Narrator [00:00:04]:

Welcome to Supply Chain Now, the voice of global supply chain. Supply Chain Now focuses on the best in the business for our worldwide audience, the people, the technologies, the best practices, and today's critical issues, the challenges and opportunities. Stay tuned to hear from those making global business happen right here on Supply Chain Now.

Scott W. Luton [00:00:32]:

Hey, hey. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you may be. Scott Luton and Marcia Williams here with you on supply chain. Welcome, Marcia. How are you doing today?

Marcia Williams [00:00:42]:

I'm doing great, Scott. Excited about today's show.

Scott W. Luton [00:00:48]:

Hey, I am, too. We got a couple of incredible guests back by popular demand, right? We're meeting the world's demand when it comes to supply chain leadership prowess. But hey, Marcia, big show teed up here today, folks. Raise your hand if you'd love, just love to unlock new supply chain cost savings and drive profitability increases. Marcia, I think we both would raise our hand for that, right? I think we all would. Hey, today we've got an outstanding panel joining us to share perspective on how leading organizations are taking a supply chain unification approach to do just that, while also gaining heightened real time visibility that delivers outcomes and solutions, all while affording teams with much better and timely decision making, which all of that and much more rolls up into big time supply chain performance efficiencies and overall performance gains. Sign us up for that, Marcia. Should be a great show, huh?

Marcia Williams [00:01:45]:

Completely. It's going to be fantastic. And we are going to learn.

Scott W. Luton [00:01:51]:

That's right. We're going to learn and we're going to learn actionable insights, folks, so you can take action. Right when this concludes. So, two quick reminders before we get started. First, let us know what you think. And, of course, if you enjoy today's show, be sure to share it with a friend or your network. Okay, Marcia, we got to get to work. I'm going to bring in our two distinguished panelists here today.

Scott W. Luton [00:02:13]:

Let's introduce Rob Schaefer, vice president, strategic business development and TMS sales, with Manhattan Associates, and his colleague, Bryant Smith, director, product management with Manhattan. Hey. Hey, Rob. How you doing?

Rob Schaefer [00:02:26]:

I'm great, Scott. How are you?

Scott W. Luton [00:02:28]:

Welcome back. Welcome back. I'm doing great. And, Bryant, to you as well. Welcome back. We got the one two punch back, huh?

Bryant Smith [00:02:34]:

Yeah. Thanks. I really appreciate the introduction, and we had so much fun last time we did this that we had to come back and do it again.

Scott W. Luton [00:02:42]:

Hey. Love that. Hey, it is, Marcia. It's when we can learn and inform and educate offering market intel and have fun. That's a pretty good hour. Would you agree, Marcia?

Marcia Williams [00:02:55]:

100%. Best combination love it.

Scott W. Luton [00:02:59]:

All right. So the combination that wins. So, Bryant, Rob and Marcia, let's do this little fun warm up question, folks, because it is back to school season for so many families, not just in the US, but in many countries around the world, there's some serious overlap when it comes to school schedules. Now, back in the day, I remembered, folks, a new trapper keeper most years, sometimes new lunchbox, and sometimes rarely, a new book bag. That made going back to school a little bit easier because, hey, let's be honest, I didn't enjoy that. But I want to ask each of you all, what's one thing or experience or tradition that you remember about heading back to school? And, Rob, I want to start with you.

Rob Schaefer [00:03:42]:

Probably a lot of things that I could think of, but the first one that pops into my mind is back as a young child in grade school, the tradition my family was, every September, my mother and I would take a walk about a mile and a half to a small shoe store. And you always got a new pair of dress shoes to go back to school.

Scott W. Luton [00:04:02]:

Oh, love it.

Rob Schaefer [00:04:03]:

That was a good memory for me.

Scott W. Luton [00:04:04]:

Love it. Supporting local commerce, supporting local retailers. And it sounds like that was quite a yearly tradition. A mile and a half, too. Got guys got your steps in, too, Rob, huh?

Rob Schaefer [00:04:17]:

Yeah, I'm a watch, but, yeah, I got my steps in.

Scott W. Luton [00:04:20]:

Love it. Special, special memory there.

Bryant Smith [00:04:22]:

All right.

Scott W. Luton [00:04:22]:

So, Bryant, same question for you. What, what do you, what's one thing you remember about back to school?

Bryant Smith [00:04:27]:

Yeah, there, there's a couple of memories I have, but the one that's probably the most vivid is, you know, there was a big craze about starter jackets, and I capitalized on the opportunity with my parents to get a starter jacket as part of a back to school type of thing. And, yes, you know, taking advantage of the situation. But kind of, in hindsight, I'm thinking, like, why would I need a starter jacket? And basically the heat of the summer? But, you know, all the logic goes out the window when you're a young kid, so.

Scott W. Luton [00:04:58]:

Oh, hey, opportunistic is what I heard there, right? Successfully opportunistic. And that's not always a bad thing. All right, so, Marcia, we've got Rob's annual tradition to get new pair of shoes. Right. With his mom would love that. We got. Bryant's getting a new starter jacket, you know, taking advantage of the season. How about you, Marcia?

Marcia Williams [00:05:18]:

At that time each, when the school year started, my mom used to get a new backpack for me because in those moments, we didn't have everything in a digital format. So it was something very helpful, and I like it, too. Right. So it was very nice to get.

