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Hey, good morning, good afternoon, good evening wherever you may be.

Scott Luton and Jake Barr with you here on Supply Chain now.

Welcome to today's livestream.

Hello, Jake Barr, AKA the John Wayne of global supply chain.

How you doing today?

I'm doing well.

It's football hangover Monday in the South.

What can we say, kid?

All right, so we can't talk College football today.

McLemson Tigers had a bad weekend and I think our guests team had a bad weekend.

I don't know about your team, but.

I had a bad weekend.

Okay.

I need a better predictive model.

I can tell.

That's right.

Well, hey, at least those dirty birds.

That's right.

The Falcons beat the Cowboys for the first time in forever.

So.

That's right.

But speaking of, we got a big, big show here today, Jake.

It's the Buzz where Every Monday at 12 noon we discuss a variety of news and developments across global supply chain and business.

And we've got some great stories get into here today including how one global manufacturer is pushing hard with results when it comes to better delivery performance.

We've got some interesting use cases, both current and future for AI and supply chain and Jake is going to be issuing his first at least here on Supply Chain now on the Buzz.

Keep it real challenge to supply chain leaders out there everywhere.

So stay tuned.

Plus, the best of today is we've got a couple of wonderful guests joining us here about 1225, 1230.

And that's Dr.

Stephanie Thomas and Katherine Thomas as we gain their big key takeaways from a recent leadership event.

Jake, should be a great show here today, huh?

Lots to get through.

Lots to get through.

So two things folks.

One, give us your take in the comments.

We'd love to hear your opinion on what we talk about here today.

Whether you're tuned in via LinkedIn, YouTube X Facebook, Twitch, no matter, let us know what you think.

And second, if you enjoy the show today, we'd love for you to share it with a friend and or your network.

They'll be glad you did.

Hey moms.

It's going to be a big theme here today.

Just like my mom.

Love you.

It's Leah Luton tuned in from Aiken, South Carolina.

Love you the mom.

Hope you're doing well hey, Trisha says says happy Buzz Day.

That's right, folks, wherever you're tuned in from, let us know.

We'd love to connect those dots.

Okay, Jake, we are going to be diving right in and we're going to start with our almost weekly resource called with that Said.

We had the big 100th edition last weekend.

So this is 101 and we celebrated bidding adieu to Halloween and we're celebrating the whole month of Thanksgiving.

But we couldn't let Halloween get away without sharing one of our favorite here in the Luton household.

Joy front and center.

That's important.

That's right.

Lots of joy front and center.

We touched on a variety of topics and with that said, Starbucks investing in its supply chain climate resistance.

Here's some good news.

We may have a deal to end the Boeing machinist strike, which is good for a lot of folks.

And some are saying, hey folks, get ready for 5.5g.

Not 5g anymore, but 5.5g.

Some are saying that's going to unlock the real golden age of artificial intelligence.

We'll see.

Hey, we had resources from our friends at Proship, Pegasus, US bank, the Georgia center of Innovation and a whole bunch more.

So Jake, jam packed episode of with that said, what was one of your favorite things that we mentioned in the newsletter?

Actually, Scott, to me I'm torn because I think that the discussion around the improvement that 3M is trying to undertake is fundamental.

Right.

So it's a good grounding piece.

But truthfully, the piece that I'm most excited about is the pieces we get into the AI use cases.

Yes, I'm with you.

I'm with you.

So folks, get ready.

We're going to jump into that in just a second.

Okay.

So Jake, I think you're ready to get going, but I got one more thing to share related to Halloween and that is I've got this image of our highly complex candy distribution operations here at Luton household from last Thursday, Halloween night.

Here you go, Jake.

That doesn't work, Scott.

It creates both forecasting problems and consumption problems.

Okay folks, if you're listening and you're not tuned in looking, I did the unthinkable field candy in a big cheap dollar store bowl and set it out on our front porch and let the kids have at it.

And as Jake said, yet it caused all kinds of operational issues.

But you know what?

We were left with candy.

I was kind of surprised.

I figured the first one or two kids would have just eliminated all of our inventory.

But you know, lots of integrity out there.

I Guess.

All right.

So, Jake, let's see here.

So 4,000 pieces of candy is kind of your Halloween standard.

It is.

How'd last week go?

Well, we had torrential rain and that dampened, it caused a number of peaks and valleys in the amount of kids that came through.

So it made needing to sit out virtually in the rain because when they got a little break, they came scampering out of the cars in droves.

So one line, I had 22 kids lined up straight in a row.

One, I had 17.

I ended up getting my grandchildren to help put candy.

Actually, it was a great math exercise as well because I had four of the grandkids all assisting to try and keep pace, not create a bottleneck.

You know, Scott, we're about supply chain efficiency.

That's right.

I had them all.

So I was going, okay, we're going to do, call it two, three pieces.

All right, everybody count out three pieces.

So it worked relatively well except for the three year old who decided that three was good for the first one or two times.

And then after that it was two fistfuls at a time that he was giving out.

I love those quantified measurements.

You're using the fistful.

And secondly, sounds like math to the rescue once more.

And of course, that's been a theme.

Some are recent episodes here.

Okay, folks, we got a lot to get into here today.

Stay tuned.

We have two outstanding guests joining us here in about 20 minutes or so.

You're not going to want to miss what Stephanie and Katherine share here soon.

But before we do, let's get to work.

I want to start with Jake kind of mentioned it.

This story from our friends at Supply Chain Dive, which focuses on how 3M is pushing hard for better delivery performance.

