Breakthroughs And Backbreakers

Please enjoy the thoughts and musings of our friend, supporter, and long-time contributor Art van Bodegraven Jr., who passed away on June 18, 2017. Art was a prolific writer and had amassed a collection of unpublished blog posts he had planned to run well into the future. To honor his memory, we will continue to post these remaining blogs as he had intended. If you’ve been a fan of The Art of Art blog, check out our tribute.

 

La Diva has put up another life lesson for us.  Essentally, it involves baring one's soul in the interest of reaching beyond what you thought your limitations were.  Her latest audition involved a monologue, basically a free-form dramatic reading.  

No singing this time out; she's mastered that form, and it it was time for her to showcase how she can go past - far past - her demonstrated strengths and her comfort zone.

She took on the difficult role of a contemporary anti-hero, struggling to reconcile conflict in close relationships.  Death and loss appear and command center stage for some.

Her performance was powerful.  First the audienced was impressed.

Then, she realized that she believed her story, that she was so invested that she became the character.  She beame a broken person in front of the entire room of onlookers, and emotionally, began to cry.

La Diva owned the role.  She owned the audience, who made the shift from impressed to moved.

The real result was that she owned herself.  And, will own herself for all roles in her future.

Forever changed, she has become a free and different person.  SCM professionals have opportunities to do the same, if they have the courage to free themselves and own new attitudes and can invest of themselves in transforming their inner champions and their peers and customers, as well.

 

Work/Life Imbalance

Please enjoy the thoughts and musings of our friend, supporter, and long-time contributor Art van Bodegraven Jr., who passed away on June 18, 2017. Art was a prolific writer and had amassed a collection of unpublished blog posts he had planned to run well into the future. To honor his memory, we will continue to post these remaining blogs as he had intended. If you’ve been a fan of The Art of Art blog, check out our tribute.

 

The Amex OPEN Forum published a provocative and thoughtful piece earlier in the year.  Mostly I agreed with the content; some was sappy.  In summary, some of the key points were:

• You can always win - you are not foreordained or predestined to accept tough circumstances
• Be a cheerleader - a potentially losing proposition, with an act that can quickly wear thin; encouragement is good, but relentless rah-rah labels the perpetrator as a poseur.
• Learn new things - become a conscious life-long learner, and don't be afraid to re-learn old things
• Create memorable experiences -for your employees, for your colleagues, for yourself; expense is not necesarily great, but the event you've created is a message of positive recognition
• Always have fun - if you're not, you're doing it wrong, or with the wrong people at the wrong place
• Never forget that you are not your job - that your job does not define you
• Make these real for all those around you by living them - every day.

Look, these are as simple as they seem - just tough to execute.  

Do what's right.  Trust others.  Be a hero; be a leader.

     

The Frail Workforce And The Fragile Manufacturing Renaissance

Please enjoy the thoughts and musings of our friend, supporter, and long-time contributor Art van Bodegraven Jr., who passed away on June 18, 2017. Art was a prolific writer and had amassed a collection of unpublished blog posts he had planned to run well into the future. To honor his memory, we will continue to post these remaining blogs as he had intended. If you’ve been a fan of The Art of Art blog, check out our tribute.

 

Ummm, where to begin . . . There appears to be a growing sentiment - and is just that, a sentiment, a feeling, that the nagging manufacturing skills gap is closing.  As I blogged a very few weeks ago, and as reported early in the new year in Material Handling and Logistics, the skills shortage is very much with us, and imho, is likely to continue to impede inshoring and reshoring initiatives.

Harry Moser is passionate about prospects for moving manufacturing back from the brink.  Sandy Montalbano is a knowledgeable cheerleader who tirelessly promotes a return to US shores, and never wearies of relating success stories.  She recently joined a chorus of true believers who think that we have progressed mightily in the retraining of those skills necessary for renewed US manufacturing.

President Trumpf, of course, continues his campaign to bring back US industries, with, again, imho, the challenge of swimming upstream, but, sadly, not to spawn.  This has been a continuing theme, first in the Great Race against Mrs. Clinton, and now in tweets and jawboning a handful of selected corporations.