Scott W. Luton [00:05:43]:

That, hey, special experience. Right? Special experience. And if I followed you there, Marcia, coming from humble beginnings, you know, the things you get that one time a year is something you'll always remember and try to give it to our kids. Right. To other students. I love that. Marcia Bryant and Rob. All right, we got switch gears from back to school to back to dominating global supply chain performance.

Scott W. Luton [00:06:08]:

We've got some tips for how we can better do that here today. But we will start with this level setting context, real valuable in an ever faster moving world. If I said that. Right, Rob, I'll start with you. If you could, in a nutshell, tell us what Manhattan does for the three folks out there that may not know and just a little bit about your background.

Rob Schaefer [00:06:26]:

Sure. I'll start with my background first. So I've been with Manhattan almost four years, two months shy of four years. I have responsibility for the TMS products from a sales and business development perspective. I started in the software game back in 1998, went into supply chain software in 2005, and been doing that ever since. So that's kind of a little bit about me in terms of Manhattan. We are a publicly traded global supply chain software company. We specialize in three areas, omnichannel, commerce, supply chain planning, and supply chain execution.

Rob Schaefer [00:07:01]:

But we go beyond that in that we implement our own software, and we have a very personal approach to customer service.

Scott W. Luton [00:07:09]:

Love that. All highly needed as organizations continue to tackle challenges old and new in global supply chain. Good stuff there. Rob Bryant, if you would, now that we've kind of level set with Manhattan and Rob's background, tell us about yourself.

Bryant Smith [00:07:24]:

Yeah, so I'm the director of product management for TMS and logistics functions at Manhattan. So I'm responsible for TMS product strategy and the product roadmap. So I'm working very closely with our customers and our different partners to make sure that we're building the best capabilities that we can within our platform. But prior to my time at Manhattan, had managed a couple of other TMS that are in the magic quadrant, and before that, I implemented TMS. So a lot of time in TMS world.

Scott W. Luton [00:07:57]:

Okay, outstanding. So to pull a couple of things there from Rob and Bryant's background. Background, Marcia. Lots of technology, lots of supply chain, lots of technology, lots of implementation. Right. And it sounds like it's nothing. Implement and move on is implement and stick around for the aftercare. That's so critical to make sure organizations get the return they're looking for from these platforms.

Scott W. Luton [00:08:23]:

So love that. Marcia, your thoughts on the panel we've got here, the one two punch.

Marcia Williams [00:08:28]:

Very impressive. The guest that we have. And, of course, I'm sure we are going to learn. And I loved the point that both talk about planning and execution. So it's not only to stay at that level, if to actually implement the solution considering the customer. So I love that point.

Scott W. Luton [00:08:53]:

Well said. Well said. If we're going to talk about supply chain unification, those are two important neighbors in the neighborhood. So we'll talk more about that here shortly. All right, so, folks, today we've got a great, uh, esteem panel between Bryant, Rob, and Marcia. We're going to be diving into our core topic again, unlocking cost savings with supply chain unification, driving efficiency and profitability. Right. Not just more business, but good business.

Scott W. Luton [00:09:20]:

Before we get there, though, Rob, we have got quite the environment that we're all working through against a mixture of old, timeless challenges and then some new ones that have come to bear in recent months. If you would share some of your observations in terms of the current environment, global supply chain, and how it's impacting operations and performance.

Rob Schaefer [00:09:40]:

Yeah, it's a crazy time, and I guess I've been saying that since COVID Right. But I mean, there's always been disruptions in the world, but whereas now they all happen at the same time. Right. So, I mean, from geopolitical instability, what we're seeing in the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, I mean, the effect there simply is rerouting of shipments. If you cant go through the sulfur canal, youre going around the Horn of Africa. And if youre doing that, youre adding multiple weeks onto your voyage. Some companies may have to move some more critical things to air, which is increasing their costs. You might have to change ports of arrival, which then changes the rest of your network.

Rob Schaefer [00:10:18]:

Again, if that was the only thing that was happening in the world, yeah, you could manage around it. But at the same time, weve got a drought in the South America, which is constraining traffic through the Panama Canal again, adding costs, adding time, the lead time, the planning that goes around it. We've got labor disruptions or potential labor disruptions around the world, right. In Canada, in Europe, potentially here in the United States, we've got shipping container increases. What I'm seeing is the price of shipping containers has gone up because of the things I just mentioned. Theyre not quite at COVID levels, but theyre probably halfway between what they should be in the high water mark there, its costing more to ship goods from Asia to Europe, from Asia to the United States. And youve got now steamship lines charging peak season rates, all kinds of stuff going on. Then if thats not enough to add on top of it, theres a whole regulatory environment, right.

Rob Schaefer [00:11:18]:

Some of that is sustainability, which is not a bad thing. But anytime there's new regulation, you have to plan for it, you probably have to add people to manage it, and obviously that increased costs as well. The other part of regulation is more. You know, there's more and more regulations around where you can source goods from based upon, you know, labor standards and all those sorts of things. And if you're doing business in a country where they're on the naughty list and you have to change your supply chain network, again, we're adding costs, we're adding lead times. You know, there's a big planning challenge around all of that. So unfortunately, all of those things and more are all happening at the exact same time. So there's a lot of lot going on.

Scott W. Luton [00:12:01]:

Rob, what an outstanding rundown. I think I can officially say bingo, because I think hit a lot of the most important ones that we're all feeling here today. And I just want to, before I move over to Bryant, I want to pull one thing out this regulatory environment, folks, supply chain leaders, supply chain pros out there. If you're really challenged with the current regulatory environment, you're not going to like what's coming up because it's only going to, the demands there is only going to get greater and greater. Brian, what would you add to quite a list that Rob gave us?