I'm going to unpack this and I'm looking forward to your take here, Jake.

So 3M CEO Bill Brown had established an on time info OTIF OTIF target of 90% for this year.

Right at the beginning of 2024, the company was at 84%.

And Brown said, quote, I know we've lost business and have paid fines due to poor delivery performance, end quote.

Well, 3M has invested in a number of initiatives aimed at gaining new supply chain efficiencies, including implementing OEE operating equipment efficiency metrics for major machine assets in its 38 largest facilities, which of course is going to be providing, amongst other things, better management and utilization of that equipment.

Secondly, they have set more rigorous standards for suppliers and contract manufacturers.

And thirdly, they're also currently redesigning the company's forecasting process.

And here's some good news.

There's already seeing some results on time in full rates hit 89% in third quarter.

2024.

That's up five points since January.

Increased year over year operating margins in third quarter as well.

How about that?

Now there remains though, plenty of opportunities, especially at eliminating all the multiple touch points that 3M products go through.

Get this, have y'all seen the command brand adhes adhesive strips that 3M makes?

Those have been pretty popular.

Well, they go through five factories and two distribution centers before it hits a store shelf.

So Jake, when you see, I know 3M is probably talking your language.

A lot of big things you did there at P and G for years.

What was your key takeaways from this big initiative?

Well, I think obviously the focus on singular process reliability is to be applauded fundamentally any of the discrete one off processes, whether it's how you're scheduling the outbound trucks, how you're queuing them up, how you're thinking about running the machines, right?

You have to start with measurable metrics, right?

You have to understand the performance of the individual components.

I think, Scott, I would applaud the improvement, but I would say that I think because of the complexity of the supply chain, they're going to need to bring another level of both intelligence and capability to look across the bottlenecks.

Look, when you have a six step kind of process where you're going to have to go through, you can't just measure one of those, right?

You're going to have to measure all of them in relation to the other, in relation to the offtake and the demand and the consumption and the queuing of that as well as the availability of the transport, all of that.

So you're talking a complex solved problem to kind of queue it up and get it to where it's running to a cadence, right?

Beautiful symphony, but hard to get it to that point.

Jake, it's like I was talking last week about the Rubik's Cube, right?

Which is, you know, it's amazing some people can solve Rubik's Cube in three seconds.

I think that's a world record these days.

And if Rubik's Cube was 7D instead of 3D, I think it would be a great supply chain analogy.

There just so many constants and variables in this massive equation that you're kind of speaking to.

So good stuff there, Jake.

All right.

Hey, one last thought here.

So our audience members, if you enjoy stories like this one, especially related to 3M.

You may enjoy this great interview we published with Stefan Schultz, a Senior executive with 3M, a few months back.

And we're going to drop the link to that right here.

Now, Stefan has been with 3M for almost 30 years and I particularly admired his passion for engaging the frontline employees throughout their 110 plants and 95 distribution centers around the globe.

So y'all check that out.

When Team One dream, it takes that to make it happen.

Oh, that's right.

That is right.

The scope and scale of that, truly like turning the proverbial aircraft carrier.

Maybe harder.

Probably a lot harder.

Okay, so are you ready, Jake, for our next story here?

Guess who's back?

Back again, it's Steve Banker.

Almost put off little Eminem there, but I decided not to spear folks on the Monday morning today.

So Steve Banker is back here.

He's written an interesting read via Forbes that focuses on 25 use cases for AI in supply chain.

So I'm going to share a few here.

Jake, I'm looking forward to your take here.

So first up, when it comes to planning, machine learning is being utilized in many ways, but including one here that Steve mentions to make sure key, key parameters are correct.

Right.

Foundational parameters that planning equations depend on, like supplier lead times.

Right.

If we don't get that right, any kind of planning is going to be even more inaccurate.

Secondly, reinforcement learning, which, as I understand it, is a type of machine learning and it's being leveraged by drones involved in things such as cycle counting and inventory audits.

Now, essentially here the technology continues to get to know the product and the warehouse better and better.

Kind of teaches itself kind of in that machine learning model.

And that helps to continually refine and improve inventory accuracy.

Thirdly, Jake, we love our acronyms in global supply chain, right?

Oh, absolutely.

Well, here's a new one for some of y'all out there.

Probably not, Jake, but this is new one for me and that's SLAM S L A M Simultaneous Localization and Mapping.

So this technology allows a drone, an AMR or Arsun, an autonomous truck, to construct and update a map of an unknown area or environment while also constantly tracking the vehicle's location within that new area.

A banker says we're probably just a few years away from autonomous trucks leveraging SLAM technology to, say, move goods from the DC to a retail facility.

Now, Jake, I don't know about you.

I think we've heard we're just a couple of years away in that regard for, I don't know, feels like a decade or more.

But it's got to be right around the corner.

So Jake, I want to get your take on these use cases or plenty of others that Banker wrote about, especially when it comes to successfully and practically leveraging AI and supply chain to produce those powerful outcomes.

Your thoughts there, Jake?

Yeah, Scott, there's no question that what is written is a good valid piece and it's got some meat to it.

In terms of the examples, I would submit to you that.

Let's talk.

Because I think you always have to ground yourself with where are you starting?

Right.

Have you used any of this at all yet?

So if you go there and you go, okay, well if I'm unpacking the topic, Scott, well, where would I want to kind of dip my toe in the water and get some experience?

Well, I'll give you an example.

The first one that was brought up around the planning parameters.

