The Human Factor

"The most important thing is taking the time to explain that there is no AI power without human power." --- Chiara Giulia Laudani , SVP, Brand Value Chain w/ 雅诗兰黛有限公司 in a recent SCN podcast recording

Good Sunday morning all and welcome to this edition (No. 85) of "With That Said" (WTS), an almost-weekly newsletter powered by your friends here at Supply Chain Now. Before we get started, did you know that today is International Women in Engineering Day?

International Women in Engineering Day (INWED) is an annual event celebrated on June 23rd to honor and promote the achievements of women engineers worldwide. It aims to raise awareness about the contributions of women in engineering, inspire more women to pursue engineering careers, and highlight the importance of diversity and inclusion in the engineering profession.

June 23rd also happens to be the date (back in 1919) that the Women's Engineering Society was founded. Learn more about WES here.

Also, on a separate note, we'd like to congratulate our host Mary Kate S. , who leads our Veteran Voices programming, as the show was named one of Feedspot 's "Top 100 Veteran Podcasts That You Must Follow". Learn more here, including the latest VV episode with Kurt Robinson .

Now let's move on to news & views from around the globe:

--- DYK: artificial intelligence is reported to use 10x the amount of electricity than a typical Google search? Big Tech is looking hard for more clean energy sources to power the data center boom. An early winner is the solar power industry. According to CNBC : "Solar is forecast to make up 58% of new electricity generation installed in the U.S. in 2024, according to an estimate from the Department of Energy. A record 36 gigawatts of solar is scheduled to be added to the grid this year, nearly double last year’s increase, while battery storage will more than double to 14.3 gigawatts." Read the full article here.

--- The Red Sea crisis continues to unfold. According to Cathy Morrow Roberson : "Suez Canal revenue dropped by almost half in May due to the Red Sea crisis. Seatrade Maritime News notes that Suez Canal revenues dropped by 64.3% to approximately $337.8 million, compared to $648 million recorded in May 2023...the number of vessels transiting the canal in May also dropped to 1,111, compared to 2,396 ships that crossed during the same period last year. As a result of reduced ship traffic, the cargo volume passing through the Suez Canal dropped by 68.5% last month to about 44.9 million tons. In May 2023, the total cargo tonnage was 142.9 million tons." Read more of Cathy's weekly supply chain observations here.

--- Skillsoft recently surveyed almost 6,000 IT decision-makers and C-level leaders and the results point to 3 top workforce upskilling priorities: cyber, AI & data training. According to CIO Dive : "More than one-third of C-suite leaders identified cybersecurity and AI as top investment areas for training, and 3 in 10 said data. A year ago, only 13% of executives said hiring for AI skills was difficult — 32% said finding AI talent was challenging this year." Read the article in full here. And if your organization is looking to upskill its workforce, check out Vin Vashishta & his team as they offer a variety of effective training solutions on some of these top needs: click here for more information.

--- New home construction in the U.S. dropped by 5.5% in May, hitting a four-year low, as reported by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. In fact, new housing starts in May 2024 were almost 20% below May 2023. As reported by Builder, Eric Alanis with Zonda was quoted as saying: "Multifamily accounted for most of the annual decline in May’s starts and permits as the apartment sector is expecting peak levels of new deliveries this year. It is evident, however, that single-family home builders are also pulling back as they wait for a signal on Fed rate cuts.” Read the article in full here.

--- From Scott Luton 's "Midweek Market Rundown" from earlier this week: "Let's talk about the digital divide for a moment: as of 2022, it's been estimated that about 2.7B of the world's people do not have access to the internet. And more than half of the global population do not have access to high-speed broadband. In the U.S., the Federal government has set aside $42.5B to help bridge this digital gap. The fiber optic cable & broadband electronics sector will explode, in particular for U.S. manufacturers, due to domestic sourcing requirements tied to the funding." Read more here.

MAKING STUFF MEANS MAKING BETS: Supply chain leaders gamble by placing bets that create waste across multiple functions. From Tim Krug and our friends at Noodle.ai, learn how to powerfully tilt the odds in your favor for much bigger gains: https://noodle.ai/

Now check out these resources and tools from across the SCN ecosystem:

--- SCN co-host Marcia D Williams offers up 10 of the top tools for root cause analysis, because as she puts it: "we cannot live in firefighting mode all the time in supply chain." Check out all 10 tools here.