Bryant Smith [00:12:32]:

Brian, the list can go on and on. I mean, you can go about Ukraine, you can talk about Israel, you can talk about the regulatory things that are happening with sustainability and compliance and making sure that you're capturing the carbon emissions, but also food compliance with FSMA coming up in 2026. It's all these things that are compounding. And I think the summary here is that logistics leaders, supply chain leaders need to understand the macro environment of what's happening within their supply chain, because the reality is things are costing more. It costs more to produce things. It costs more for labor, it costs more for inventory, it costs more for transportation. Everything costs more. So in a world where we need to get to profitability, where we need cost avoidance, you need to understand where those costs are and how to mitigate those costs as best as you can.

Scott W. Luton [00:13:30]:

Well said, Brian. And we've got some good tips coming up in the second half of today's show. We've got quite a growing list. Your thoughts there.

Marcia Williams [00:13:37]:

Marcia, so true about the changes. The context is so dynamic, and the point that Bryant mentioned about the cost that implies a higher cost is so true because we need to consider when we have a change in regulatory that will imply R and D cost to find maybe an alternative ingredient, then changes in the packaging so everything will add up.

Scott W. Luton [00:14:11]:

Good stuff. Completely agree, Marcia. And along the lines of what you were talking about, especially when it comes to sourcing challenges, I read earlier today, Rob Bryant and Marcia, that a very nice automobile, I'm not going to name them, but their primary aluminum parts provider, one of them at least went down, and for this particular part and product, they didn't have a secondary and a tertiary backup provider. So we're going to be talking more about visibility, but the supplier visibility into really understanding the risk when this kind of stuff happens. So you can shift gears quickly, no pun intended, is critical. All right, good stuff. Marcia Bryant and Rob, let's shift gears here. We're going to be talking about, again, supply chain unification.

Scott W. Luton [00:14:53]:

It's going to be a big theme throughout. We've already mentioned a couple of times. And Rob, that's part of the good news here, but let's make sure everyone is with us in this conversation. What are we talking about when we say supply chain unification?

Rob Schaefer [00:15:06]:

Well, it's really about bringing everybody together so that they're all on the same page. Right. So we just talked about all the issues that are, that are facing shippers today. Trying to manage that with multiple disparate systems that don't talk to each other and you have silos of information is very, very, very difficult to do. So the unified supply approach brings all of the information that's available together at the fingertips of the people that need to make decisions. Right. And it's, and it's, it's the shipper, it's the vendor, it's the carrier, it's the trading partners. Right.

Rob Schaefer [00:15:37]:

Visibility not only to your products in motion. Right. But it's there. If they are in motion, what products are they? How many are they? Is that container full, etcetera, but also the visibility into your products at rest. What DC is it in? Is it in the proper DC, is it in the proper form? Is it damaged? Can it be shipped? All of those sorts of things. To completely understand your entire supply chain availability of product and to be able to see those disruptions instantaneously and to be able to react to them instantaneously and while doing so, understanding the financial implications with carrying out a new plan. Right. So it's very difficult to do with a bunch of disparate systems that pull all that information together.

Rob Schaefer [00:16:26]:

But it's, when it's in a single logistics platform, it's very much easier to.

Scott W. Luton [00:16:32]:

Accomplish a lot of good stuff there. And one thing to pull out, wouldn't it be nice if everything just took place in the vacuum? It's all static and be so much easier to make decisions and manage global supply chains. But as I think Bryant and Marcia pointed out and Rob you were speaking to is this is a very dynamic environment. Right. And imagine y'all know it, the scale at what many of these global supply chains operate at, there's tons of complexity. And, Rob, to be able to find and empower organizations, of course, there's more and more proactive preparation and leadership and management taking place. But to your point about being able to react not just instantaneously, but successfully, and that's a big part of what we need to implement into our organization as well. So one day, we can really call ourselves a term that has been real popular for years, resilience.

Scott W. Luton [00:17:27]:

We'll see if we can get there. All right, so, Marcia, before I move on, that static versus dynamic, being able to not just react in the moment, real time, but successfully. Your comments there, Marcia.

Marcia Williams [00:17:41]:

I love a point that Rob mentioned that all of the factors that we need to consider and also see the impact on the financials, I love that point because they are so related operations with finance that I think is, of course, critical to highlight that aspect.

Scott W. Luton [00:18:05]:

That's right. In this supply chain unification environment that Rob and Brian will be speaking to, how can we make sure these decisions are integrated with finance so we know in the moment the impact on financials, rather than just the impact on operations and taking care of the customer. Good stuff there, Marcia. Okay, so, Bryant, I want to bring you in here. You and Rob both are going to speak to several of the ways that, for organizations that take and are successful at the supply chain unification that we're talking about here today, there's some big, big time gains that they can expect. Let's start with the first one, which has been all the rage for quite some time. End to end visibility. Tell us more, Bryant.

Bryant Smith [00:18:46]:

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, end to end visibility has been a topic for a long time. I think where the benefit comes with a unified supply chain is we're bringing all of those, what would be disparate systems together into a single platform. So in some of the legacy instances, you may have a vendor that provides you a WMS, maybe even a different vendor that provides you a TMshe and a different vendor that provides you a YMS. And you need to create connections between all those different systems. It's extremely inefficient. You have to pass information back and forth to one another. The connections break, they go through different upgrade cycles.