I'm sorry, but every advanced planning solution on the planet uses static old information to base your plan off of how much I'm going to produce.

Right.

I'm sorry, machine yields.

We just talked the 3M story.

The variability between the capacity consumption on their individual sub process units.

That would be a exceptional case of what I say I might be able to deliver from a plan and plan attainment versus what is actually occurring.

Right.

And closing the gap.

Now I'm going to give you a calibration against that because that is like a slammed up.

It's a home run grand slam.

Okay.

The Braves just won the world.

I'm sorry, I got a little carried away there.

They did.

But fundamentally that is a great starting point because you're talking about taking information from solutions you've already implemented.

Manufacturing shop floor solutions, quality solutions and being able to ingest, analyze, correlate and then bring back to you, Scott.

Actually it's not a four day reaction time to the supplier, it's actually three.

And you should be using that.

That makes a difference in how much safety stock you're using and how you think about consumption of the materials.

Same thing is true for how you think about queuing your production and how much you can promise.

Right, right.

3M's objective to say, hey, 90% plus OTIP.

Well, wait a minute, 90% plus OTIF in my opinion would be the floor.

It's more like 95, 97.

And tell me what needs to be true around the performance of the operating units to be able to get us to where we dazzle our customers, not just do the base minimum form.

Right.

So that's one area.

The second piece obviously is What I call using it for the intellect to harness all of the signals.

Right.

I mean we're talking visibility solutions that are out there that are being used every day for providing us update on transportation moves across all of our modes and our fleets and our operations.

And that could be a mind numbing, staggering amount of data that you've got to get through with alerts and updates.

So the ability to use it to query and say what is my current position relative to this need I have for this discrete channel partner is another great example.

Okay, this piece, we also Talked about the 3M example of being able to look across processes.

I'm sorry, but neither you or I put together is smart enough to be able to manage and look at all of these data streams that are constantly updating and changing today and say, hey, you know, there's two options for us to consider doing.

Okay, Left or right.

Scott, where are we going?

Left or right?

Which one?

Right.

Which gives us the best solvable for gross margin, revenue management, customer service, cash flow, all those things.

Right.

I'm sorry, I think you had a problem with calculus.

I remember back in college.

So it's back to a math problem, right?

So those are some basic.

Just get your toe in the water and start using.

But I would also say let's remember that as you go from getting your toe in to going beyond, all of these are really talking about the power of leveraging executional data.

Right.

And that's a mountain, it's like Mount Everest.

So you've got to have the ability to bring in and process that.

And that's where we start separating the players that are out there.

There are a ton of players that are niche players today that can solve one off executions.

I can apply them for example to the 3M situation on why is my throughput online one so bottleneck?

Right?

Yeah, very close, small contained situation.

But if I'm going to use it to run my supply chain, then the number of players that are out there that we can look at for the solution sets is different.

Yeah.

All right, Jake, that was a multitude of lessons over the last couple of minutes and a couple of things you.

Including the calculus lesson, I might add.

Well, I was going to start there because you exposing some of my dirty laundry folks.

Math was not my thing back in college.

Some may know I started in computer science way back in the day with C and I hated the iterative nature of how you learn coding and programming.

Man, I wish I had a bigger picture mindset back then.

But yeah, calculus beat me up good So a couple of things you shared there, that massive ripple effect, you know, Jake, kind of going back to the planning equation where you got so many different variables and when you get stuff wrong, all the ways it can ripple through across the ecosystem, that's really, really intrinsic important.

I'll talk a lot about delighting our customers.

I'm going to change the lighting.

I'm going to steal your word there because all about dazzling our customers.

Dazzling.

And just when you lock in the latest delightful dazzle they expect you to build on top of that, they love that.

It's the unfortunate reality we live in.

It's.

I call it the Amazon effect on steroids where the moment I get you to being comfortable with the fact that I fixed my problem, being able to do, maybe I'll call it 48 Hour Fulfillment, you change the game on me.

You know, you've got, maybe it's the Halloween situation where you need the candy in eight hours versus 24 hours.

Right.

You don't want to go to the store or whatever, fill in the blank.

But so you're redefining.

That's the challenge here.

The great example of why AI and ML capabilities are going to continue to explode is we're not dealing in a static environment in the supply chain world anymore.

We're constantly tightening and twisting and expecting it to be able to do not only more with less efficiency cost.

Right.

But being able to add additional offerings.

I think one of the best examples of how to use AI today is actually in that piece of dazzling the consumer.

You're taking the insights, you're mining them and you're turning it into trigger based actions.

Not just something I put up on a dashboard that says, hey Scott, guess what?

We sold another 10 units.

No, we sold it to this demographic in this income level, in this range of stores.

And therefore I can look at all of the stores that look just like that and replicate.

Excellent point.

It's really not in a vacuum.

And that's kind of one of the points you're making there.

Two last things.

We've talked about this in a lot of recent shows, the Only way and you kind of put it there.

I think you said you and I combined aren't smart enough to do certain things.

We got to turn to technology, got to bring technology in to do technology things.

And then lastly, when I see articles like this one.

And again, folks, y'all check it out, let us know what you think.

This comes to us via Forbes.

We're talking about 25 current use cases of AI in supply chain Current and future really.

But turn to the experts, turn to the specialists.

You know, if we specialize in making cereal, right, to dazzle our customers, let's stay there.

You know, if we need to improve, whether it's planning or many other things, or we need to leverage technology to act on the opportunity that poses massive optimization opportunities within our global supply chain, we may not have oftentimes we don't have the talent in house.