But the news is not all that persuasive.  As a plethora of infrastructure initiatives threatens to engulf us, our jobs and skills positions are as shaky as the San Andreas Fault.

OK, hiring hit a 7-month high early in 2017, but at a somewhat anemic pace of 675,000 a month.  Meanwhile, Donald J. Is looking for 25 million new positions.

Happily, employers are expecting more added workers than in 2016, 41% versus 32% - over 12%.  But, 80% of executives project a negative impact of a shortage of skilled workers.  Worse, at year-end, open manufacturing slots were about 32% more than a year ago.

The gap, when there's full employment in IT and professional fields, corporations are forced to use immigrants and overseas workers, to compensate.  When jobs cannot be exported to solve the skills challenge, automation, now on a runaway track, will, with contingent employees and contractors, create a more flexible workforce, while reducing labor and reliability shortfalls.

I'll take a six-pack of welders, to go, please . . .

The Supply Chain Turns On A Dime - Do You Have Change For A Dollar?

Please enjoy the thoughts and musings of our friend, supporter, and long-time contributor Art van Bodegraven Jr., who passed away on June 18, 2017. Art was a prolific writer and had amassed a collection of unpublished blog posts he had planned to run well into the future. To honor his memory, we will continue to post these remaining blogs as he had intended. If you’ve been a fan of The Art of Art blog, check out our tribute.

 

Today's blog comes by way of mijn vrouw, with my thanks.  In the day, a drive to the consulting site involved following a truckload of tomatoes, many of which splattered on my windshield.  It was impossible to contemplate a grilled (faux) cheese sandwich wihout tomato soup in winter.  And, tomato soup - or ersatz chicken noodle - was a staple of the convenient pantry.

OK, hot shot.  What's next?  News flash! The demo just got more graphic.  Millennials and gen-Xers have increased fresh food consumption by almost a quarter in the past decade,  And, the highly profitable processed food grocery aisles have shrunk, internally, and with a diverse collection of outlets.

Against this backdrop, traditional mega-brands with household names have experienced flat or falling sales for years - along with shrinking profits.  One battleground in the food wars is in reformulated and repackaged - rebranded - products aimed at a new generation.  Combatants include Campbell's, Heinz, Mondelez, and ConAgra. Guerrilla allies have been acquired, much like indigenous fighters on "our" side in the American revolution.  They are having, with few numbers, some success, and foodie specialties are multiplying to aggravate the Pepperidge Farm-level players.

So, among other challenges, the cold chain needs revamping to handle the new kids on the block, and supply chain leaders must take action based on where their customers are going - and why.  

Get ready innovators; read the tea leaves or die.  Or, just maybe, Amazon will own this space, too.

Minding The Leadership Gap

Please enjoy the thoughts and musings of our friend, supporter, and long-time contributor Art van Bodegraven Jr., who passed away on June 18, 2017. Art was a prolific writer and had amassed a collection of unpublished blog posts he had planned to run well into the future. To honor his memory, we will continue to post these remaining blogs as he had intended. If you’ve been a fan of The Art of Art blog, check out our tribute.

 

"Mind the gap" is well-understood in the U.K. as a warning to not fall onto the subway ("tube") tracks. Here in the U.S., we think in terms of talent shortfalls, the gaps in analytic skills, the shortage of managers with robust enterprise understanding and/or sophisticated world views.

As an industry, we struggle with overcoming these gaps, with training and education that helps build a capable workforce, with funtional skills development, and with advanced education generally through Master's programs.

While we fall short in many areas, we fail miserably in the leadership arena, where we, imho, have the greatest needs.

No only do we fail, we, all too often, teach the hard-won, but, misleading, lessons of the last century. Worse, we teach the habits and behaviors of managers.

Look, the attributes of leaders are manifold, and often counter-intuitive. Most often the laundry list that leaders must master to truly authentically lead fly in the faces of paper-clip-counting managers. The guilty party(ies): academics who live in another time and another world; and book-writing successes of another age, who dispense bromides disgiused as wisdom.

The attributes of genune leaders petty much translate to some form of the Golden Rule, or its successor, the Platinum Rule.

It's not complicated. Treat people like human beings to get the most out of them for the enterprise; that set of behaviors defines leaders.