Bryant Smith [00:19:30]:

It's just, it's you. You want to achieve end to end visibility, but it's really hard to do that and pull it off when you're dealing with multiple systems. And we've taken a different approach, and pulling all of those together into a single platform. And our Manhattan active platform allows us to support warehouse workflows, transportation workflows, yard workflows, all in a single platform. So there's no integration between those different, let's say, workflows that you've seen, and we have a single source of truth for a shipment. A shipment that's planned in TMS is the exact same shipment that you're receiving into your warehouse or checking in at your yard, so there's no more passing the ball back and forth. What this means is I have enhanced visibility into how I'm executing within my supply chain because I've knocked down the silos of, let's say, those legacy systems. But when you expand it out into bringing in your partners in your ecosystem, you're working with your vendors, you're working with your customers, you're working with your freight forwarders and suppliers and so on and so forth.

Bryant Smith [00:20:45]:

You need to have the API first mentality to consume that data into the platform so that you can either proactively or reactively deal with the disruptions that we had talked about earlier in the conversation. So it's really the utopia here is breaking down the silos, whether that be systematically or through partners and those types of things. And the unified approach allows us to truly get that end to end visibility because we're not dealing with some of the legacy technology problems.

Scott W. Luton [00:21:21]:

Bryant, preach it louder for folks in the back. You shared so much good news there. And. And not just optimism, but I'll call it constructive optimism for what is the art of the possible today. And before I get Rob to comment, and then, Marcia, I want to pull one thing out. That single source of truth. So you're saying it isn't like Bigfoot or the Loch Ness monster. It can be attained.

Scott W. Luton [00:21:43]:

Is that right? Bryant?

Bryant Smith [00:21:45]:

That's correct. It's, you know, again, when you have a TMS and you have a WMS, those are different systems. You create a shipment in TMSD, and you have to recreate that shipment in WMS, right? That's not the case. In a unified platform, it is one shipment. So whether I'm a transportation user and I want to understand what's going on with this shipment, as in transit, did it pick up, is it late that the warehouse user still gets that same exact insight into that shipment? It's not something that's being passed back and forth or duplicated or copied. Right. And again, that gives you better data, faster data, so that you can react or proactively adjust what's going on within your supply chain, because we had already talked about all the disruptions that's going on. So you have plan a and how you're going to execute your supply chain, but you also need to have plan b and plan c, and having that visibility allows you to do it.

Scott W. Luton [00:22:37]:

The critical data in the hands of those that need it to make the decisions out on the front lines and really cross the ecosystem. Rob, we're talking into invisibility and so much more on this first one with Bryant. Your thoughts?

Rob Schaefer [00:22:49]:

Yeah, just really to give a further example of that, right. It's that whole thought where someone in the warehouse, right, can see their inbound shipments from their warehouse system, right. They can see that it's checked in, they can see where it's in the yard. They can make their appointment schedules, they can do the dock door assignment. They can manage their labor based upon what the next trailer is. They can pull the trailer onto the appropriate dock door, closest to where that inventory is going to be stored. All of those things would happen in multiple different applications, TMS, YMS, WMs. But when its a single platform and everyones looking at the exact same information simultaneously, it makes it so much more efficient and cost effective from a process.

Scott W. Luton [00:23:35]:

Perspective, and it builds more trust into the organization. You dont have Sam over here with, with their spreadsheet, and Samantha. I don't know why Sam and Samantha came to mind. Over here with their spreadsheet. It's all integrated. Looking at the same data can make aligned faster, better decisions, amongst other things. Marcia, man, Bryant and Rob are painting quite the picture. They're bringing their best Michelangelo here to discussion here today.

Scott W. Luton [00:24:02]:

Your thoughts, Marcia?

Marcia Williams [00:24:04]:

This solution that allows everyone looking at the same data, I'm thinking that would eliminate all the tracking sheets, because when you get in a company, in many cases, there's no trust. Each person has their own tracking sheet. So I think with this, improves efficiency and allows to make decisions better, because all of us have access to that data. That is the same data.

Scott W. Luton [00:24:39]:

Yes. Ensuring that everyone in the sandbox use that analogy Bryant and Rob were referencing plays nice together to get stuff done and to be prepared to grow when the challenges will. May be a lot of what today is and then some brand new ones. Before we circle back to the second one, we've kind of harped on decision making. That's where we're going next with Bryant. I want to bring in t squared, who holds down the fort force on YouTube, talks about that. With that in invisibility, the players really, across the ecosystem need to play fair. Right.

Scott W. Luton [00:25:11]:

And I think that ecosystem first thinking is so important to achieve the trust, the operational trust, the enterprise trust, the interfunctional trust, I'll call it. That really allows for exciting new levels of performance. For sure. All right, so, Bryant, let's talk about better decision making with holistic data.

Bryant Smith [00:25:33]:

Yeah, we had teed up the conversation about visibility. The first thing is to get the visibility into the data that's happening within the supply chain. But once you have that visibility, what do you do with it? Having data, with not being able to action against it, is useless. Having the visibility is step one that allows you to make better decisions in step two. So whether you're getting data from your transportation workflows, whether you're getting insights from what's actually happening within the four walls of the warehouse, or whether, you know, gate in, gate out with the yard workflow, is you're getting all this data, you're getting insight into how you're performing within your supply chain. Getting that information in the most timely fashion is going to lead to better decision making. Okay, so timeliness matters here in terms of decision making, because things happen very quickly within execution. So you need to be able to either proactively adjust to those changes or reactively adjust those changes depending on the situation.