Right.

And we talk about that quite a bit.

Jake, being the SMEs that you are, being the specialist that you are.

Your last word there, Jake, and then I'm going to prompt you to share your first keep it real moment.

Well, I think we should go directly to it because you hit the nail on the head.

What got us to where we are today will not be sufficient to get us where we need to be tomorrow.

And the core underpinning of that, that should scream out of this discussion is your people, your talent, the skill sets that are going to be required for you to actually stay relevant and competitive.

And so I think the whole piece here is to realize what we thought about is tactical execution based focus, use of talent in the past.

We can change that.

The paradigm is now, wait a minute, you can take the shackles off of them, you can unleash them.

They're going to need more skills, different skills, but now they're going to become business decision makers right on the fly.

They are going to become, I'll call it quasi data scientists, value stream leaders who actually are looking at how can I generate better value both downstream to my partners and in our ecosystem to help the company thrive.

Yep, outstanding.

And folks, stay tuned.

If you like what you heard there or really the first half of the show, stay tuned for a whole bunch more of keep it real moments with the supply chain hall of famer that is Jake Barr.

Good stuff there.

Okay, couple quick comments folks.

Again we're putting the links basically everything we talk about here today in the chat.

We will make it really easy for you to within one click to go and read it and engage and think about it on your own.

So check out that last Forbes article there.

And we're about to move into an outstanding segment here today on the Buzz.

Can't wait to hear all of yalls reactions to our interviews here.

And Jake, I'm going to introduce our guest.

You ready to go?

I'm going to hold my ears.

I want to make sure if they're going to be introduced and we're calling hogs as they come on live.

Just need to prepare, folks, you'll get.

That reference in just a second.

It'll all make sense, I promise.

So I want to welcome in Dr.

Stephanie Thomas, Associate professor of supply chain management at the Gartner top ranked University of Arkansas.

And Stephanie serves as executive director of Wise Women Impacting Supply Chain Excellence.

Now, that'd be great in and of itself, but there's.

Wait, there's more.

Katherine Thomas is also joining us.

She's a senior data science and supply chain student at Arkansas and president of the University of Arkansas chapter of Wise.

Let's welcome them both.

All right, how we doing?

Stephanie, great to see you.

How you doing?

I'm doing great.

How are you?

Outstanding.

Outstanding.

Great to have you back.

And Catherine, so nice to meet you here today.

Hi.

Well, great to have you all both.

So let's start with a fun one question.

You all know I love talking about food around here.

And we're in the month of November, which for a lot of our supply chain now family around the world, a lot of folks can be celebrating Thanksgiving with their families in a few weeks.

So I ask you this, and Catherine, I'm gonna start with you.

The pressure's on.

You're gonna be our Otis Nixon leadoff hitter here today.

So what's one of your favorite food dishes that you just gotta have on Thanksgiving Day?

Yes, my grandmother makes this dish.

It's like a rice pilaf thing.

We call it grandma's rice, but it's like my favorite thing.

I don't know what, like the.

It's a rice pilaf, but we call it grandma's rice.

And I've had it my whole childhood.

She did give the recipe to my mom, so we make it all the time, but it's nice and warm, which is good around this time of the year.

All right, sign me up for grandmom's rice.

Sounds delicious.

And Stephanie, we hear you got the recipe, so we'll be.

We're going to have to talk after today's edition of the Buzz.

Thankfully, Grandma keeps it pretty simple, which is really nice around the holidays.

Hey, simplicity is a good thing.

Tough to accomplish sometimes, but a good thing.

All right, Stephanie, so we got Grandmom's rice.

What's one of your go to food dishes that you just gotta have on Thanksgiving?

So my aunt made a cheese ball that we've had at pretty much every holiday gathering and stuff.

And so that's also one of Catherine's favorites.

And so we have my Aunt Cheryl's cheese ball pretty regularly.

But I'm also At a stage of life that I'm missing some of those dishes that were part of my childhood that my grandmothers would make.

And when you try to replicate it, it's just not the same.

That love is missing or something.

Well, I love how y'all personalized these dishes.

We got grandma's rice and we got Aunt Cheryl's cheese balls.

I love it.

We're gonna get some recipes from y'all soon.

Jake, that brings me to you.

I think it's probably because you digitized the recipe.

Okay.

It's an analog type recipe that you weren't supposed to digitize.

That's what it was.

Quick root cause study there.

So in the bar household, Jake, what's one thing you look forward to on the table?

Oh, go to.

I can consume the pumpkin pie by myself, but I desperately miss.

I had a beloved family member that passed this past year, and I will dearly miss her oyster stuffing.

Oh, man.

Well, thoughts and purge with your family.

Hate to hear that, but, you know, food leaves some of the best memories.

As you remember, Amanda has almost mastered my grandmom's potato salad.

And gosh, if you close your eyes, it's like she's with us.

So I was expecting you to hold up the John Madden turkey leg.

Okay.

I'm just saying.

Okay.

We're gonna be giving those to Stephanie and Catherine as being the MVP is here on today's edition of the Buzz.

So get ready, everybody.

Let's see here.

I think this is Amanda behind the scenes, says my favorite Thanksgiving dish is my mom's cornbread dressing.

I didn't like it as a child, but it's by far my favorite now.

I'm with you.

It is delicious, by the way.

Big thanks.

Amanda and Tricia behind the scenes helping to make production happen here today.