--- We all need to better understand what's going on in the domestic freight market. To that end, here's a great resource: check out the U.S. Bank Freight Payment Index for Q1 2024, which offers up actionable insights and valuable data from across the freight market. Download a free copy: https://bit.ly/scn-us-bank

--- Dr. Joerg Storm shares 15 ChatGPT Chrome extensions that we bet you didn't know about, such as "YouTube Summary", which helps to convert video content into accurate, brief summaries; or "ReaderGPT", which converts long-form content into an easier-to-consume, condensed version. Check out all 15 extensions here.

--- From John DeSarbo & our friends at ZS : "In a recent ZS survey of technology executives at life sciences companies, executives agreed AI (and specifically generative AI) will be the top driver of their companies’ priorities in the year ahead—outpacing digital innovation, rising costs, and drug pricing and reimbursement constraints." Check out the full read from ZS "Scaling generative AI for value by building chains of interconnected use cases" here, and check out John's appearance on "The Buzz" last week here via YouTube replay.

--- SCN co-host Kimberly Reuter talk about peak season & more in a recent blog: "These two principles have served us well: Secure as much capacity as possible at the cheapest price, and if you need it cheaper, slow boat it. But…these alone don’t work anymore. Long gone are the days of honored contracts and steady rates with mild fuel surcharge increases." Kim says "you gotta get your flow on!" Read more here.

--- Mark S. Holmes and our friends at InterSystems recently surveyed 450 senior supply chain leaders from across the globe. One clear-cut finding: "Companies must uncover critical insights from masses of disparate data located inside and outside their supply chains." Download a copy of the survey here. And check out a well-received webinar that we conducted with Mark & his colleague Ming Zhou from last week, which focused on: "How to Accelerate AI-Driven Decision Intelligence with Smart Data Fabric" (replay here).

--- Jason Tham and our friends at Nulogy recently shared an interesting blog article that included: "As fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies and their external supply chain partners continue to operate in a competitive, ever-shifting market, it is more important than ever for them to drive two-way visibility and high-fidelity collaboration across their complex, multi-tier networks.?To this end, it is critical for FMCG companies and their external manufacturing partners to leverage modern supply chain planning technologies as well as multi-enterprise collaboration to drive performance and responsiveness across their networks. Just as the consumer buying journey from product discovery to delivery expectation has evolved rapidly, companies must be technologically prepared to meet those expectations." Read the blog article in full here and check out Scott's interview at Gartner Supply Chain Symposium 2024 with Christine Barnhart, CPIM, PMP from Nulogy here via YouTube.

MONDAY AT NOON: Join us for a new episode of "The Buzz", where Scott & Marty Parker will share news & analysis from across global industry. We will also welcome in two special guests: Jorge A. Morales and Thorsten Mebs . Join us Monday at 12 noon ET / 5 pm CET: https://tinyurl.com/6awmvj89

TUESDAY AT NOON: Join us for a livestream focused on "Navigating Challenges of Spend Visibility & Implementing Solutions in 2024". Scott W. Luton & Allison Giddens will welcome in Jeff Gillmer and Ashley Greuel from OMNIA Partners . Join us Tuesday at 12 noon ET / 5 pm CET: https://tinyurl.com/nhzyu4b6

WEDNESDAY AT NOON: Join us for a show focused on "Green Planning: How CSCOs can help their organization reach its sustainability goals". Scott W. Luton & Kim Reuter will be joined by Paul Delbar & Bart Verbruggen w/ OMP . Join us Wednesday at 12 noon ET / 5 pm CET: https://tinyurl.com/bk4n8ntd

ONE MORE THING: Check out Scott's interview at Gartner Supply Chain Symposium 2024 with Katie Fowler from Unchained Value

#supplychain #supplychainmanagement #planning #data #AI #news #logistics #freight #manufacturing #procurement #sourcing #leadership #ecommerce #peakseason #shipping #tech #GenAI #ERP #datafabric #DoGood #GiveForward