[00:00:00] Will Quinn: I think the biggest risk is, is doing nothing, right? It's kind of standing on the sidelines and saying, well, you know, I'll let others figure this out and then we'll jump on board. It's kinda like years and years ago, like, ah, this internet thing, that's not gonna end. Nobody's gonna wanna buy something from a website, right?

[00:00:21] Will Quinn: We'll build a webpage later if it takes off. Same thing with with cloud and artificial intelligence automation. Warehouse management systems like you just, you just have to start. So the biggest risk is not doing anything at all.

[00:00:40] Voiceover: Welcome to Supply Chain Now, the number one voice of supply chain. Join us as we share critical news, key insights, and real supply chain leadership from across the globe.

[00:00:50] Voiceover: One conversation at a time.

[00:00:52] Scott W. Luton: Hey, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you may be. Scott Luton and Tevon E. Taylor with you here on Supply Chain Now. Hey, Tevon, how you doing? Hey, good. How are you? What is, say you're coming in on like two wheels as a, my friend Alice Giddens likes to say, uh, hot end from, uh, let's say Arkansas today.

[00:01:11] Scott W. Luton: Right? Getting back into Dallas. Is that right? Little Rock. Little Rock, yes, sir. Little Rock, which is a great nineties country song too, as I recall. Uh, great to see you here today. We got a big show today. Uh, we're looking forward to this show. We've got a terrific guest talking about a critical aspect of global supply chain warehousing and distribution.

[00:01:30] Scott W. Luton: Right. We're gonna be walking through a variety of topics at both the strategic and the more operational levels, all of which are critical of course to organizational success. And Tevon Will Quinn, AKA, the distribution guy is here given your track record of supply chain leadership and success, I can't wait to get your insights on the, the great stuff will drops on us here.

[00:01:53] Scott W. Luton: And folks, if you enjoy today's show, be sure to share it with a friend and your and or your network. They'll be glad you did. And then I wanna add this really quick to the stage folks. Uh, if you haven't checked out our almost weekly newsletter. With that said, I invite you to do so. So this is a snapshot from our most recent edition where I reported back on a great trip up to Chicago, wonderful city, where I participated Tevon in the Catalyze Conference, which is hosted by our friends at Enable.

[00:02:23] Scott W. Luton: Now get this. Some great sessions. I happen to sit in on a couple, um, here with Penny Pritzker, uh, the former us, um, US Secretary of Commerce. She's a dynamo. But anyway, get this nugget, Tevon, 86% of pricing professionals report profit loss because they can't process price changes quickly and efficiently enough.

[00:02:47] Scott W. Luton: And I'll tell you this, uh. With the backdrop of this global business velocity, which we're at, uh, what, 728 miles an hour, I think at last check, it poses tremendous advantages and disadvantages, but we've got to be able to, um, uh, share information and make decisions really quick, don't we? Tevon? Is that right?

[00:03:06] Tevon Taylor: Absolutely. You need to be flexible and agile, so if you're taking that long to make price changes, you're gonna lose money.

[00:03:12] Scott W. Luton: You're gonna lose money, uh, you're gonna create friction, create frustration across the organization, and you're including your customers and suppliers. So anyway, right now I wanna welcome in our featured guests here today.

[00:03:23] Scott W. Luton: Will Quinn, AKA, the distribution guy. Hey, hey Will. How you doing? Or and gentlemen, how are you? Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Uh, I, I guess blue is the marching orders today. Tevon and Will, is that right? It's a good color. Why not? It is, uh, let's see here. You know, it is summer grilling and picnic season where we all break out the grills and get to work.

[00:03:48] Scott W. Luton: I was sharing just earlier today about this grilling innovation, which I would not recommend anyone try obligatory disclaimer, right? Supply Chain Now could not be held liable for your grillic innovations, but someone clearly got tired of going. Running up and down to check on those burgers Tevon. Have you, was this your house?

[00:04:08] Scott W. Luton: Is this your house?

[00:04:10] Tevon Taylor: This is a violation of my privacy. This is my backyard.

[00:04:15] Scott W. Luton: And Will, can you relate to that one family member that will find a way to innovate in new ways every summer?

[00:04:22] Will Quinn: Uh, well, there's a will, there's a way.

[00:04:26] Scott W. Luton: I love it. Uh, I love it. So the fun warmup question, Tevon. Now we put the, the grilling innovation behind us.

[00:04:34] Scott W. Luton: Um, get this Tevon. Will his, uh, grandfather pitched for the Chicago Cubs, these Chicago Cubs, but will, you're a big White Sox fan, so tell us more about that. How, how can that happen?

[00:04:48] Will Quinn: Well, so my grandfather. Drew up in Chicago. He, he was 15 and he was playing baseball all over the city in 21 and over leagues.

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

[00:04:59] Will Quinn: And dominating knuckle baller. Yeah. Bill built, built like me, or I'm built like him, so, so the Chicago Cubs saw him, they're like, Hey, we want you to come pitch for the Cubs. He's like, well, I have to ask my folks. They're like, well, why? This is a, this is a 21 and overly what? He's like, well, I'm 15 and, and this is, you know, early forties.

[00:05:21] Will Quinn: There was no money in baseball. My, my great grandparents were like, no, like she could not go to school. So fast forward he, two years later, he joins the Navy. He's off in World War ii. He's in the Battle of Normandy. His ship gets pulled up, he gets a little shrapnel in his back, comes back, pitched in the minor leagues system for the Cubs, but just had lost a little bit of his stuff, right?

[00:05:46] Will Quinn: He went on to become a, a union painter. Fast forward. I'm, I get outta the Marine Corps, I'm living in the south side and my son, his first T-Ball team, they cut, they became the White Sox.

[00:05:59] Scott W. Luton: Okay.

[00:06:00] Will Quinn: So then all of a sudden, you know, dad's, he's like, Carson's like, dad, we we're White Sox fans out. 'cause I'm a White Sox.

[00:06:05] Will Quinn: And I'm like, all right. And then, so this, you know, that's, he's 27 now, right? So we, we were White Sox fans ever since.