Get Your Shovel Ready, Mama; We Are Ready To Start Digging

Please enjoy the thoughts and musings of our friend, supporter, and long-time contributor Art van Bodegraven Jr., who passed away on June 18, 2017. Art was a prolific writer and had amassed a collection of unpublished blog posts he had planned to run well into the future. To honor his memory, we will continue to post these remaining blogs as he had intended. If you’ve been a fan of The Art of Art blog, check out our tribute.

 

Material Handling & Logistics reported this winter that President Trumpf's team had identified some 50 projects that would eat up the $137 billion earmarked for infrastructure projects.  So far, the usual suspects are working drafts awaiting input from the National Governors Association.

Criteria include: national security or public safety "emergency"; potential for increased US manufacturing; direct job creation; and "shovel ready" with  30% of initial design and engineering complete.

Of course, the Governors will have strong political input, rewarding the faithful, and punishing the left and other failures.  Never mind where the projects might fall in a spectrum of prioritized logistics and suply chain needs.

Some projects cross state lines, most are quite specific, such as: bridges (Gordie Howe, Lake Pontchartrain), Union Station redevelopment, Port Mojave Solar, Savannah Harbor enlargement - a potpourri of unrelated and un-coordinated efforts.

Please excuse my cynicism, but the list looks very much like the same-old, same-old, only with a much bigger pork barrel.  

Line up at the trough fellers; the slops have just been poured out.  

Looks like yesterday's slops, with yesterday's lack of order and rationale, and congratulations to Congresspersons' constituents. Welcome to the drained swamp . . .

Out, Damned Spot!

Please enjoy the thoughts and musings of our friend, supporter, and long-time contributor Art van Bodegraven Jr., who passed away on June 18, 2017. Art was a prolific writer and had amassed a collection of unpublished blog posts he had planned to run well into the future. To honor his memory, we will continue to post these remaining blogs as he had intended. If you’ve been a fan of The Art of Art blog, check out our tribute.

 

Thus cried out Lady Macbeth, distraught over the spilling of Duncan's blood at her urging.  In this case, the blood is not Duncan's, but mine - but I still want the damned spot to be gone.

OK, I'm not the only person in the room who's had cancer.  The difference might be that mine was overwhelmingly deadly, with a mortality rate of maybe 5% after five years.  Pancreatic cancer has  the worst survivival rate among the high-incidence cancers - 5% vs. #5.  Not heartening.

But, as noted in the past, my genius surgeon effected a purely surgical cure, completely removing the offending intruder.  Good news, for openers, made better by not requiring chemotherapy or radiation for further repair.  Lots of meds, for sure, but better than any of several alternatives.

There are a few obvious life-long effects, in diet and daily living; they, too, are way preferable to not being treated.

One set of complications is that medicine is still figuring out the longer-term impacts of the surgical (Whipple procedure) cure.  They are not trivial, and each event triggers a round of investigative testing.  So, the kidneys are in sad shape, the liver is suspect, the esophagus requires a medical Roto-Rooter from time to time, blood chemistry is out of whack and the ol' brain-pan misfires regularly.

Outside of that, I'm doing spectacularly well, but ordinaries such as driving, traveling, teaching, project management, and making rational decisions are off the table for now.

But, once again, the alternative . . .

One of my several doctors has casually noted that Whipple survivors typically don't live long enough to experience longer-term effects.  For better or worse, I have.

But, once again, the alternative . . .

Impaired Thinking

Please enjoy the thoughts and musings of our friend, supporter, and long-time contributor Art van Bodegraven Jr., who passed away on June 18, 2017. Art was a prolific writer and had amassed a collection of unpublished blog posts he had planned to run well into the future. To honor his memory, we will continue to post these remaining blogs as he had intended. If you’ve been a fan of The Art of Art blog, check out our tribute.

 

I'm trying to avoid the word "crippled" in thinking about those who are hesitant to hire those differently-abled than the majority. But, it's perfectly descriptive. The crippling is not the afflicted, but the mental mindset of those reluctant to tap into this huge talent respource.  

Much has been made of Walgreens South Carolina facility, and ita ground-breaking advances in hiring people with physical or emotional challenges. Using the developmentally disabled as low cost labor in the performance of menial tasks is fundamentally flawed.