Bryant Smith [00:26:40]:

So timeliness matters from a decision making standpoint and timely. The timeline is completely condensed when you're in a unified platform. Right. Because I'm not going over to this system to find out what's going over here. I'm not going over to this tracking sheet to figure out what's going on over here, because the time it takes to gather and synthesize all that data is probably already outdated anyway. So I need information that I can action against right now, right here. But again, since we're not exchanging data between different platforms, different systems, different vendors, we have more accurate data. So that was the second portion.

Bryant Smith [00:27:18]:

I need timely data and I need accurate data. I can't be working with something that's out of date. I can't be working with something that doesn't tell me the whole truth. I need to know exactly what's going on with this shipment. I need to know exactly what's going on with this order or container or whatever the case may be, so that I can make the right decisions in the moment. Okay, but have we have all this data? I don't want it to be a manual workflow. I want the system to do the heavy lifting for me. How can I start doing workflow automation? How, once I've determined that something's late, how can I quickly readjust my appointment? If something was, a pallet was left off at the warehouse, how can I quickly reoptimize my shipment to make a full truckload? It's having timely data and accurate data that allows us to make better decisions within the supply chain to adjust to those changes that we had talked about.

Scott W. Luton [00:28:13]:

Love it, Bryant. So, Rob, decision making, better decision making, holistic data. Your thoughts?

Rob Schaefer [00:28:20]:

Yeah, it's just not the tracking sheets that need to go. Right, but all the disparate systems that have their own reporting attached to them. Right? If you have a wire mess, a WMS, a TMS, and they're all in a labor management system, and they're all from different vendors and they have their own reporting system, so try to pull all of that data together and get it in the right format and not have data integrity issues. Much to what Bryant was saying, by the time you get that report written, it's too late. So having it all in one place, using the same tool, looking at all of that, drives a tremendous amount of efficiency in a very short period of time. And the sooner you can get the information in your hand, the sooner you can make the proper decision.

Scott W. Luton [00:29:04]:

Well said, Marcia. Before I bring you back in for a quick comment, pick back up timeliness matters. Brian Bryant touted it. Rob touted it. Hey, it's like my beloved Atlanta Braves. They have an awful offense. They're trying an awful offense. We don't want that opponent's pitching scouting report after the 7th inning.

Scott W. Luton [00:29:25]:

We need it in time to make the adjustments in the study and be prepared to make the. The adjustments. Pregame timeliness matters, folks. Marcia, better decision making, holistic data that is accurate and timely and then some. Your thoughts?

Marcia Williams [00:29:40]:

Yes, I like the point about all the points discussed about the practicality, because initially we say the connection between planning and execution and the customer. And many times, back to Rob's point, we get the question, like, when I'm going to get my order. What is the ETA? So now we can address that by looking at the source of truth, right? If I understood correctly, and we have all the data there, and that is a huge gain in efficiency.

Scott W. Luton [00:30:22]:

And that's the name of the game. That's what we're talking about here today, right? Changing how business is done with all these benefits that Bryant and Rob and RC are speaking to. Okay, so we're talking about the gains folks can get from supply chainification. We've talked about more visibility with outcomes. We've talked about better decision making with holistic data. And now let's talk more, Bryant, about really powerfully driving efficiency and profitability. That's a beautiful word. Your thoughts, Bryant?

Bryant Smith [00:30:48]:

You got it. Is you need to surface the data first as your visibility. And you need to be able to action against that data that's been surfaced. And then you get outcomes that are more desirable, right? So, just thinking about the actions that are taking place, that's one thing. It allows you to do certain things. What does that mean from an efficiency and a profitability standpoint? The first one being, of course, route optimization is you need to plan the best routes in your supply chains. Because inefficient routes create inefficiencies and costs and so on and so forth. But when disruptions happen, like the Francis Scott key bridge collapse in Baltimore, or whatever the case may be, is you need to start creating new routes, new patterns, you need to be using new partners.

Bryant Smith [00:31:35]:

So, having the insight that these things are happening, allowing to react against those changes very quickly and timely, allow you to make better decisions. But that's plan a, right? You may need to reroute something as it's transit, but I. That information allows you to proactively adjust your network, or reactively adjust your network based on the situation. Another example that comes to mind is, let's say load building. Table stakes for a TMS is basically taking orders, building those orders into shipments and putting as much product as you can in a trailer so the trailer is fully utilized. Of course, that brings down the cost. The problem is legacy tmss are using estimated weight and volume to build a truck. They don't know what's actually being loaded in the trailer in a unified platform.

Bryant Smith [00:32:34]:

You do because you're using the actual weight and dimensions and cube of what's being palletized within the warehouse to build and construct these shipments within transportation. So now I'm not overbuilding a trailer where I need to leave pallets behind. And I'm not under building a trailer where I'm shipping air, essentially. So I'm creating better shipments, more utilized trailers to help lower my costs. But we know things change, right? We might not have had the inventory that we thought we did, or the inventory was damaged or whatever the case may be. So we have a situation where we thought we were going to load everything into a trailer, but we didn't for whatever reason. Now, my planners in real time can understand that I have extra space on this trailer because they have insight into what's going on in the warehouse for that exact shipment. So if I need to throw on an extra pallet or I need to take a palette off, all this stuff can be done in real time because I have the visibility and the data to make better decisions.