[00:06:15] Scott W. Luton: Hey, I love it. And gosh, your grandfather, we, we need to have a book on his journey. It sounds like Remarkable, remarkable Tevon. Uh, I'll tell you what, that I wanna know more about that over the next hour.

[00:06:26] Scott W. Luton: I don't know Tevon your thoughts.

[00:06:28] Tevon Taylor: Yeah, I, you know, look, I, I don't have a story like his, I was born and raised in Arlington, Texas because that's where I was born and raised. Um, so the Texas Rangers are my team. Uh, it took them a long time to get to, uh, world Series, which was 2023.

[00:06:42] Voiceover: Yeah. Um,

[00:06:43] Tevon Taylor: they moved to Texas in 1972, so I think it'll probably be another 30 years.

[00:06:47] Tevon Taylor: I hope I had that much time to wait for the next World Series. But Nolan Ryan, you know, as a kid I grew up watching him throw 5,000 strikeouts. I watched him with some no hitters, just an amazing legacy there. But outside of that, you know, I, I feel for you 'cause the Cubs would be my second team we actually have up there.

[00:07:05] Tevon Taylor: I love going up there to that stadium and, and. Then the Yankees, believe it or not, I kind of like watching the Yankees, but I don't like going to New York. I just like going to the stadium.

[00:07:15] Scott W. Luton: Hey, I'm with you. I'm with you. All those great.

[00:07:18] Tevon Taylor: Yes,

[00:07:19] Scott W. Luton: yes. Uh, you know, in any baseball experience for any team can be a great one.

[00:07:23] Scott W. Luton: Uh, you know, the Yankees just happened to, um, ruin my childhood by, uh, beating two of the best Braves teams in, in 96 and 97 if my, uh, memory serves me right. Anyway. Certainly nine, six, 'cause that was Andrew Jones rookie season, but I digress. Um, will and Tevon, uh, great to have you both and, uh, I can appreciate not only fellow baseball fans, but big supply chain nerds and I can't wait to get into the conversation here today.

[00:07:50] Scott W. Luton: And hey, I wanna do some level setting. Uh, will, you've got a, you and Tevon both got a tremendous industry background, but will. I love your moniker, the distribution guy. And of course I've also enjoyed, as we were talking pre-show, all the, uh, great expertise you've been dropping in the comments section in the cheap seats and some of our other programming.

[00:08:09] Scott W. Luton: So we just had to have you end here today. So let's start with you telling us a little, a little more about your background.

[00:08:15] Will Quinn: Sure. Well, it, since Scott, thank you so much for having me on. I, I really appreciate what you guys do for the industry. I love the webinars, the, the content. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's amazing.

[00:08:27] Will Quinn: So I, I cut my teeth in supply chain logistics long, long time ago in the Marine Corps.

[00:08:32] Tevon Taylor: Mm.

[00:08:33] Will Quinn: So I was, I was on active duty and active reserves for 12 years doing supply chain logistics to warehouses full of flat jackets and outlets and, and res. I left the active duty and started going to school. Okay. Got my bachelor's degree and then started working at a company called Roadway Express.

[00:08:52] Voiceover: So I cut

[00:08:52] Will Quinn: my teeth in, in transportation, understand that part of the business. Uh, from there went to Coca-Cola, uh, uh, running, um, a warehouse of the manufacturing plant. So I got to understand raw materials and full goods and rotation and, and, and all that sort of aspects. And then, yeah, moved on to run a distribution facilities for Coca-Cola.

[00:09:15] Will Quinn: And from there. Went to a great company called Weg Electric. It's a brute or a, uh, a Brazilian motor company. So got to understand the electrical components and, and generators and buttons and all that kind of good stuff from there. Had a couple more stops. Uh, MSC industrial supply. So consumables and all, and you know, 50, 60,000 plus SKUs in this huge warehouse.

[00:09:41] Will Quinn: And, um, that's where I did my capstone project, where I was getting my master's degree in supply chain and logistics kind of gave me an end-to-end version of, of minerals in the ground, uh, all the way to the end user. And then reverse logistics.

[00:09:57] Tevon Taylor: Mm,

[00:09:57] Will Quinn: very, a very overlooked, important aspect of supply chain.

[00:10:02] Will Quinn: Uh, went on from there to do some three pl work, uh, in a couple million square foot facilities for Jewel asco. Yeah, you know, it's, it's ama, you see a, a 300,000 square foot freezer. It's amazing how, you know, and boy, are they cold. And then, um, I went up at Granger Okay. Doing, um, uh, inventory control and quality control and another huge facility.

[00:10:29] Will Quinn: And, um, my last stop was at Infor, uh, a great, um, a great global software company, which gave me the, the technology piece of, of how the ERP and the WMS and WCS and YMS and all the different software interacts to help make that engine run. As I'm on the floor running the DC I know that stuff's happening.

[00:10:53] Will Quinn: That's for the IT guy. I didn't really, I didn't really care how it worked. Uh, I just wanted it to work. So being, having that, that understanding of how that all that stuff works together, I think makes me a little more well routed.

[00:11:07] Scott W. Luton: You know, uh, I can, I can picture all those stops and I can picture that well-roundedness, uh, that you talk about.

[00:11:14] Scott W. Luton: And Tevon, I would say Will Quinn passed a test to here today?

[00:11:19] Tevon Taylor: Uh, you agree? I I think he passed it with flying colors. And, uh, thank you for your service Will, uh, amazing to be in the Marines. Um, I know Scott. Scott's Air Force. Um, I, I didn't even make it to the Air Force. So no offense, Scott. I I'm, I'm just, I'm not getting, I knew there

[00:11:34] Scott W. Luton: was gonna be an Air Force joke somewhere around here with, uh, will being a Marine and, and, and Tevon sense of humor, but that's okay.

[00:11:41] Scott W. Luton: Well, if you spend

[00:11:42] Will Quinn: any time in the Cub Scouts, it's almost like that.

[00:11:46] Scott W. Luton: Oh, man. All right. It's getting, it's getting savage. Well, kidding aside, will and Tevon. Tevon really quick. I know you've joined me, uh, uh, as a co-host for a variety of these sessions going back a ways. Um, but some folks may not be real familiar with your background 'cause you've spent I.