All right, so now that we're starving, Jake, Stephanie, and Catherine, let's get into some really good stuff here today.

So, Stephanie, we had a blast hosting you and several of your extraordinary students on a recent installment of our long running the Now Generation series here at Supply Chain now right here.

Right.

Madison, Ethan Kelly, and of course, Dr.

Stephanie Thomas all joined us, folks.

We're gonna drop the link to that so you can check out the replay.

And I've got a number of them at the CSCMP conference in Nashville.

All right, small world, folks.

Once you start peeling the layers of onion back, it's really a small world.

So, Stephanie, for our newer audience members that may have missed that episode or maybe new to some of your appearances here, share a Little bit about your background, if you would.

So I started out my industry career.

I spent a little time at Stanley Tools and distribution, spent a little time at IBM and sourcing of server card parts.

But most of my experience was at Lowe's in logistics and merchandising roles.

And then I took some time to be a mom to Catherine and her brother Rodney.

And then I followed my husband's leave and moved into academia.

And so I've been a supply chain professor now for over over a decade and I love of helping enthusiastic young students find their future and a lot of times finding it in supply chain.

I'll tell you, Stephanie, during that episode as we were recording it, to see you interact and to see your passion and your pride of those three incredible leaders, you know, you can just tell you're doing what you love to do and you have got a deep background in it to do it in a very unique and powerful way.

So really appreciate what you do.

Now, Catherine, you aren't waiting until after college to make an impact.

You've been doing big things already just like your mother, including Jake, I don't know if you saw this in the pre show.

Catherine was recognized with the 2024 awesome Excellence in Education scholarship.

So Catherine, congrats on that and many other accomplishments.

Tell us about yourself.

I graduated high school in the midst of the pandemic and kind of saw that supply chain was a way to help make people's lives better and somewhere where I felt like I could have an impact.

So I decided to come to the University of Arkansas and I also started in the data science program, which was a new program in Arkansas.

And you got to pick a specific area of focus.

So I'm kind of combining my love for math and analytics while trying to do that in the realm of supply chain.

I've had internships at Kimberly Clark and General Mills, both on customer facing roles.

So I like supply chain and I like doing it with my mom and some of the other people.

Oh, Catherine, man.

So Jake, between Stephanie's background and passion for what she's doing now, and one thing we heard there from Catherine about how supply chain has a unique position to help so many people and change lives and uplift folks.

What'd you hear there, Jake?

Well, fundamentally the supply chain is the way the world operates, right?

Fundamentally nothing is made or consumed anywhere without a supply chain.

And so the ability for that and the people that it takes to actually deliver that excellence, right?

And the skill set, because it's a 247 kind of environment that we operate in across the vertical.

So I don't care what product line and what channels you're serving, whether it's omnichannel e commerce or you're in a bricks and mortar store environment, fundamentally, the pace of the world continues, and it continues to accelerate.

And the amount of choices and differentiation and segmentation of what individual consumers expect.

Right.

Is far different than walking in.

I can remember when you used to walk into a spice aisle at a store and it was actually maybe one version of oregano or even salt and pepper.

Right.

Oh, you walk in Today, you've got 25 segments, all of them appealing to either a different cooking method or a different taste palette.

Right.

And so with the complexity it brings, the need for programs like this to actually deliver students that have exceptional skills to help go solve some of these problems.

And especially given, I hate to say it, but we're living in a world that has a little bit of chaos to it, both geopolitical constraints, ingredients and sourcing constraints, you know, our need to leave the planet in a better place than perhaps it's been stewarded up to this point.

So when you throw all those things together and you go, hey, Katherine, let's go have some fun, right?

I mean, that's what it's about.

That's right.

Well said.

Well said.

And I think, as Amanda said behind the scenes, as Katherine was sharing, oh, this gives me so much hope for the future.

I'm with you.

Very practical, actionable hope.

And I'll tell you, every one of these conversations we have with incredible now leaders like Catherine and the colleagues at University of Arkansas and many other schools, folks, you'll be filled with optimism because to take something what Jake said a minute ago before Stephanie and Catherine joined us.

But I probably, as we can all agree, what got us here today is not what's going to get us into, you know, in a successful position in 2030, much less 2040 and beyond.

How about 2026?

2026, even better.

So these new ideas, new perspectives from across the spectrum of talent and walks of life is so critical, it makes supply chain better.

Okay, so really quick, folks, we dropped the link to that last episode.

I've referenced a couple times with Stephanie here, and I would love for y'all to check that out.

Okay, let's move on.

So, Stephanie, last time we got together for that episode, you had the sixth annual Wise Future Leader Symposium coming up, and that was held in early October at the University of Arkansas.

So if you would tell us a little bit more kind of background on the event and kind of how it's constructed.

Stephanie.

So the Wise Future Leaders symposium started in 2019 and the goal was this was pre Covid and it was how do we take.

Actually, I'll back up.

You mentioned awesome and Catherine receiving a scholarship from awesome.

And so awesome is an organization that focuses on making connections and trying to grow the number of senior leaders women in supply chain.

And I've been a part of AWESOME for several years now and I've gone to their symposiums and events and I've thought, how great is this to make these connections and build your network and be with peers that are really passionate about making a difference and try to do better in this field.

I kind of thought, what if we could do this at the university level?

And so the goal initially was how do we basically create a network of young women, in some cases allies, to try to say, hey, this, this is a cool field to go into and you're not alone.

And here's all the opportunities.

Because one of the challenges of, you know, for any supply chain student is, hey, I think this is super cool.