Bryant Smith [00:33:41]:

The same thing can be said and extended to labor, right? I mean, we're talking about routes, we're talking about trailers. But I mean, another big cost center for our customers and supply chain partners is labor. Labor is super expensive, is how do we mitigate some of those costs and be more efficient within our warehouse, within our yard, and so on and so forth. And if we're feeding transit data from TMS or yard, we're educating our warehouse and labor staff when shipments will be there, when they're delayed, and so on and so forth. So we can redirect labor within the warehouse to go potentially load something else, or unload a different trailer, or move staging to another operation. Having that insight in what's happening within transportation and within the yard allows us to make better decisions and how we're gonna adjust our labor force throughout the day so we can be more efficient. So I'm not paying overtime, I'm not bringing in additional staff. I don't have people standing around.

Bryant Smith [00:34:46]:

It's, I wanna maximize not only my inventory, I wanna maximize my labor, and I wanna maximize my trailer utilization.

Scott W. Luton [00:34:56]:

Well said, Bryant. Well said. I'll tell you, your last response could produce a whole series of things we can do better in global supply chain. I want to pull on two and then get rob to comment as often as we can. Eliminating guesstimating in supply chain management is a good rule of thumb. And then secondly, it's inevitable that we hear this phrase. But again, we want to eliminate it as much as we can. But I thought that.

Scott W. Luton [00:35:25]:

Insert the blank, right. We need to eliminate that as often as we can and put the real data and the real numbers, the reality in people's hands and in their systems when they need it. Kind of going back to the earlier point. Good stuff there, Bryant. Rob, what would you add? We're talking about different, wide variety of ways. I'd call it holistic ways of driving efficiency and profitability across supply chain using this unified approach. Your thoughts, Rob?

Rob Schaefer [00:35:51]:

I thought Brian covered that pretty well. I did, too. The other thing I would add that's along that labor part, is that with the labor market being as it is as well, the platform approach allows shippers to do more with the same, not necessarily less, to do more with the same. When you're driving efficiency in your processes, because you see the data and understand how a particular process might be changed or tweaked, become more efficient, then I'm getting more throughput through my system with the same number of employees. So that's an area that drives profitability as well.

Scott W. Luton [00:36:28]:

Excellent point, Rob. And, Marcia, before I bring you in here for a second, you know, on the, on the workforce, we've seen no shortage of challenges across all segments of, I'll call it global business, but certainly a supply chain. And here in golf course, Gulf and east coast ports, we may see some more challenges. Right. We all are probably familiar with the negotiations, or lack thereof, that's going on right now with, that may impact ports across the Gulf and east coast. And we're already seeing that uncertainty impact other operations and other ports and other businesses as folks look to hedge their bets. So we'll keep our finger on the pulse of that. But be ready.

Scott W. Luton [00:37:06]:

One thing is assured, more complexity certainly lies ahead. All right, Marcia, we covered a lot of ground, Bryant and Rob covered that last one, I thought. Very well. Your thoughts, Marcia, on what we heard there.

Marcia Williams [00:37:20]:

Yes, very interesting. The point also about labor, not only transportation or inventory labor. And I see the importance of having real time data, because without that, it's like we cannot make any changes, we cannot adapt, and we will have the resources regardless of the situation. So I think at that point, without.

Scott W. Luton [00:37:52]:

That real time data, and especially here in 2024, we've got one hand behind our back as we look to manage our businesses, our supply chains, you name it. There's so many opportunities to do business different way. Well said, Marcia. All right, let's see here. So, Bryant, we want to pull one particular example, right? So lots of customers and organizations have really bought into this unified supply chain approach and the benefits we've been talking about over the last 40 minutes or so. But I want to zero it in on one particular example, and that's Schneider Electric, one of the most admired companies, I think, in the world, based on a couple of surveys. Bryant, tell us more yeah, so we've.

Bryant Smith [00:38:32]:

Partnered with Schneider Electric. We've had a relationship with them for a number of years now, but obviously they're a global specialist in energy management and automation, and they operate in more than 100 countries. So you can imagine that their supply chain footprint is massive. They have DC's all over the world. They ship basically every mode in a number of different ways. So all the stuff that we've talked about with the global economy, it impacts those types of companies even more because they operate at a global level and not just a regional level. But when we partnered with them, part of their mission was understanding that they have a lot of legacy systems that are not cohesive within their supply chain and that in of itself is super inefficient. They're not going to get the benefits that we had talked about previously because of the architecture and the network that they had.

Bryant Smith [00:39:29]:

So not the only goal that they have, but one of the goals they had was how can we cut down on the number of systems that we have, the number of legacy systems that we have? And of course, the unified approach allows that to be possible, is you're not going to have separate tms, you're not going to have separate yms, you're going to have one platform that does that. But also you're not going to have multiple vendors, you're not going to have a vendor for this region. You're not going to have a vendor for that region. That in of itself provides a ton of efficiencies, but they want to take it a step further. They need to be able to be proactive in how they manage their supply chain because any little disruption has a major impact to their operations at a global scale. Getting the insights that you need to make end to end visibility, but also the decision making to react to those situations. And they've seen in their theory and what they want to achieve come into fruition based on some of the platform approach that we've provided in that regard. So they're getting the visibility into their global operations and their shipping network and their DC's, where their inventory is, how they're performing with their suppliers, how they're performing with their customers.