[00:12:03] Scott W. Luton: Over a couple of decades in, in supply chain leadership circle. So tell us really quick about yourself.

[00:12:08] Tevon Taylor: Yeah, I, I've spent 30 years actually started loading trucks in 96, went into the parcel space early in my career. Did it solutions. Worked for Brown and purple. I. Got into the four walls business with Genco in 2014 was Reacquired by the purple guys.

[00:12:25] Tevon Taylor: And, and now I'm at Pegasus, so still doing contract logistics, but you know, the transportation, you know, you can't really talk warehouse without transportation. It's a fully, that's system. So that's my background.

[00:12:37] Scott W. Luton: That is right. And really quick, uh, I enjoyed our site visit out to, uh, Pegasus in Dallas. Gosh, it's been back in probably in February or March now.

[00:12:46] Scott W. Luton: Uh, what's one of the hottest markets I. Pegasus in Te Tevon.

[00:12:50] Tevon Taylor: You know, right now Nearshoring operations of Mexico are driving significant growth for us. So the international business, while it's chaotic, um, we've got capabilities on the border, especially in El Paso. So. For those that are looking for El Paso, um, support or help, we've got warehousing down there, but we're also doing a lot of, uh, air and sea freight, uh, customs brokerage and international work.

[00:13:12] Tevon Taylor: So our portfolio is very diverse and essentially, I don't come to you with my portfolio. I come to you and say, Hey, what do you need? And we can figure out a solution for you. It's, that's why I was in Little Rock trying to figure out solutions for customers needing help.

[00:13:25] Scott W. Luton: Love it. I love it. So, Tevon and Will, great to have y'all and your expertise here today as we dive into distribution and warehousing.

[00:13:33] Scott W. Luton: Uh, and will, uh, the distribution guy, I wanna start with the challenges and priorities out there. Will, let's start with, in the broader sense, when it comes to distributors in the, in the current environment, what are some of the top challenges and priorities that business leaders in distribution have?

[00:13:51] Will Quinn: Oh, there's, there's a bunch.

[00:13:52] Will Quinn: Labor is always one, right? That's, that's, you know, even before the pandemic. Yep. Uh, distributors, manufacturers were struggling to find good people, and then the proliferation of e-commerce and, you know, all the warehouses went up just have, has, has made that problem. Even worse. Another big issue is these companies keeping up with technology.

[00:14:14] Will Quinn: Technology is evolving at such a rapid pace, right? And there's still warehouses out there, just, you know, working with a sheet of paper and, and running around. So keeping up with that, uh, that, that pace of technology is, is a huge issue for, for customers. And, you know, you're talking about artificial intelligence, right?

[00:14:33] Will Quinn: Cloud machine learning automation. All of these things are, are, are hitting and they're accelerating. Yep. And if you don't kind of start. Then you're gonna be, you're gonna be left behind. 'cause there's, there's gonna be a time where, you know, it's, we're great at, at, at shipping out orders, but errors still happen.

[00:14:54] Will Quinn: Now imagine you're trying something new. There's gonna be challenges associated with that. So it's, it's, it's really important to. To, to kind of start something, understand, fail, and then, and go from there.

[00:15:06] Scott W. Luton: Yep. The game is changing and it's changing fast and rapidly. Uh, and so Tevon when, when he mentioned things like workforce and, uh, technology and of course the, the general, uh, for many challenging business environment, uh, lots of uncertainty.

[00:15:22] Scott W. Luton: But what'd you Tevon when you think of. Big challenges in the distribution space, uh, or priorities that business leaders have? What comes to your mind? T

[00:15:31] Tevon Taylor: Yeah. The two he named labor shortages and, and really digital transformation. Those are the big ones. And it's funny, people think labor shortages, Hey, we'll just go hire temp workers.

[00:15:40] Tevon Taylor: Well, the difference in a temp worker and employee as an employees train, they've got tenure. There's no learn. The learning curve's already been bypassed. So labor shortages are, are, are bigger than people think, especially with quality, delivery, execution, customer experience. But the, the other thing I'd add to what Will was saying, um, rising cost.

[00:16:00] Tevon Taylor: I mean, you talk about pricing changes, well, when everything's rising, especially how you manage a warehouse, how you adjust and dynamically change that model for managing that business. It's not just changing your pricing, it's also going to your customer saying, Hey, I'm gonna have to adjust the pricing for you.

[00:16:17] Tevon Taylor: And they don't like that. And then there's contractual terms and things like that. So the bigger the company, that bureaucracy and the red tape, all of a sudden it gets bigger and bigger and it's, uh, very cumbersome right now. I'll just say.

[00:16:29] Scott W. Luton: Yes. Nity, I'm not sure if that's a word, but we need a whole bunch of it in global supply chain here in 20 always, but especially here in the first half of 2025.

[00:16:39] Scott W. Luton: Uh, and one of the reasons for that will about your opinion about tariffs for global supply chains, moving products from Asia or Europe to North America, or vice versa in general. Will, uh, your thoughts on tariff impact in today's global supply chains?

[00:16:55] Will Quinn: Sure. So I, I think when you talk about tariffs and, um, I think when you talk about the president's overall strategy,

[00:17:05] Scott W. Luton: yeah,

[00:17:06] Will Quinn: I think what you see, you're gonna see some, some short-term pain to get some long-term relief, right?

[00:17:14] Will Quinn: Mm-hmm. If you think about, you know, back in the seventies, you know, our folks, you could have one person who worked a job at a factory and support a family of four. That, that's just not the case now because a lot of those good paying, higher paying manufacturing jobs got shipped overseas where our company's chasing cheap labor.

[00:17:36] Will Quinn: So in order to to level that playing field, the tariffs are introduced and that's gonna cause some, some short-term paying because it'll cost prices to elevate. Now once companies move manufacturing back. Those jobs are then available, people will be paid more and they'll be able to afford those products.

[00:17:59] Will Quinn: So, you know, I think, I think it's a, you know, when you think about, you find yourself in a bad situation. You walk a mile into the woods, you decide, Hey, I'm in the woods. I don't wanna be in the woods anymore. Well, you just can't poof, snap your fingers and you're out of the way. You gotta turn back around and walk a mile back out.

