Data Driven Supply Chain LLC

Hurricane Helene severely damaged Baxter International's plant in North Carolina, showing the danger of centralizing manufacturing capacity of saline and other critical medical supplies. What lessons can we learn from Baxter, and how can we use supply chain network modeling and simulation to evaluate multi-sourcing strategies? We dig into this in our latest blog entry. https://lnkd.in/gKB7xVG4 #supplychain #logistics #supplychaindesign #manufacturing #sourcing #logistics

Are you a supply chain leader, struggling to partner with your company’s data science team in a way that generates real business value? Are you a data scientist supporting supply chain, and want to move beyond ad-hoc reporting to proactively help the business with predictive and prescriptive analytics? Our two-day intensive training can help. Click the link to learn more! #supplychain #supplychainmanagement #datascience #analytics #operationsresearch https://lnkd.in/gxzkEqvX

In about two weeks (Nov 14), I'll be speaking at a breakfast event for the local CSCMP - Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals chapter here in Minneapolis-St Paul Minnesota. Hope to see many of you there! #supplychain #supplychainmanagement #logistics #minnesota

Once again, Wendover Productions makes an excellent explainer video. This time, on the logistics of supplying the Hawaiian Islands with... nearly everything from the mainland US, and the myriad risks therein. It also goes into how the Jones Act drives up logistics costs, trade imbalances, and much more. Well worth the time. #logistics #supplychain #jonesact https://lnkd.in/gdCbd299

I recently attended the CSCMP - Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals EDGE conference in Nashville. Mattel, Inc. Chief supply Chain Officer, Roberto Isaias, gave the keynote address. This The Wall Street Journal article by Liz Young summarizes of the speech and Mattel's supply chain: https://lnkd.in/e_sbvJ4R Isaias spent 12 years at CPG giant Procter and Gamble before moving to Mattel in 2002. Many of the lessons he shared in the speech will be familiar to those with manufacturing experience: 1) Tradeoffs between long production runs and fewer changeovers at P&G to shorter runs, more changeovers, and shorter lead times at Mattel. 2) Comparing Asian manufacturing in Asia to nearshoring in Mexico, with their tradeoffs in lead times and cost structures. At times, Mattel utilizes a hybrid approach: employing Mexican manufacturing to enable faster time to market, followed by larger scale Asian manufacturing with a lower cost structure 3) SKU rationalization of the long tail to reduce manufacturing complexity 4) Managing demand variability due to entertainment / movie tie-ins: moving to 50/50 owned/contract manufacturing capacity helps smooth out the fixed + variable cost structure for consistent unit costs Isaias also shared his five key lessons for leading change. These struck me not only as good, commonsense leadership advice, but for their parallels to the military leadership traits I learned while serving in the United States Marine Corps. 1) The business is the boss 2) Don’t delegate complexity - "I believe my role is to solve the most complex and complicated problems we have" 3) Take bad news well - "the only way to know what is happening in your organization is to be open to bad news" 4) Be fair and take care of people 5) Lead the execution - "don't ask people to do things you wouldn't do" Overall this was a great keynote and example for effective supply chain leadership. I highly recommend you consider attending CSCMP EDGE next year. #supplychain #supplychainmanagement #cpg #supplychainoptimization

CSCMP EDGE, the Council for Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) premier annual conference, is next week: September 29 through October 2 in Nashville, Tennessee: https://lnkd.in/gwGRzDtc I will be in attendance Sunday evening 9/29 through Tuesday evening 10/1. If you plan on attending the conference, it would be great to meet up with you to discuss how our Data Driven Supply Chain LLC team uses decision science, data, and artificial intelligence to help our clients tackle their toughest supply chain problems... problems like supply chain design, inventory optimization, manufacturing optimization, demand forecasting, and more. I'd love to discuss case studies from our previous clients, including: Inventory Simulation for National Restaurant Chain (https://lnkd.in/gYENAz7t) Inventory Optimization & Network Design for National Auto Parts Distributor (https://lnkd.in/gvvDWSvr) Manufacturing Schedule Optimization for National Packaged Foods Manufacturer (https://lnkd.in/gvvDWSvr) Agricultural Leader Supply Chain Network Optimization (https://lnkd.in/gm8demTD) Please reach out via LinkedIn message to set up a meeting. Hope to see you in Nashville! #cscmp #cscmpedge #supplychaindesign #supplychainanalytics #inventoryoptimization #manufacturingoptimization #supplychain #logistics #decisionscience #ai

A dock strike is imminent on the East Coast and Gulf Coast ports. To mitigate the impacts of future port disruptions - due to strikes, extreme weather, and other causes - you should have a multi-port strategy for your first mile supply chain. But how to measure the financial and service impacts of such a strategy? Data Driven Supply Chain LLC did just that for an agricultural vendor, helping them develop a first-mile strategy that lessened port risk at a reasonable cost. Learn more in our case study (link in comments) or reach out for a discussion. https://lnkd.in/epSrG3pq #supplychain #supplychaindesign #supplychainmangement #shipsandshipping #port #ila

I'm looking forward to being on the Posit PBC Data Science Hangout next Thursday, Sept 19! Join in to listen or ask questions about supply chain analytics, supply chain design, operations research, or anything else. More details here: https://lnkd.in/gshvJVKQ #supplychain #supplychainmanagement #operationsresearch

If you want to get started with supply chain design, work with the data you have, not the data you wish you had. Data governance is very important, but don't think you need to wait years to get your data in order, to be able to improve your supply chain. This is a misconception I see speaking with SMBs in particular. Reach out to learn more about our work at Data Driven Supply Chain LLC, and how we can help you design your supply chain network strategy and inventory strategy for the future. https://lnkd.in/gmJstUBh #supplychaindesign #supplychainmanagement

How do we measure the ROI of supply chain design projects? Not all the benefits are directly financial, nor is the data to measure them always captured. My thoughts are in this video: https://lnkd.in/emReZv7h How have you captured ROI in supply chain design projects? Comment below. At Data Driven Supply Chain LLC, we help Fortune 500 companies design their supply chain, optimize their inventory, and better understand their supply chain through decision science, AI, and data. Reach out to learn more or read our case studies here: https://lnkd.in/eVXrbs6B #supplychain #supplychainmanagement #inventoryoptimization #supplychaindesign