Supply Chain Strategy

 

Supply chains have been a key topic of conversation over the last few years. As huge disruptions occurred, it became a focus in the news and content all around the world. Companies will need new, adaptable strategies when determining future business processes. Discussing best practices for those, “On Time in Full” Host Tyler Kern spoke with Mark Kidwell, Director of Supply Chain consulting for Designed Conveyor Systems.

Kidwell has more than 40 years of experience in the material handling business, beginning as a truck driver to his current consulting role. “We’ve never seen challenges like this,” he said. “The risk of single source or reliance on sole providers, and the availability of human capital are weak spots in the supply chain.”

In addition to these main drivers of disruption, Kidwell explained that it’s difficult to get goods back in the U.S.

When Kidwell works with customers on building a supply chain strategy, the first thing he stresses is alignment with business goals.

“The analytics behind this are important, so we start there in assessing an operation. The question is, ‘What are you measuring and how?’ Then, it’s about the alignment of measurables to the overall company objectives,” Kidwell explained.

Kidwell noted that departmental goals could often be competing or conflicting. For instance, there may be an inclination to buy at volume when procuring raw materials; however, that could have large downstream implications for inventory management goals.

Today’s supply chain strategy includes lessons learned from the past few years. Kidwell explained, “There are some hard lessons learned about the reliance on headcount because labor isn’t always available. There’s also the fragility of some processes meant for certain activities but now need to be more flexible.”

More Stories Like This:

Opportunities in the Material Handling Industry

The Keys For Maintaining System Uptime in Material Handling

Follow us on social media for the latest updates in B2B!

Latest

recovery
Holiday Surprise: Dr. Leemon Baird on Decentralized Recovery and Custody – The Private Key to Mass Adoption
March 28, 2023

Almost everyone has been subject to multi-factor authentication before, whether it was having to confirm a code sent to your phone or email address or having to answer an additional security question after inputting your password. However, a new form of web security called decentralized recovery and decentralized custody is now on the horizon. How […]

Read More
Clout.ar
Gossip About Gossip: Clout.art Migrates from Polygon to Hedera
March 28, 2023

Jure Zih has always been a fan of the creator economy. “I think that’s the future. Independent creators are going to drive this forward,” he said. To support creators, he developed Clout.art. Zih’s goal was to onboard people into the NFT space. “You need content, right? That’s at the core of NFTs –is  that you’re […]

Read More
PanXchange
PanXchange on Hedera
March 28, 2023

Blockchain technology is breaking barriers in many industries, so it shouldn’t come as any surprise that it’s currently being utilized in the agricultural industry. How is one agricultural company, PanXchange, modeling their business to produce carbon removal credits through blockchain technology, and what successes and challenges are they facing? On this episode of Gossip About […]

Read More