The accent may be on lean workforces, especially during hard economic times, but to fail to nurture the next generation of supply chain managers is foolhardy, says Dave Malenfant, vice president, global supply chain, at Alcon Labs.

While discussing the specifics of the supply chain in the aerospace industry, Jun Tsuruta, director of supply chain at Lockheed Martin, Kelly Aviation Center, notes that managing risk and separating "suppliers" from "vendors" is crucial in any vertical.

There are many challenges to distributing goods donated by the food and grocery industry to food banks around the U.S., says Nick Blawat, vice president of supply chain at Feeding America. And your task isn't made any easier when the food industry tightens its own supply chain.