It's OK is if your Supply Chain broke because of Covid -19. But it's not OK if you were surprised. Even with vast amounts of resources there is no way to completely safe guard against supply chain interruptions. It is going to take strategy, collaboration, and likely investment to create a resilient supply chain. It takes active management to identify and weight the risks.

When crises occur, a company’s ability to weather the storm usually is determined by several factors, but at least for product based companies, none is more important than the resilience of the supply chain. Depending on the type and scale of the crisis, in some cases the survival of the company itself may hang in the balance. During these times, operation excellence, that is, the ability of the organization to execute, is important, but it usually won’t be enough to avoid disaster. True resiliency comes from careful prior planning, a deliberate effort to build flexibility into all of the major factors of the supply chain. Because the interactions between the various parts of the chain can change dramatically when crisis hits, it’s imperative that the supply chain is evaluated as an end to end system, not as individual components, using what’s sometimes known as system thinking. In many cases, it’s important to evaluate how the supply chain interacts with other parts of the business, as well as outside socioeconomic and political systems.

If two years ago, there would have been a scary movie entitled COVD-19 and the impact to Supply Chain, many of us would not have believed it. Who would have envisioned shortages in basic toiletries, the inability to physically be close to individuals, the lack of a cohesive national strategy, and the overall devastation to the economy? Although we could not imagine this, how can Supply Chain leaders prepare to respond in a more agile way to devastating world events? In order to answer this question, we have to define what does the word "Risk" mean? The definition is different for each individual, function, company, and country. In this presentation, we will discuss how to identify, prioritize, and address risk while becoming a stronger organization.

Every company's supply chain is unique, and yet they all have a common subset of characteristics that make up their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Operations excellence is achieved by prudent investments in the right capabilities in the right order, at the right time. Companies have to balance investments in supply chain planning as well as execution, as both are critical to becoming best in class. At the same time, companies have to balance the market, financial, technological and execution risks in a constantly shifting environment.

Customer metrics are the foundation of the customer relationship, but a customers’ EXPERIENCE is very personal. If you focus only on metrics, you may miss a big piece of what customers really need. During the presentation, I will review some techniques that have helped me build the customer EXPERIENCE and share examples of how this relationship is helping to navigate, collaboratively, through our current pandemic. I will share times when I’m the customer and when I’m the supplier of goods/information for both internal AND external customers.

For a high growth company, ensuring supply coverage that allows for a high level of flexibility in meeting financial targets can be a business imperative. Additionally, the use of tools and processes that enable near real-time views of supply and demand allow for fine-tuning of plans outside of the S&OP cadence. In this presentation, we will review how the S&OP process and collaboration with IT and contract manufacturing has allowed the supply chain to stay nimble and meet financial targets.

COVID-19 has had a profound effect on global commence as several country border restrictions, policies, and regulations were initiated. As soon as passenger flights began cancelling in January, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) responded very quickly to address the risk to freight movement. Kim Masone, HPE Vice President Global Logistics, will share some of her insights and observations from inside the company’s War Room that were successful in maintaining business continuity, particularly in light of the geo-political landscape encountered today.

This webinar touches on some of the theory required to use systems thinking in supply chain design, and then elaborates on practical ideas that can be adopted to improve the ability for a business to respond, and even thrive, in times of crisis.