[00:18:15] Will Quinn: Same guy. This, this problem didn't happen overnight and there's not an overnight solution.

[00:18:21] Scott W. Luton: Good point. I like your practical optimism. And better yet, folks, uh, whether it's tariffs or other disruptions, other challenges, we're gonna dive into some will's and vin's expertise on how to find that nimble ability, uh, or find that agility.

[00:18:35] Scott W. Luton: I'll use agility. That's a probably a better word for your organization. Uh, Tevon your quick comments on the tariff disruption right now. Uh,

[00:18:43] Tevon Taylor: I mean naturally. Um, and will I do like his optimism? Sometimes I'm optimistic on the topic, but right now, because it's getting a little stale, it's like we know the costs are gonna increase.

[00:18:53] Tevon Taylor: They're, they have to, so input pricing, the manufacturing distributors are gonna go up. How long Depends on how those manufacturers handle that. How much is absorbed? I mean, I sat in front of a customer and I heard him speak to all his suppliers and he said. If you try to pass on your increases in, in tariffs to us, you won't be a supplier in this room next year.

[00:19:13] Tevon Taylor: Mm-hmm. So that's kind of interesting. So it's gonna, there's gonna be sourcing shifts, a lot of uncertainty, um, encouraging nearshoring, I mean, we're already seeing that for Mexico, but, uh, yeah, the problem is the runway's pretty long on this, and I, I get what we're trying to do, but I, I, it's just not something you can solve on the short term.

[00:19:32] Tevon Taylor: So that uncertainty and the. The sourcing, uh, shifts and things like that are just gonna continue.

[00:19:37] Scott W. Luton: Yep. Good stuff there. Tevon and Will on a challenging topic, that's the topic conversation from the boardroom to the dining room of, of, uh, folks everywhere. Okay. So let's get past tariff for a second. What's been one operational mistake that you have commonly seen in warehouse strategy?

[00:19:57] Scott W. Luton: That leaders gotta find a way to fix immediately.

[00:20:01] Will Quinn: Well, that's a good question. There. There's, there's a couple, but I, what I would say that a common problem that I see that leaders can directly impact is, is properly documenting processes and procedures.

[00:20:19] Scott W. Luton: Okay.

[00:20:20] Will Quinn: So if you have a, a 10 step process. For cycle counting.

[00:20:26] Will Quinn: It's, it's important to document all those 10 steps, right? Screenshots, the whole thing so that when you're training your cycle counters, you're being fair with them by saying, here's the expectation, and here's, by the way, here's exactly how I want you to do this. Rather than saying, Hey, go train with Susie and she'll show you how to do this.

[00:20:47] Will Quinn: And then maybe, maybe she skips step three. And then you learn six months later that your inventory's a mess because your, your cycle counters aren't, aren't following that third step. So, and this is a great, this is a great use case for generative ai, right? Because before it'd be, would it take a long time to go through and document, write these things out, make sure it doesn't, you know, make, doesn't sound like a third grader wrote it, right?

[00:21:14] Will Quinn: Um, where you can, you can, you can input this stuff into a, a large language model and say, let's create. A professional step-by-step process. Do this, do this, do this, and it'll spit it right out. You add a couple screenshots in there and there's your training materials. Yep. And then what's happened is, so it's two things, is you're having consistency, right?

[00:21:34] Will Quinn: 'cause if you want your customer to have a consistent experience through bot when they purchased from you. You have to have a consistent experience process from the time the freight comes into the warehouse and, and then leaves the warehouse. Yes. So you, you're being fair to your employees, setting the expectations, teach 'em exactly how you want them to do it, and then they'll do it.

[00:21:54] Will Quinn: And if they don't, well then you can, you can retrain 'em and hold them accountable because you've been fair to them and said, here's, this is exactly what I want you to do.

[00:22:01] Scott W. Luton: Well, that's a great starting point. And Tevon, you know, we say, I use this phrase a lot. What's old is new again, right? Because sometimes in this, um, fast-paced, uh, in this golden age of supply chain tech I talk about all the time, uh, we get so infatuated with technology that we can lose sight.

[00:22:20] Scott W. Luton: All of us can lose sight at times of some of the timeless leadership truths. And he's speaking to one what I'm hearing, you know, the value of standard work. And, and not just standardizing them, but then the communication that's so important, especially as you got a global enterprise. But Tevon, what'd you hear there, uh, in that regular mistake that we'll seize all the time in warehouses, everywhere?

[00:22:42] Tevon Taylor: Well, you know, the, the consistency factor, I mean, I. When he talked about employees, no employee like wants to be confused in what they're doing and they wanna be measured on what they're doing too. So measure, measure, measure. Well, if you don't have a processor, you don't train on that process and you don't monitor that process.

[00:22:58] Tevon Taylor: Not only is the experience bad out the door where you have order accuracy and things that are going downhill, but you've got unhappy employees 'cause they don't feel like they know what they're doing and they, they're not measured on it either. But, um, you know, every time I get on an airplane. I, I love it.

[00:23:14] Tevon Taylor: 'cause if you, you know, next time you're on an airplane and you know this being an Air Force guy. Yep. You look in the cockpit on the yoke for both the pilot and the first officer, they've got a checklist that tells 'em exactly what they need to do. And the reason they do that is because a long time ago, they didn't have checklists.

[00:23:29] Tevon Taylor: They just tried to remember and they started realizing pilot errors were causing a lot of issues. E either on takeoff or landing. That's why they rolled through that checklist, which in the warehouse, our checklist are those SOPs and how we train and we also update and continuously improve. So he's right.

[00:23:45] Tevon Taylor: And it's amazing to me that not only in the warehouse, but even on the transportation side, those SOPs and those processes aren't documented, which that just, that just shows a lack of experience. And companies that don't have those SOPs, I can't imagine their customers would be happy and they'll be around much longer.

[00:24:00] Tevon Taylor: So

[00:24:01] Scott W. Luton: Tevon, I love that example because as bright and as trained and as experienced as a lot of the airline pilots can be, the fact that they turn to a checklist to make sure that all those lives that are in their hands get to where they're going safely, uh, and without disruption. That's a great example.