Relegating the "slow" to bagging at Kroger is an affront to the individuals, and passing up a teaching moment for the customers.

Compounding the challenge are those who are "uncomfortable" with the "retarded," indicating a certain weakness and fear among the uninformed (at best) and the possibility of rank prejudice and mean-ness of spirit (at worst).

The workers deserve more and better, and the customers merit re-education—and a sharp blow to the chops.

Go thou, and be a beacon for the right thing.

An ROI For Supply Chain Education

Please enjoy the thoughts and musings of our friend, supporter, and long-time contributor Art van Bodegraven Jr., who passed away on June 18, 2017. Art was a prolific writer and had amassed a collection of unpublished blog posts he had planned to run well into the future. To honor his memory, we will continue to post these remaining blogs as he had intended. If you’ve been a fan of The Art of Art blog, check out our tribute.

 

So, what's the value of SCM education?  Can it be measured?  Is it a myth?  Let's dig a little deeper.

Much of the current attention is focused on Executive Education.  But, frankly, our greatest national need is for broad operational and planning at working associate levels.  Teaching high concepts to managers and wanna-be leaders seems to me to miss the mark, by several miles.

To be direct, the stalwarts of well-established educational programs remain in place: Penn State, Michigan State, Ohio State.  Following their  model(s), you can't stumble across a university, community college, or branch campus without tripping over the supply chain.

Additionally, for-profit institutions are ramping up the content of certifications, so APICS and ISM garner kudos for joining the 21st century.  Notably absent from such lists is the SCPro program from CSCMP, the industry's premier learning experience.

A recent article in Supply Chain Management Review cites a number of eductional leaders: Loyola' (Chicago)'s John Caltigirone; Michigan State's Nick Little; and Penn State's Steve Tracey.  John promotes possibilities for higher salaries and advancement opportunity.  He sees SCM education as important for people from other parts of the organization, and recognizes the bias for SCM education as easier to consider than a traditional MBA, especially when a series of certifications can be offered.

Tracey is clear-eyed.  If the SCM education is valued by an employer, then it has value to the individual.  Further, real education is a must when levels of responsibility are reached; there are times when certification just doesn't cut it.

Little sees the importance of SCM showing the bigger picture of enterprise performance, particularly when SCM learnings can be applied to functional management.  There is a wagon-load of capable SCM educators out there in the thick weeds.  Ken Ackerman comes to mind, as, self-servingly, do I.

As to value, it's hard to find clear and compelling evidence of a hard dollar return on the investment in time and effort involved.  The literature is full of platitudes about: hone skills; develop acumen; understand SCM; job prospects; advancement opportunities; increased status; and - yes - even make more money - maybe.  Pretty soft stuff, with a a bucket full of cotton candy.  

But, all education is a good thing, and SCM is the wave of the future, imho.  The payback is up to you.

Do Patent Leather Shoes Reflect Up?

Please enjoy the thoughts and musings of our friend, supporter, and long-time contributor Art van Bodegraven Jr., who passed away on June 18, 2017. Art was a prolific writer and had amassed a collection of unpublished blog posts he had planned to run well into the future. To honor his memory, we will continue to post these remaining blogs as he had intended. If you’ve been a fan of The Art of Art blog, check out our tribute.

 

It'll take more than parochial school to answer this poser, won't it?  Meanwhile, patents do dominate the supply chain news these days.  Amazon,already has some 45,000 or 50,000 robots that command the goods-to-picker space, thanks to the acquisition of Kiva.

Now, Amazon, has patented a case picking robot that will take untold thousands out of their workforce.  Not bad for a people-dependent enterprise.

This from an innovator that is making the blimp and its dispersed inventory all its own.

Who else is disrupting supply chain operations?  Look, we've got a handful of inventors and backyard mechanics who are puttering around the fringes.  But, transforming SCM fundamentallly and on a regular basis appears to be the purview of a mega-organization that is devoted - devoutly - to changing the game, one that rewards innovation and industry dominance.

The equation is not likely to change - and that's good for me, for you, for all of us, but maybe not so much for Amazon's competitors