But like my career path could take a million different directions.

Well, if the few classes you take in a major or don't exactly like get you really excited about the path, then maybe you're like, well, should I do this or not?

And so this is a way to also showcase a variety of different paths and give advice and recommendations.

And so the first year had 12 universities that participated and this past symposium we had 30 universities that attended.

It's generally a day and a half, two day event.

A lot of amazing, inspirational high level senior leader speakers.

We touch on professional development topics, we touch on what's next in different parts of the industry.

And so it really has gotten to be a super fun event.

And as each year passes, we've gotten to get a little bit bigger and there's kind of some momentum and excitement around it.

And a lot of these students that are attending this event take what they've learned and the excitement and enthusiasm they get back to their universities and then we're seeing growth across the country at university of excitement about the field.

Oh, Stephanie, I love it.

I love your.

Why?

I love how you're addressing what is indeed a gap in industry and I love what you called out there because supply chain careers.

Given the nature of the industry, there's all kinds of.

What's the math turn, Jake, we're talking this other day.

Not factorials.

Permutations.

There we go.

Permutations.

There's so many different things you can go into.

And having that active mentorship to help folks identify the path that most interests them and they can be most passionate about is critical.

And Stephanie, as you were sharing before I move over to Catherine, folks, look at these images.

Look at the smiles.

Look how big it's gotten.

You said 12 universities when you started and over 30 represented at October.

That is outstanding.

And we're going to make sure folks know how to get involved and how to support towards the late.

We need to quadruple that to meet the need.

I love it.

Jake.

Oh man.

All right, so Catherine, what else would you add?

You know, you serve as president of the University of Arkansas WISE Chapter and of course you were at the event and played a leader role within the event.

What else should folks know about why you do this and what goes on?

Maybe, yeah.

So I am president of the Arkansas chapter of wise, but another position that I hold within WISE is I'm actually chair of the WISE Connections Advisory Board, which is an inter university collaboration board of about 15 different girls from universities all over the United States.

And we actually work with my mom to kind of develop the theme for the symposium each year and ideas for speakers and questions and things like that.

So I think a lot of the topics we talk about at the symposium and everything like that have been carefully selected by students like me.

And so we get to kind of curate what we think would be the most beneficial experience for a lot of the different students that are coming in from universities all over.

So the advisory board this year chose the theme for the symposium, which is Wise from All Sides.

And I think we'll probably delve into that a little bit more as we continue to talk about takeaways from the event.

But I think the biggest thing is it is kind of a student like students have a lot of impact on what happens within the symposium.

It's not just a bunch of adults deciding what they think would be beneficial.

The students kind of get to add in what they think and what they want to hear and learn from.

Catherine, I love it.

And Jake, you know, we've all been at plenty of events out there, industry events, whether it's related to students or practitioners or no matter.

And some of these organizing committees kind of put together the topics they deem are most important.

I love what Katherine mentioned there.

It's catering to your customer, really, and who you're trying to help.

Jake, what you hear there in terms of the backdrop of the event though.

Well, the event is much needed because we're still fighting a uphill battle of bringing in both the aggregate level of talent needed to sustain the profession, as well as bright young women leaders who actually can also play leadership roles across the organizations.

You know, when you're dealing with.

I spent my career, and I've spent the second chapter of my career actually helping most multinationals on the planet look at their supply chains differently.

Whether it's on a reorganization, a transformation effort, I always ground them in starting with the people aspect because it's absolutely mission critical.

If you don't think about the talent and the pipeline that is required, you can go through and transform anything organizationally.

But if you go in with blinders on without stepping back and saying what does this really mean in the context of the skills and the talent that we're going to need to not only make it through the first transformation, but more importantly to trigger the next level that goes beyond that?

Because again, it's not static.

You're not a one and done.

You're.

You're on, you're done, you're complete.

You've got to continually reinvent that.

And the focus on the people aspect is critical.

And it's just, I call it.

It's table stakes to begin making sure that if you really want to make a pivot, I don't care what vertical you're in today, you got to base yourself and do people assessment.

Well said, Jake.

Well said.

So let's get into a few takeaways.

I know 30 universities were represented.

All right, we got some images here.

Roughly how many?

What a couple hundred folks.

So, Katherine, I want to start with you because we're going to talk key takeaways.

I've already seen some kind of proliferating out across social in the last few weeks since the event.

What were some of your key takeaways, Catherine?

Yes.

So I think there were lots of different takeaways that I had throughout the event and everything like that.

But I think one of the big things was the theme for this year kind of allowed us to have takeaways in different sections of the wise thing.

So we had a personal side of wise and we had a future side where we talked about AI and everything like that that's going to be coming out and becoming more and more commonplace.

We had somebody come in and talk about dream mapping, which was something really useful because she would talked about how you can kind of plan out each section of your life and be successful in all those sections, but if you're not intentional in that, then it doesn't work.

And so those were just a couple of my takeaways, I don't know if.

My mom had any, but yeah, Katherine, those are wonderful.

And before I switch over and get yours, Stephanie, Jake, a couple of the ones that I really appreciated from Catherine, the personal brand.

You know, I'm glad we're investing in the importance of that far earlier.

The work life balance, which, gosh, in this day and age I think has gotten a lot tougher.

Right?

It's got a lot tougher because technology can follow you home and can follow you into your family life and all that stuff.

And the trend mapping is interesting.

I'd love to be a part of that exercise.

Jake, what'd you hear from Catherine before I switch over to Stephanie, she gave.

