the supply chain talent crunch, this protracted crisis presents an opportunity for more women to jump into the supply chain field. At Optilogic, we have found working with universities with supply chain management programs a great way to encourage budding female practitioners as well as create a future talent pipeline.
We connect with local University of Michigan students to teach them about supply chain design and get them involved in hands-on testing, training, and networking events. I am also working on a joint initiative with the female leader at the University of Michigan Ross Master of Supply Chain Management program on a STEM panel for women in supply chain.
Promote clarity and dispel bias about supply chain careers
Even in 2024 misconceptions and biases exist about supply chain roles for women. Women may perceive supply chain roles as being not well suited for females, especially some front-line roles in logistics and warehousing where women are underrepresented in traditionally male-dominated roles. Conscious or unconscious bias may exist with hiring managers as well.
Employers can also consider improvements to supply chain roles to make them more flexible and family-friendly. For women in the workforce, especially those with children, benefits like flexible hours and roles that allow them to balance work and other responsibilities can help address real barriers to entry.
Practical ways you can support women in supply chain today
Below are three ways the industry can help support female leaders.
It’s important for everyone in the supply chain industry to support women who are ready to rise in the ranks through the recruitment and development of female executives. Doing so will help ensure companies remain competitive by harnessing the power of gender-diverse teams.