[00:24:21] Scott W. Luton: And, and will some folks. I bet when they hear all three of us talking about, you know, standard work and the communication, uh, standard, and they might be rolling our eyes, but we all know it. But the fact that you all, you, you regularly still see it lacking is worth bringing it up, right?

[00:24:40] Will Quinn: Absolutely. I mean, think about, go to my Chicago Bears another sports net.

[00:24:44] Scott W. Luton: Oh, okay.

[00:24:45] Will Quinn: Last year we went out and we got a great quarterback. We got a great wide receiver, but it didn't work because we didn't have great linemen and, and this, so you have to block and tackle before you could throw a 50 yard bomb. That's right. Same thing in warehouse. Like that entry level basic things of blocking and tackling, of documenting your processes, procedures.

[00:25:06] Will Quinn: It's critical.

[00:25:07] Scott W. Luton: Yep. That's right. That's another great, great analogy, man, Kevin and Will the kings of analogies here today. Alright. This is a tricky one, right? Especially when cyber activity is constantly, you talk about things are getting faster and faster. It's not when you get hacked, it's how often and how bad, and what your response is, which is what do you do when someone within your supply chain gets hacked?

[00:25:31] Scott W. Luton: Especially in order for you to maintain the integrity of the supply chain and the integrity of the ecosystem. Now, this question deserves its own like six, six hour show, but will have you ever, um, from your experience, it, can you share maybe a best practice when, uh, hacking takes place across the ecosystem?

[00:25:52] Will Quinn: What I would say is the best practice is to work on a hack before it happens.

[00:25:58] Voiceover: Hmm.

[00:25:59] Will Quinn: So my, my, my philosophy is always I can foresee the, try to foresee the issue and stop it before it occurs. So moving vulnerable systems to the cloud, having good security training your employees. 'cause if you, most of these breaches go through somebody, they, yes, working on the link, they open the email and they're getting more sophisticated.

[00:26:24] Will Quinn: You get texts and, and emails from the, the CEO saying, Hey, send me, send me this. And it happened to me once, um, when I was at, with a company called Cintas. Yeah, we were doing, uh, a lot of work with a, uh, a vendor, rearranging and, and the warehouse. A lot of work and. All of a sudden an email came through and said, Hey, we need payment right now, but not the normal.

[00:26:50] Will Quinn: We, we want it this way. And everything looked normal. I was like, wow. And then I just noticed that there was one little character different in the email address. I. I was like, oh, okay.

[00:27:00] Scott W. Luton: Aha, aha. It it will you, you're dead on. It is amazing the complexity and the, and the customization and the frequency, uh, that the bad actors, uh, the, the rate they're, they're moving at right now.

[00:27:15] Scott W. Luton: Te one of the major points we'll just mention there, right, is being able to have operational resilience so you can really be proactive to pro, to be. Ready for basically anything, a hack or anything else. Um, rather than leaning on your reactive mode and the fix its, and, um, to, you know, to plug the gaps and plug the lapses.

[00:27:38] Scott W. Luton: But what'd you hear there, Tevon?

[00:27:39] Tevon Taylor: Yeah. We could set up a whole session to talk about how you isolate the threat, communicate, activate response, blah, blah, blah. Right. But what he said in my CIO, I just saw him before I, I joined the call. Uh, he likes to say we harden our defenses. And what he's talking about there is you're, you're basically auditing your supply chain for cyber vulnerabilities.

[00:28:00] Tevon Taylor: You're strengthening, you, you're using risk management to, to bring strength to your supply chain. I mean, look, every day, not every day, maybe every other day I'll get a, a weird email and I'm, I look at it, I look at the email address. And I love it because within even our company, you know, I gotta select, you know, I think this is a phishing deal, and it'll say, this was an exercise you passed.

[00:28:22] Tevon Taylor: And I'm like, yay. I got home. And, and I found out my boss doesn't, he doesn't pass. He just clicks on the link. Um, you know, we're, we're trying to make sure we reduce that vulnerability because no matter how, how big or small you are, the bad guys are trying to get in your network. And look it, you know, FedEx acquired TNT over in Europe back when I was there.

[00:28:42] Tevon Taylor: And TNT had a cyber attack. So big companies have it, small companies have it. The bad guys are always tweaking things. So you gotta find a way to harden that defense.

[00:28:51] Scott W. Luton: That's right. Well said Tevon. I like that. Harden our defenses. Uh, 'cause it's not gonna get any easier, uh, will I? I want to ask you, I bet I, I can only imagine how many warehouses you've been in.

[00:29:04] Scott W. Luton: I bet it's thousands at this point in your career. But when you walk into a new warehouse, perhaps for the first time, what are the first three things that you observe to assess how, how well it's running?

[00:29:16] Will Quinn: Oh, it's a good question. So for me, the first thing I look at is, is cleanliness overall clean. How clean is the warehouse?

[00:29:24] Will Quinn: Not just talking about broken pallets and shrink wrap, but. If you know there's barricades everywhere, do you take time to wipe those things down? The big fans in the ceiling, are they just caked with dust and dirt? The cleaner a warehouse in generally speaking, the better it's run. Yep. These aspects.

[00:29:44] Will Quinn: Another thing is how do the interactions go with the people? Right. Are they walking around and kind of avoiding eye contact or are they engaging? Right. Do they, they they want to talk to you. Do they, are they, do they acknowledge you say hi? That sort of thing. Those are two big that, 'cause that talks about, um, organization and culture.

[00:30:07] Will Quinn: And then the last thing is safety. Little things like are the forklift drivers wearing their seat belts? Yep. Right. Are do you, do you hear horns? That sort of thing. So are they, uh, organized? Are they friendly, good culture? Do they have a, a, a, a culture of safety? I like it. Three things. You can, you can check right away.

[00:30:29] Will Quinn: And, and from that gauge how that, how, or that that warehouse runs.

[00:30:34] Scott W. Luton: Well, I think you may be as practical as I am. I don't know. Amanda might dispute, uh, that title. I am the one that gave. My dearly beloved umbrella on our first Valentine's date together because she needed one. But te brain, te. We talked about there, uh, kind of the five s right?