Bryant Smith [00:40:50]:

They're being more efficient in how they're building and supporting their transportation, they're being more efficient and how they plan their labor. So a lot of different things have come out of it as part of adopting and buying into the unified approach.

Scott W. Luton [00:41:07]:

Bryant, I love it. And we're going to offer more information on what Bryant describes here. Just momentarily, if I understand this story in this relationship, they like it. So much of what the early returns were that they're doubling or I'll call tripling down. So stay tuned as we share a little bit more detail around that. But Rob, you know, before we go broader with my question to you, and we'll get Marcia to weigh in on what we're hearing here in terms of returns, but I know you're a big music fan, right? You were talk, talking to us pre show about a recent concert you went to that featured a great lineup of eighties bands, right? It's always something. We need more unity, right? More unification in today's environment. There was a great song, it could have been the eighties, it could be the nineties.

Scott W. Luton [00:41:50]:

That said something like, you and I ty. You and I ty. Does that ring a bell? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone? Well, someone will save me. What's that, Marcia? No, someone is going to save me with that tune from the night. Okay. Amanda. Amanda recognizes it. Big thanks to Amanda and Catherine.

Scott W. Luton [00:42:07]:

Behind the scenes, y'all google that. Let us know. I was trying to make a musical reference here, Rob, and did not go well. But anyway, more generally speaking, Rob, tell us what other outcomes that supply chain leaders can take from this supply chain unification approach.

Rob Schaefer [00:42:24]:

Well, so far we've talked about kind of business process and efficiency and profitability, but there's other things that are benefits of a unified approach and the platform that we provide, a cloud native microservices architecture. So what organizations can also expect, expect beyond business process, is that they're always in the latest version of the software. So in the old world, we would develop software and deliver it on an annual basis that the client would have to put together a project to do the implementation that was disruptive. All those sorts of things. In today's world, every 90 days they get a feature function update. It's delivered, turned off. It's not disruptive at all to the organization. But as we started out the show, with all the things that are affecting supply chain around the world, you never know what's around the bend that we may need to innovate to meet.

Rob Schaefer [00:43:16]:

And if we can get it to you in 90 days, that's much better than a year or 18 months, right? Yes, there's that benefit also. The unified supply chain brings a common user interface. So from a change management perspective, you're training people how to use the application and the screens and the navigation and the reporting once, not four times, across labor yard, warehouse, and transportation. Right. We talked about the better reporting. Integration is much simpler because we're integrating the platform. We're not integrating all these disparate systems to ERP and other sources. Right.

Rob Schaefer [00:43:53]:

So at the end of the day, the platform provides the agility for the customer to react to what comes next.

Scott W. Luton [00:44:01]:

You know, Rob, you shared a lot of good stuff there, but one thing that I heard, especially with the updates, less friction, more seamlessness, and that's certainly one of the things that many organizations are after. The other thing that you implied that really, we've implied a couple times throughout the conversation, is your needs today, may not be, probably won't be your needs tomorrow. Sure, there'll be some common themes. We've established plenty of those. But this is really about investing into what I'll call cliche warning, maybe the resilience of organization to tackle what's next around the corner, because disruptions are guaranteed to keep coming. Okay. Rob Bryant. Marcia, I know wasn't losing my mind.

Scott W. Luton [00:44:41]:

Big thanks to t Squared and Jacqueline. Yes. Queen Latifah. I knew it. Thank you so much for saving me. You and I t wife. Rob and Bryant, you are going to have to get Queen Latifah to come speak to the Manhattan conference. That could be the new theme song.

Scott W. Luton [00:44:56]:

I see a new marketing campaign start, and we'll see if we can make that happen. All right, Marcia, we were talking about. Bryant was talking about specific outcomes with the great folks over at Schneider Electric, which have been setting the globe on fire in terms of success and innovation. Rob spoke about it in broader terms. Your thoughts there. Marcia?

Marcia Williams [00:45:20]:

We talk about the cost savings. That, of course, is fantastic and the way to gain efficiencies. But I also notice from Rob's comments about speed, that capability for companies to act fast, and that has a huge value. So we have an increase. We can have an increase in revenues and as well as cost. So both sides cost down. Right. So both sides inviting profitability.

Scott W. Luton [00:46:01]:

Marcia, I like that. Velocity pays dividends across organization, especially for customers and suppliers and our teams, and of course, certainly for bottom line financial outcomes. So good stuff there. And some organizations are what I'll call throwback to an eighties movie somewhere. Rob, you may recognize that. Ludicrous speed, right. Ludicrous speed. I mean that in a good way.

Scott W. Luton [00:46:23]:

Right. We're able to move faster, more successfully. All right, we've got some great questions we're not going to be able to get to here today. But first, we've got a couple resources we want to connect with folks out there and share with folks out there. But before we do, let's make sure our audience knows how to connect with the one two combo. You're kind of, you know, I can't think of a great tandem right now. I didn't want to say peanut butter and jelly. That doesn't really make my point.

Scott W. Luton [00:46:48]:

But you're like Rob and Bryant. You're like Mike Tyson's jab and then the knockout uppercut. Right? And Mike Tyson's coming back just in just a couple months, folks. Gonna find out. All right, so, Bryant, how can folks track you down and connect with you and the Manhattan team?

Bryant Smith [00:47:05]:

Yeah, the best way to connect with me is on LinkedIn. Pretty active. They're pretty responsive. So good way to connect. Otherwise, you know, email, phone, website, it's all available.

