OMP's Quest to be the Best at #NASCES23

Last week I had the opportunity to travel with four OMP teammates (Philip Vervloesem, Jose Guzman, Grant Brantley and Flo Daelemans) to my first North American Supply Chain Executive Summit #NASCES23. The conference was hosted at the historic Arizona Biltmore, which provided an incredible setting for over 400 supply chain leaders from around the world to network, share best practices and exchange ideas. The venue also provided some fun in between meetings and breakout sessions – they have a 65ft Frank Lloyd Wright inspired Twist triple waterslide! Just ask Grant about it.

I digress, back to the topic at hand. #NASCES23 provided tremendous insights into the future of supply chain, our responsibility to the environment as well as professional and personal inspiration in our quest to be the best. Below are a few key takeaways and highlights I experienced from the conference.

Focus on sustainability

We have an obligation, as humans and supply chain professionals, to take care of our planet and minimize our carbon footprint for the future generations. This theme was front and center at #NASCES23 with immense focus on sustainability throughout the conference. For example, MSFT’s Donna Warton's discussed strategies for moving from commitments to action by embedding sustainability into the way we work. This novel concept of embedding sustainability as a product feature into the goods and services we produce resonated with me. It’s a way to move from commitments to actions quickly and broaden the audience for our sustainability movement. Diageo’s Ewan Andrew also presented on this topic, highlighting Diageo’s maniacal focus on the ‘’Triple win” – reducing costs, increasing cash flows, and minimizing carbon emissions. This is not easy. Therefore, Ewan’s advice to the audience was to be highly selective in your company’s ESG goals and objectives.

Embrace early adoption of AI tools and digital technologies

AI & digital tools are pivotal to improve efficiencies, effectiveness, and safety in the supply chain. JNJ’s Kathy Wengel's presentation centered on mastering disruption. Furthermore, how JNJ is building the workforce of the future, today. The 140-year-old company, that generates approximately $100B in revenues annually has implemented dedicated ‘’Learning days’’ for their employees. Through enhanced digital trainings JNJ’s workforce is mastering new skills needed to ensure healthcare patients receive the products they need. Time is life and execution will make the difference. This growth mindset and lifelong learning mentality has JNJ’s manufacturing workforce prepared for the future. We talked with other conference attendees like IPG’s Merrick McGrady and KARL STORZ’s John O’Keefe about why they were attending #NASCES2023. Both shared that they were exploring how the use of AI technologies and digital applications can help their teams be more efficient in the day-to-day manual tasks of supply chain planning.

Quest to be the best

Finally, our keynote speaker and MC, Daniel Myers provided both personal and professional inspiration throughout the conference but especially in his ‘’Quest to be best” presentation. He did this by emphasizing financial (gross margin, free cash flow) and supply chain (net productivity, on time in full) key metrics and what it means to be average versus best in class across these categories. In his speech, Daniel raises two questions worth contemplating, ‘’What is the total business benefit of being the best?’’ and ‘’What is the benefit in supply chain of being the best?’’ The answers will vary across individuals, companies, and industries. But the common theme is that we all share a desire to be the best in our personal and professional lives. There are no plateaus in our future journey, a lesson learned from Sir Edmund Hillary.

We look forward to seeing everyone next year at #NASCES2024

Best,

Chris Singerman

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