[00:30:57] Scott W. Luton: Industrial hygiene, you talked about the people factor, which is probably my favorite one. You can learn so much from our incredibly talented frontline. I mean, that's, that's who make it happen every day. And of course, the safety factor we can, so we can take care of, of those incredible people. But, uh, your thoughts are Kevin,

[00:31:12] Tevon Taylor: you know, not a lot to go off of.

[00:31:14] Tevon Taylor: I mean, what he's saying is absolutely accurate. When I walk a warehouse with someone and it's a leader, whether it's my shop or someone else's. The way the employees interact with that leader. I knew a guy that ran a warehouse and he'd go out and knew everybody by name, would hug people, ask how they're doing.

[00:31:31] Tevon Taylor: It was very engaging and you could tell he cared. Um, if there's disengagement confusion or people don't know each other, there's a problem. Right? So I love that 'cause that, that speaks to the culture, which then leads into how things are organized, how things flow. Um, you could get very sophisticated on technologies and me metrics and things like that, but you know, he named, um.

[00:31:53] Tevon Taylor: The last thing, which is very important. It's like, is there safety? Like, are, is there signage? Are, are they wearing vest? Are they, you know, are they doing the right thing? Um, are there safety barriers up? Because that's, you'd be shocked how people try to go cheap on that. But, uh, he, he pretty much named what's important and it's, it does, the underlying thing is culture of that business.

[00:32:15] Scott W. Luton: Yeah. Tevon. Good stuff there. Uh, and I would just add,

[00:32:19] Will Quinn: before we move on, I wanna, I wanna save you. From that umbrella thing, I can, I can, I believe I can. One up You. Okay. Hack in the nineties there was a great book series called Dummies for Blank, right? Yes. Blank for Dummies. So I had gotten married and I love the Dummy Blank for Dummies book series and I thought they were great.

[00:32:41] Will Quinn: So, so what do I get? My new wife, I got her the cookie for dunk. Oh.

[00:32:46] Tevon Taylor: Oh no.

[00:32:47] Will Quinn: And I thought this, she was gonna love it. She did not.

[00:32:51] Scott W. Luton: Oh my gosh. Uh, you know, I, I, every time I go to gift someone, I, I like supply chain management for dummies by, uh, Daniel Stanton. Right. Great guy. Uh, Mr. Supply chain. Uh, and every time I go to give that to somebody, I'm like, Hey, I'm not suggesting anything.

[00:33:07] Scott W. Luton: This is just a good read. So will I completely see that? Um, I was gonna make one more comment. Uh, will and Tevon kind of things you look for when you go into a warehouse. Well, if you can see this book right here. This is Run, improve, grow by my, uh, friend and former boss, Ray Atia. Uh, Ray, uh, built, founded, and ran a great consulting firm based outta Cincinnati, Ohio back in the day.

[00:33:30] Scott W. Luton: And I worked for him for about two and a half years. And one of the things that he would always look for, right, he started with JJ, uh, Johnson Johnson back when he was like 21 years old. When he goes up and have those interactions, will with the frontline, and he asks him, Hey, are you having a good day?

[00:33:47] Scott W. Luton: And what always stood out to him, and I'll, I've always looked, you know, use this a lot, is when those operators and those frontline talented, incredible folks can answer, especially with a metric, I'm having a great day. We're at, uh, a hundred percent or we've done this versus. Those situations when we're all seen where folks don't know if they're having a good day or a bad day.

[00:34:08] Scott W. Luton: Right. And that uncertainty, just like we're talking about it at the strategic business leadership level, which is challenging, well, the uncertainty is also challenging in a day-to-day, you know, functional, um, type of setting too. Uh, will any comments on knowing whether or not you have a good, you're having a good day or not?

[00:34:26] Scott W. Luton: The importance of that?

[00:34:27] Will Quinn: Oh, well that's part of having the visual warehouse right? Y you pe people, they, they may not want to, they may not think they want, they wanna know, like when I was running a W warehouse in Coca-Cola, we had five basic metrics. This is a giant warehouse. Well, so I just had our, our maintenance folks install a red light and a green light and that I like it.

[00:34:47] Will Quinn: And the name of the, the KPI and every day we go in there and whether we made it or we didn't, they, they could see.

[00:34:57] Scott W. Luton: I love that clarity and I love simplicity. We have, uh, all of us, it's a human factor. We can really create so much complexity, needless complexity, and the better our, we all can be at keeping, uh, not just a simple stuff, simple, but the tough stuff.

[00:35:17] Scott W. Luton: Simple. That's really important. All right, so let me ask you this, will. Because we were gonna talk about, um, I had a different version of this question, but what are the biggest risks to a distribution company as it relates to technology changes, upgrades, and improvements? Will your thoughts?

[00:35:37] Will Quinn: I think the biggest risk is, is doing nothing, right?

[00:35:41] Will Quinn: It's kind of standing on the sidelines and saying, well, you know, I'll let others figure this out and then we'll jump on board. It's kind of like. Years and years ago, like, ah, this internet thing, that's not gonna happen. Nobody's gonna wanna buy something from a website. Right. We'll build a webpage later if it takes off.

[00:36:02] Will Quinn: Same thing with, with cloud and artificial intelligence, automation, warehouse management systems like you, you just have to start. So the biggest risk is not doing anything at all.

[00:36:15] Scott W. Luton: Yep.

[00:36:16] Will Quinn: And getting and, and getting left behind.

[00:36:18] Scott W. Luton: Well, that's, that's good. And I would add to that before I get Kevin to comment, I think one of the o also one of the biggest risks is going after hot technologies, right?

[00:36:29] Scott W. Luton: Without understanding. How to use it in a very targeted, specific, smart and, uh, outcome driven manner. And that happens a lot. We're seeing a lot of that in AI space, right? There's a lot of leaders that, that are, that hear the stories of the, in some cases, the incredible outcomes that artificial intelligence is delivering.