You truly a checklist on what we, in my experience, what we did for all of our leadership development programs.

So you're realizing, look, there's a tactical technical aspect of working in the supply chain space, but there's also a very equally important professional development aspect.

Look, I hired great men and women to run operations around the world, but I'm going to tell you, there were individuals who excelled at the tactical technical aspect, but they weren't simply the individuals that I could have putting and leading, for example, a 5,000 person organization.

Right.

So you've got to have both of these.

And I applaud the organization for spending the time, especially at this stage of their career, actually double down and give them the basics of what you're going to need to step yourself through to compete at a leadership level.

Well said there, Jake.

All right, so Stephanie, we've gotten a litany of key takeaways from Katherine.

What are some of your key takeaways?

As Katherine mentioned, the whys from all sides theme really did help shape some just phenomenal programming.

She may not have explained it thoroughly, but it's the idea of as a professional in supply chain and in this case more specifically as a woman in supply chain, what are all the different hats that you wear?

And so that's where all the programming kind of came into place.

And so like any good supply chain professional, you always want to get feedback and data.

So when you were asking about takeaways, I went to the post event survey to see what did the people say that they got out of it.

And so Katherine was right on with a lot of things.

But I also had a few others that I thought would be interesting to add.

There were conversations obviously around something like mentorship, but then people were specifically saying instead of just focusing on mentorship, of creating your own personal board of directors, which For a lot of people, that was a new concept that they hadn't really heard of before.

A lot of people liked learning about a wide variety of roles.

Some of them were considering things like manufacturing or distribution that maybe they didn't before because they heard from some women in the field about their careers and what some of the opportunities are.

You know, on the personal side, we got into things like having a supportive partner and that that can be hugely impactful to your career if that's something that you want to do with your life.

Another thing that I don't know we talk about when you're talking about leadership, Jake, and stuff is a lot of times people think you can only be a leader as a manager and that there are ways to be a leader that is more an individual contributor path as opposed to a manager path.

And there were some people like, I'd never really heard anybody say that that was possible.

And so now I'm looking at things differently and, and to me, I think that's fabulous.

We did have some conversations on not being a mean girl and being a girls girl about being supportive of each other.

That a lot of times there's been, you know, negative stereotypes of senior women or leaders that kind of had the lawnmower approach of just like, let's mow everybody down or act like there's only one seat at the table.

So bringing another seat to the table, adding, adding a chair, making, making room for others.

And then one of the key takeaways too, that's something that I know my husband and I notice as professors, is a lot of young women at this stage of life really lack confidence.

And so there was a lot of.

They may have the resume, a much better resume than I had at their age, but they won't believe in their contributions and what they can bring to the table.

Until there was a lot of discussion on how to gain confidence.

And one of the ways that we talked about with something, and I'm going to credit Lindsay Goodman at JB Hunt for this with creating sweaty palm events.

And that's the idea of doing something that pushes you outside of your comfort zone, gives you those butterflies.

And that if you're constantly looking for opportunities to kind of make yourself go a little further than you're comfortable, then you're always going to be growing.

Okay, Jake, I'm give you first crack as a outstanding list.

Your thoughts.

I love sweaty palm activities.

No, I do, I do.

You've got to realize that.

And I say it this way, but Stephanie, honestly, as a practitioner, you also have learned it yourself personally.

Supply chain is all about disruption, okay?

It's dealing with exceptions and changes and new business products and new categories of goods that you're trying to bring.

Yes, there's an aspect of rinse and repeat of some transactional stuff, but it is all about constant change.

Right?

And so putting the students and the talent in a situation where you're constantly asking them to actually engage, right.

With multiple people in multiple formats and multiple levels is just wonderful practice.

In fact, I'm a big believer in what I call when you host events to actually force everyone I call to do a speed date where you, you literally have two minutes and you're cycling through like 50 people, right?

And you're doing it.

And in two minutes they've got to be able to give an elevator speech.

Who am I and where am I from?

Right?

What do I see and what do I want to do?

And think about that.

That is great mental prep and it instills confidence, right?

Because hey, practice and repetition is a great learning behavior.

Oh, I love the lawnmower approach.

I've never heard the analogy before, Stephanie.

That's going to stick with me.

I've lived through it.

It's actually good.

We probably all have lived through it the first time I heard it on.

Both sides, by the way.

Stephanie had nothing to do with whether it was a female or not.

No, no.

I think the other thing that you, you mentioned, Stephanie, and I wish we had another hour with y'all both is there's not just one seat at the table.

And I love forward looking leaders that bring seats to the table for and bring other folks with them.

That's really, really appeals to me.

Okay, let's do this, Stephanie.

I know, I can't wait.

It's a bright future for what lies ahead.

It's such a critical and noble mission in terms of the need that you're meeting and I know it takes a ton of work, a ton of work.

What's next for wise and how can other, whether colleges, universities, whether it's companies that want to help support, because I know that it takes resources to do things like this.

What's next and how can folks jump in and support.

Well, thanks to Jake, I have a new like goal for size of the annual symposium event.

So I appreciate that.

So what we've been working on, besides the annual symposium here, we are seeing growth of students that attend this event going back to their university and starting wise chapters at their school.

So the advisory board that Katherine mentioned that she's a part of they are working on at a higher level and I'm working with them on providing resources and best practices and stuff to help make it easier for universities to start start their own WISE chapter.

Then the next kind of area that we're leaning more into is while we're doing great things at the university level and organizations like awesome are doing things at the senior leader level, there's a gap in the middle.

