Gordon Pearson, global inventory director with NCR, talks about the challenges his company faces in gaining full visibility of supply and demand, and in dealing with increasing supply-chain volatility.
The importance of produce traceability has been made devastatingly clear in recent years by well publicized incidents of illness, and even death, due to contaminated lettuce, spinach, cantaloupes and more. While officials in such cases spend weeks tracing the contamination to its source, all growers, wholesalers and retailers suffer market consequences.
Amanpreet Singh, senior director of strategy and operations with Motorola Mobility, discusses his career in supply chain, and outlines the major "pain points" that companies face today, in attempting to gain full visibility of supply and demand.
C.J. Wehlage, vice president of high-tech solutions with Kinaxis, details industry's major supply-chain management challenges - in particular, the difficulty of obtaining full visibility of supply and demand, and dealing with the volatility of markets.
A new MIT study on supply chain risk shows no correlation between the total amount a manufacturer spends with a supplier and the profit loss it would incur if that supply were suddenly interrupted. This counterintuitive finding defies a basic business tenet that equates the greatest supply chain risk with suppliers of highest annual expenditure.