The University of Arkansas: Gartner’s #1 Supply Chain Program in the United States; and why every class should revolve around Supply Chain

Last week I found myself on the campus at University of Arkansas, presenting to a Data Sciences class. The class was titled “Data Visualization and Storytelling” lead by Dr. Rebekah M. Samsonraj PH.D, A.P. in Biomedical Engineering and Cellular and Molecular Biology.?I cajoled a fellow CEO to come join me; TJ Sangam, CEO of Supply Pike.?We each presented about disparate data points and how this impacts business decisions needed to be made and shared. ?My company must make sense of these disparate data points, yet TJ’s company is helping to unify the data into a more singular chain for business leaders to utilize.??The most interesting part about our time on stage, is that we both took our own intuitive approach and we independently described how supply chain challenges through the decision-making process is the single most complex challenge for each of us.

My firm, Sightline Retail, focuses on selling more product by best-in-class analytics, forecasting, and industrial engineering type methodology for pricing optimization. We believe that you can sell more goods if you can fully optimize how a product gets to shelf—either by case pack size, outer carton configurations, pallet ti-hi design, pallet loaded freight containers (hey we just found out to get 2 extra pallets into ocean freight containers this past year), just to name a few.?We sell more product by taking extra costs out of the system and passing these savings on to customers.

Supply Pike, on the other hand, is a company full of data engineers and scientists who can weave coding into business problems that many widget making companies encounter.?They take disparate data points and weave into a fully connected template saving time and money for their customers.?Want to know what the largest bucket of disparate data points is??Supply Chain.?How stuff is moved, the paperwork tracking, the transfer and hand-off of goods and services from one point to another.?While the fun stuff is around the Sales data (heat maps, and bar charts and pretty pies), the real work is always around when things transfer—either physically or digitally; and this point of transfer is what my team calls 'supply chain'.?

Here's a specific scenario that sits within kitchen cabinets of almost everyone- a box of crackers- (non gmo, vegan, and with only 3 ingredients that can all be pronounced). To keep it short and sweet, here are the 3 phases:

1.)??Pre-Production

a.???? Purchasing of Cardboard packaging,

b.???? ?ink for printing on cardboard (may or may not be at the same facility that shapes the cardboard box)

c.???? Inner bag for product to go in the printed cardboard box (not in the same facility that makes the cardboard box because tree fiber is different than oil-based bags)

d.???? Procurement of non GMO Wheat

e.???? Procurement of non GMO Salt

f.?????Procurement of Non GMO Oil

g.???? Pallets, shrinkwrap, labels and label printer        

2.)??Production

a.???? Get delivery of all items in Pre-Production to production facility

b.???? Manufacturing of Wheat, Salt, Oil into cracker

c.???? Finished goods manufacturing packaged into poly bag then into single cardboard box (called the “inner”)

d.???? Finished single cardboard box of crackers put into larger cardboard box (called the “outer”)

e.???? Outer boxes placed on Pallet and shrink-wrapped and labeled

f.????? Pallet placed on truck and sent to central warehouse        

3.)??Postproduction

a.???? Goods at central warehouse are unloaded off truck and staged

b.???? Wait for retailer purchase order: receive, acknowledge, time/date stamp order

c.???? Pick and pack pallets for retail order, new labeling added to pallet

d.???? New Truck utilized to deliver goods to retailer

e.???? Submit invoice to retailer

f.????? Retailer rejects invoice due to miscounted outer case at warehouse

g.???? Retrieve BOL and ASN to dispute accounting charges at retailer

h.???? Retailer retrieves their paper ASN but can’t find BOL so the charges get held up for 90 days.

i.????? Retailer puts product on shelf and the customer buys it

j.????? Retailer gets paid, supplier finally gets paid

        

For the purposes of Dr. Samsonraj and her students though, even though we kept it simple with a food item, the challenges become even greater when you add in complexities of medical devices, patents, and FDA regulations on top of an already challenging paper trail to manage. TJ and I both know that a robust supply chain is behind the scenes of every tangible item or service that goes to market.?The University of Arkansas has known this for a long time---in fact these challenges have been taught in every academic college on campus already regardless of if the class has supply chain in the title. The colleges of engineering, medical, legal, political science, and business are taught core underlying components that are important to each, albeit unique when layered with further political, environmental, and commerce options. The University of Arkansas has been named the #1 Supply Chain Program, only because it has already been teaching this to students already, and that's what makes this school so successful and unique.

Data Sciences is a new major at the University of Arkansas, combining thought leadership from the school of engineering, business, sciences, and arts into a new degree program that utilizes strong data mining and analytics skills across every major academic discipline. Shannon Bedore has sat on the advisory board at the University of Arkansas Data Sciences program since its inception in 2017. She also sits on the entrepreneurial board in the Walton College of Business at University of Arkansas, and looks forward to teaching about supply chain no matter what college the class is in!