Scott W. Luton [00:47:17]:

It's all there. It's all there. Good stuff there. Bryant and Rob, how can folks track you down?

Rob Schaefer [00:47:23]:

Sir, it would be the exact same way. LinkedIn, email, website, requested, meeting, obviously with plenty of content while you're there on the website, so feel free to browse.

Scott W. Luton [00:47:36]:

Plenty, plenty. And, folks, you might just run into Bryant and Rob at all the must attend supply chain events out there. I saw you both at, let's see, modex in Atlanta a few months back, and, gosh, y'all's booth was filled. I had to kind of throw some elbows to make room. Not kidding. But also, Rob, I'm disappointed. You brought down the house with your use of a prop last time, and you didn't bring one today. Next time, folks.

Scott W. Luton [00:48:04]:

Next time.

Rob Schaefer [00:48:05]:

Next time.

Scott W. Luton [00:48:06]:

All right, Marcia, what an outstanding conversation here today. Really appreciate you being here. We got a couple resources we want to share, though, right, that Bryant, Rob and the Manhattan team brought. Let's do that. First up, we talked about Schneider Electric earlier, right? I got to slow down when I pronounce that name. My southern English doesn't always work well on that. Schneider Electric, who, by the way, folks, they ranked number one again atop the 2024 Gartner global supply chain. Top 25.

Scott W. Luton [00:48:35]:

So they know what they're doing and then some. The companies on the move, as Bryant mentioned, expanding its partnership with Manhattan and over 20 distribution centers and a further 200 plus operational sites. So we're dropping a link to more details on that. And I'm sure Bryant and Rob would welcome any questions around that growing partnership. You can learn more about the Manhattan active supply chain technology, which we touched on here today, which allows organizations to think more in terms of inbound versus outbound instead of WMS versus TMS. More of that unity right here, folks. You can download that report. We dropped the link.

Scott W. Luton [00:49:14]:

All right, so Marcia, what was out of all the truckload? Well, cubed out truckload. A brilliance that Bryant and Rob brought here today. What was one of your favorite points that we talked about here today? Marcia?

Marcia Williams [00:49:29]:

What I like, I love during the conversation is that we always talk about how to implement this. This is real. This is how we do it today. And there's a better solution that can help to have that holistic approach and improve the decisions to adapt. So I really love the practicality of the points that Rob and Bryant brought up.

Scott W. Luton [00:50:04]:

I agree with you. I'm a big fan of practical, innovative technology, innovative new practices that will optimize what we're all after. Right. That's more success. Right. Take care of our customers and our suppliers and our team members and all that. But apart, Marcia, echo, what you said. Three letters that you can find in the word practical is act.

Scott W. Luton [00:50:26]:

And that's the other point you were making. We got to take action. We got to implement.

Bryant Smith [00:50:30]:

Right.

Scott W. Luton [00:50:30]:

And implementation isn't good enough. We got to follow up and offer to aftercare and that support. And, of course, that's really important as Rob and Bryant laid out to how Manhattan does business. Good stuff here today. I want to thank folks, man, y'all came out in the droves, and I really appreciate all the comments. I can't wait to go back and uncover some of the things that I may have missed. I want to thank all of our audience, want to thank all the folks behind the scenes that helped make today happen. Catherine, Amanda, deep team, many others, of course.

Scott W. Luton [00:50:59]:

Big thanks to Rob Schaefer with Manhattan. Rob, always a pleasure to have these conversations with you.

Rob Schaefer [00:51:05]:

Look forward to the next one.

Scott W. Luton [00:51:07]:

You bet I do, too. Congrats on all the success, innovation you are powering. Bryant Smith, the other half of the dynamic duo. Great to have you back with us here today.

Bryant Smith [00:51:18]:

I'm the uppercut in this situation, right? Not the jab. So I make sure that's clear. So thanks for hosting, Scott.

Scott W. Luton [00:51:25]:

Oh, that devastating uppercut. That's gonna be such a great boxing match, I think, in November. Well, welcome. Thanks so much for y'all being here, back here today and sharing your perspective and expertise with our audience. Marcia Williams, always a pleasure. Thanks so much for your perspective expertise here today.

Marcia Williams [00:51:40]:

Thank you so much. I enjoy it very much.

Scott W. Luton [00:51:45]:

I agree. And you can check out Marcia's whiteboard wisdom, which we have on our YouTube channel. A lot of great lessons learned there. All right, folks, back to taking action, because that's the name of the game, right? Hopefully, I'll enjoy this conversation as much as I have. But now you got to take steps. You got to act on the wisdom and the brilliance and the reality that what the picture that Bryant and Rob painted here today, what organizations, leading organizations, are already doing. Take action. Your team's ready to do business differently.

Scott W. Luton [00:52:13]:

Enough with lip service leadership. It's all about deeds, not words. On that note, on behalf of the entire team here at Supply Chain Now, Scott Luton challenge you. Hey, connect with Bryant. Connect with Rob. Check out these resources. Connect with Marcia, but most importantly, do good. Get forward.

Scott W. Luton [00:52:27]:

Be the change that's needed. We'll see you next time. Right back here at Supply Chain Now. Thanks, everybody.

Narrator [00:52:33]:

Thanks for being a part of our Supply Chain Now community. Check out all of our programming at SupplyChainNow.com and make sure you subscribe. Subscribe to Supply Chain Now anywhere you listen to podcasts and follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. See you next time on Supply Chain Now.