And so we're leaning more into what we're calling Wise beyond.

And that is taking a lot of the same principles that we work on with wise, making connections, personal professional development, leadership skills and industry knowledge and trying to help continue the growth and development of that early to mid career supply chain professional.

And so we're doing some regional kind of gatherings and groups there, we're doing some virtual, you know, national programming and stuff.

So Wise beyond is kind of the next thing on the horizon.

And so my goal one day would be to have another symposium event that's more targeted at that early to mid career professional because while some of the programming and topics would be similar, there's a lot of things that you know as you go into your career, you find out sometimes the more you know, you find out the more you don't know or the more questions that you have and try to meet the needs of that group.

Because I've done some research that says, you know, if you don't find a good fit in a supply chain role when you graduate, especially young women, more so than young men, we don't keep them in the industry.

They leave the field within a couple years and often they may never come back.

So how do we help them make a good choice at the university level and then give them the resources and the tools to keep them there and being successful and finding the right mentors and stuff so that we can continue to grow and have more seats at the table as we go up.

Love that Stephanie.

Katherine, quick question for you and folks, we're going to make sure you know how to connect both with Stephanie and Katherine so you can join forces and be a builder, be a solver, really support the industry in this really needed and innovative way.

Katherine, apart from wise, we're talking pre show.

You've already got your game plan because you graduate, I think in the spring, organizations were already coming to recruit you and close the deal.

Have you joined their, their supply chain organization?

What are you doing after that?

We'll be returning to General Mills in the office.

That's right.

That is right.

Hey folks, we're already dropping a couple Links there, including you got one click to connect with the WISE chapter at University of Arkansas.

And you heard there from Stephanie, one of the things that's next for WISE is really making it really easy for other colleges, universities to stand up their own chapters.

So not only do you have that opportunity come out and get involved in ongoing events including the upcoming seventh annual WISE Future Leaders symposium.

So many opportunities to get involved, Jake.

These types of organizations, initiatives, as we've already been talking for the whole hour, critical to engaging, empowering, the top talent we need and got to keep bringing in to global supply chain.

Your thoughts?

Absolutely.

It takes a village to build supply chain excellence and that village has to have diverse points of view.

That's how you drive and deliver breakthrough.

If I'm looking at everybody, they look just like me and think just like me.

I don't get the transformative breakthrough that I'm after.

That is right.

And gosh, if we need anything in industry, in society, you name it, bigger than that, we need more transformative breakthroughs and bringing all of this unique perspective and expertise in worldview into our industry.

Okay, so fast and furious finish.

We might go a minute or two over and that's okay.

Let's start with Catherine.

Catherine, as president of the University of Arkansas chapter of WISE as a senior in data science and supply chain.

Too tough.

That's gonna be quite a 12 punch there by the way.

Catherine, if folks want to pick your brain, if they want to do some reverse mentoring, if they want to maybe gain your best practices of standing up their own chapter, you name it.

How can folks connect with you, Catherine?

People can reach out to me on LinkedIn.

I'm very active on LinkedIn.

So my LinkedIn is just Katherine Thomas and I'm welcome to talk to anybody on there and network and connect.

It's just that easy.

I appreciate that, Catherine.

Appreciate your leadership, your action focused leadership at that.

Dr.

Stephanie Thomas, really enjoy our conversations as always.

How can folks connect with you?

LinkedIn is another great way to connect with me too.

You can also find me on the University of Arkansas supply chain department directory if you prefer to email.

I've tried to instill in Catherine the value of LinkedIn.

What an incredible.

I wish I'd had LinkedIn when I started my career.

You want to talk about a great way to make connections, don't we all?

We all could have used that earlier on careers, amongst other things.

But you know, we got to know about them in order to lean in and that's, you know, at a high level.

That's one of my favorite things about what you are both doing is help that awareness gap on so many different levels for current future Supply Chain leaders.

So okay.

And Amanda behind the scenes by the way, Stephanie saying proud mama moment is what Amanda shared.

I would hey, I would be too Catherine doing big things.

So folks want to thank our wonderful guest here today, Dr.

Stephanie Thomas, Associate professor of supply chain management at the number one ranked University of Arkansas and the executive director of wise.

And that's again women impacting Supply Chain excellence and her daughter, her dynamic dynamo of a daughter, Catherine Thomas, senior in data science and supply chain, majoring those at Arkansas and president of the University of Arkansas chapter of wise.

Thank you both for being here folks.

What a great conversation.

You can learn more about everything we're doing here at Supply Chain now.

We got one click right there in the comments.

But folks, homework's easy here today if you're like me, absolutely inspired and I'm marveling at what Stephanie and Katherine are accomplishing and helping so many people, right?

So many other people.

But here's the homework.

We have so much to do and so much to do better and so much to do differently.

And none of that happens unless we take actions like Stephanie and Katherine are doing here on an ongoing basis.

Deeds, not words.

So with all that said, your homework simple.

Take one thing that shared here today, put it in action.

Help your team, help your community, help your organization, right?

They're all craving to find more success and to, as Jake said, dazzle those customers in all kinds of ways while continuing to be successful in their careers.

So on behalf of the whole team here at Supply Chain Now, Scott Luton, challenge you do good, get forward, be the change that's needed.

We'll see you next time right back here at Supply Chain Now.

Thanks everybody.

Thanks for being a part of our.

Supply Chain now community.

Check out all of our programming@supplychainnow.com and make sure you 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.