[00:36:48] Scott W. Luton: Whether it's Plano, AI or um, uh, agentic or, uh, gen ai as you talked about earlier, will, and I'm not sure if Plano plain old AI is something, but y'all know what I'm saying. Um, but knowing how to build a business case and exactly how this, any technology, any technology is going to move the needle in a tangible fashion.

[00:37:09] Scott W. Luton: And help the business. But Tevon, uh, biggest risks when it comes to bringing technology into the conversation and operation?

[00:37:15] Tevon Taylor: Well, I, I like that will anchored on, you know, if you don't change, you don't innovate, you're gonna get left behind. So that's, that's very true. And then on the other end of the spectrum, if you change too quickly or you have rapid rollouts.

[00:37:29] Tevon Taylor: Yeah, you're gonna have what I call change fatigue, where people are going, okay, this is overwhelming. It's failing. You're working long hours, weekends, you're not getting ahead of it. Because it wasn't properly implemented, the change management wasn't in place. I. And that opens the door to everything we talked about already.

[00:37:47] Tevon Taylor: Cybersecurity threats, opening yourself up to attacks, which I've seen companies, they implemented too fast. They opened the door for the bad guys to come in. So, but if you don't do these things, you don't have the systems in place, then you're gonna have unnecessary costs. Like you don't have the right WMS or TMS, you're adding cost for no reason.

[00:38:05] Tevon Taylor: 'cause you're not catching up to where technology's gone. So I, I like those two, two ends of the spectrum.

[00:38:11] Scott W. Luton: I do too. Well put, uh, book in book in answer at,

[00:38:16] Will Quinn: I would just add one thing. I said, you know, you have to make sure that your, your digital strategy is supporting your overall business strategy, not the other way around.

[00:38:26] Will Quinn: Yep. You don't, you don't wanna just chase a, the, a fancy thing because this, you like the salesperson. 'cause the salesperson, they're trying to make a quota. Right. Right. Let's not get ourselves that, that may or may not be the best solution for you. If it aligns, that's that thing you just, just starting go through and say, okay, you know, what's that one KPI?

[00:38:49] Will Quinn: That's just been kind of needling us. We just can kinda get over the hub. Maybe that's a place to start.

[00:38:55] Scott W. Luton: Yes.

[00:38:56] Will Quinn: Maybe I, my, I can't get my inventory accuracy. Right. Well, is there an AI that is for that? Sure. There is. So maybe, maybe you start with that. Maybe. Maybe inventory's too big. Maybe it's just something with a CRM.

[00:39:08] Will Quinn: Right. I.

[00:39:10] Scott W. Luton: You know, good stuff there Will, and I would just add to adding to the risk, you know, I've seen, uh, a variety of data from a variety of sources that points to one of the biggest reasons why digital transformations fail is because we don't train and invest in the people to learn. How to use and optimize, uh, you know, all the various, uh, technology platforms and apps and bells and whistles we bring into our organization.

[00:39:35] Scott W. Luton: So that's an important risk.

[00:39:36] Will Quinn: So use cases, that's where the value lies. And what I've found is if you partner, you try to work with whoever your technology partner is, whoever your ERP provider is, or WMS provider, and you go to them and say, Hey, here's my problem, here's my use case. A lot of times they'll work with you.

[00:39:54] Will Quinn: Yes. And say, okay, well let's, let's co-develop this. Let's figure this out. Why? Because if it's a problem for you, it's a probably a problem for a lot of other companies. And then they can then develop that and then put it in their Rolodex, the term we, of their, of the different solutions they can offer in their, in their project.

[00:40:13] Scott W. Luton: Alright, we're running down. Uh, I wish we had a couple more hours with Will and Tevon. Will, I want to ask you this. What's one thing. That we wanna make sure that you wanna make sure you hit on when it comes to really fueling distribution excellence. Uh, what's one thing you wanna make sure we hit on here today Will,

[00:40:33] Will Quinn: oh, uh, that's, um, distribution excellence.

[00:40:39] Will Quinn: It's, it's really developing the culture with your people because you're not gonna have excellence. Unless your people understand what you want, they're feel comfortable, they're not worried they're gonna get fired, and they understand the business. So instilling and, and having operational excellence is really, it's, it's going back to the, the basics of blocking and tackling.

[00:41:06] Will Quinn: Doing the, doing the, the basics correctly, having a, a true appreciation for your people, understanding them. Genuinely wanting them to succeed or be successful, creating that culture that enables that excellence to occur.

[00:41:23] Scott W. Luton: Yep. I like it. I'm gonna sneak in one more question 'cause one of the things I was gonna ask you about is, uh, the future, uh, will, will says he's got the world's most efficient crystal ball.

[00:41:35] Scott W. Luton: And Kevin, we're gonna check him on this. We'll see.

[00:41:37] Will Quinn: Alright.

[00:41:37] Scott W. Luton: Uh, but it's,

[00:41:39] Will Quinn: it's, I'm kidding.

[00:41:42] Scott W. Luton: So when you think about, we were talking earlier about what the warehouse warehouse looked like in 2030, right? That's a short, less than five years away. So what does that look like and what's one thing that supply chain leaders should be doing today to pre, to prepare for that eventuality?

[00:41:59] Scott W. Luton: Will your thoughts?

[00:42:01] Will Quinn: Sure. So you're gonna see a lot more automation in various forms, whether that's. Robotics or artificial intelligence that are doing jobs that folks don't want to do, right? Whether that's the AR clerk manually matching up the, the bill to the receipt. Nine 5% of those are gonna be right.

[00:42:24] Will Quinn: AI can can do that. So it's, it's performing those tasks that folks don't want to do. So I think the biggest thing to prepare for that I. Is again moving to the cloud, right? Moving your systems to the cloud because companies, they typically don't have one provider. So you've got data all over the place. So your CRM and your WMS and your ERP or your yard management system, all these different systems.

[00:42:52] Will Quinn: And that data is very important, uh, to distributors. 'cause there's so much of it. And to be, to best utilize that data and give you, so the AI can give you actual, uh, information, is to have it a data lake so it can be assessed.

[00:43:11] Scott W. Luton: Alright, so folks, I. Remember the office space and the TPS reports in that very traditional office environment.

[00:43:20] Scott W. Luton: Goodness gracious, if you're still on-prem, uh, and not into cloud, and pulling all the levers of competitive advantage. Well, you know, Tevon, there are slow adapters to everything. There are slow adapters, as Will was saying earlier to the internet. And look at what the internet has changed our life. That's probably an oversimplification, but Tevon, your thoughts when it comes to his will's Earlier comments about what fuels distribution excellence or the warehouse of the future in the year 2030.

[00:43:48] Scott W. Luton: Your quick thoughts there. Tevon.

[00:43:49] Tevon Taylor: I'm gonna address the slow adapters. Slow adapters will be part of history. So we'll learn that, you know, they didn't adapt. So they will be a history lesson for all of us. Um, unfortunately it's the truth, right? I'm gonna bookend it again. So, culture, people, you know, I, I work for a great Marine.

[00:44:05] Tevon Taylor: Um, you know, will that people serve as profit? You don't have excellence without the people and taking care of them well, at the same time, the future is automation cloud. It is gonna really be all around us. How do you make sure the people are part of that journey and don't feel left out? Because there's a lot of fear that, hey, my job's gonna be taken by that automation.

[00:44:26] Tevon Taylor: No, you're not gonna be doing the mundane task. You're gonna be in a better position to help us manage the automation and the it and everything else. So I would say book ended like that, but I, he, he brought it up bo both points. And it just made me realize you've gotta make sure the people are on board with all the automation and changes because they're still relevant in the warehouse.

[00:44:44] Scott W. Luton: That's right. That's right. There's still the, the not so secret weapon. Yep. Uh, the bookend Tevon, there's a nickname somewhere. I'll search for it and have it ready by the next time you join us, but I love your bookend answers. Uh, and again, I wish we had more time with Will Quinn, the distribution guy, and Tevon E. Taylor with Pegasus Logistics Group.

[00:45:02] Scott W. Luton: So Will Quinn, how can folks track you down the distribution guy, the fountain of knowledge when it comes to distribution and warehousing and a whole bunch more? How can folks connect with you? Will.

[00:45:14] Will Quinn: Sure, find me on LinkedIn, uh, or I've got a website, thedistributionguy.com. Um, I'll be at, I'll be at a couple events coming up soon, the, um, in Chicago next month.

[00:45:25] Scott W. Luton: Yeah.

[00:45:25] Will Quinn: So the distribution strategy group is having an AI conference for distribution. This, there's no other conference that's dedicated to artificial intelligence, specifically in distribution. It's next month in Chicago. If you, if there's still, there's still room, there's still time to sign up. It's amazing what Ian and team are, are putting together for this.

[00:45:47] Will Quinn: And then I'll be speaking, uh, there's another conference, uh, third stage consulting group. They're a great company. They're a, a technology agnostic. Help this select and install. Install. They're, I'm gonna be speaking on artificial intelligence and distribution. This is in, um, in Denver. In August. So two great conferences.

[00:46:08] Will Quinn: Take a look at 'em. Great information.

[00:46:10] Scott W. Luton: Wonderful. Well those folks are in for a treat, be having the opportunity to learn from you. And my hunch will is that folks can find more information around anything that you just shared here today or include those events right there@thedistributionguy.com. Is that right?

[00:46:24] Scott W. Luton: Will That's right. Awesome. Alright. Tevon Taylor, I just wanna pull you back up in the ISO shot. Look at these awards up above Tevon. Now those aren't vin's awards. Those are probably Pegasus awards, but,

[00:46:38] Tevon Taylor: uh, my boss, my boss, not me, I'm in his office,

[00:46:40] Scott W. Luton: they are, uh, an organization on the move, Tevon. Uh, so I wanna make sure folks know how to connect with you and the Pegasus team.

[00:46:48] Scott W. Luton: And I wanna go back to what you said earlier. When you go meet with customers or potential customers, hey, how can we help? What are you trying to do? I love that. But Will, how can folks track you down? I'm sorry, Tevon. I'm sorry, Kevin.

[00:47:00] Tevon Taylor: Uh, LinkedIn's always the easiest. Um, 6 8 2 2 3 2 5, 4, 3 6. There you go.

[00:47:05] Tevon Taylor: That's my phone number.

[00:47:07] Scott W. Luton: Oh, fearless.

[00:47:08] Tevon Taylor: It's on LinkedIn. Oh. So we're all good. But, uh, now love to connect with everyone on the call and, uh, appreciate you. Let me join today, Scott and Will.

[00:47:15] Scott W. Luton: You bet. Folks connect with Tevon as well. We dropped his LinkedIn right there. Uh, you got pegasuslogistics.com and he fearlessly, fearlessly just gave you his cell phone number.

[00:47:28] Scott W. Luton: So someone out there that's got a great sense of humor, it's a great opportunity for a nice little practical joke. So let me know, record it if you do. But kidding aside, will and Tevon, I know we did, couldn't get everything we wanted to here today. Uh, so I want to thank, uh, will Quinn, the distribution guy Will great to have you here today.

[00:47:46] Will Quinn: Thanks so much for having me, Scott. I had a great discussion. Tevon, great meeting you.

[00:47:50] Scott W. Luton: You too. You you bet. We're gonna have you back soon. Uh, big thanks to Tevon E. Taylor with the Pegasus Logistics Group. Uh, great to have you here as always, Tevon.

[00:47:57] Tevon Taylor: Thank you. Appreciate it.

[00:47:59] Scott W. Luton: You bet. Folks, make sure you connect with follow you name it, uh, with Tevon and Will out there.

[00:48:04] Scott W. Luton: Big thanks, most importantly to the, the incredible audience. Uh, but you got homework folks. And Will and Tevon both shared tons of actionable advice and insights. You gotta take one thing from what they shared here today, put it in action, and especially level on those people, man, the people that make it happen every day.

[00:48:23] Scott W. Luton: And there's all kinds of ways we can make it easier for them to find success each and every day. And that's the billion dollar question out there. But with all that said, on behalf of Supply Chain Now, team Scott Luton challenging. You do good, give forward, be the change that's needed. We'll see you next time.

[00:48:36] Scott W. Luton: Right back here on Supply Chain Now. Thanks everybody.

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