Supply Chain: The Arcade Game

I just downloaded the free game Tradewinds 2 from the Yahoo Games site and to my surprise, it's essentially a game that is based on shipping and logistics that takes place in the 1700s. The player is basically a 3PL, who chooses between a male or female pirate, and ships from port to port in the Caribbean delivering goods such as fish, cotton and sugar. The player collects sales leads by either bribing the governor or by throwing a few gold coins to the local bartender. Along the trade routes other pirates try to steal your cargo as you use cannonballs to defend your freight. Sound familiar? This game hints at many supply chain themes that are relevant today, such as supplier diversity, supply chain security and shipping ports. Fast forward 300 years and this is a multi-billion industry. Have your kids download it. Your child could be the world next shipping tycoon.

Wal-Mart Supply Chain Video

So I've had this blog now for about a 45 days and with almost 200 site visits I hope I am making progress in my effort to prove that supply chains are not boring. Using a different medium to make this point, I found a video clip on Wal-Mart's website from CNBC. CNBC spends two minutes visiting with Wal-Mart's VP of Logistics as they walk around one of the retailers enormous distribution centers. It's not an entire supply chain, but this may shed a little light on the logistics piece of the supply chain. Check it out here.

Retiring Baby Boomers Will Cause Major Skills Unbalance by 2008

As the baby-boomer generation retires, 19 percent of the workforce holding executive, administrative and managerial positions in the United States will leave the workplace by 2008. It’s clear if companies don’t have a real time picture of employee talents and can’t pin point where new skills are needed, it will be challenging for companies to handle the large-scale transition in the workforce.

Just recently a new global study was published illustrating the risk of business growth as employers lack knowledge of employee talent that is vital to compete in fast changing global markets.

The study, which surveyed over 300 Chief Human Resource Officers (CHRO) found that over 60 percent of CHROs had difficulty identifying and developing the critical employee skills and talents that are vital to remain competitive. Fewer than half of the CHRO’s could confirm that their company was adequately equipped to respond to the CEO’s growth and responsiveness priorities.

One way to address this problem is with, you guessed it, a supply chain. Similar to the way a supply chain can track brake pads, bottled water or jeans, it can also track employee talent. Check back soon to read how some organizations are doing this today.

Grads that Need a Profession Should Look at Supply Chains

For those lucky enough to be starting college in the Fall I have two words - supply and chain. I was recently speaking with some of the folks within the government and they are searching high and low for graduate students with supply chain expertise to help secure the US borders, particularly the US coastal shipping ports .

The movie "The Sum of All Fears" with Ben Affleck and Morgan Freeman is a perfect example of what can go wrong. A bomb enters the us via the Port of Baltimore. By the time its too late Affleck discovers the bomb has entered the country by consulting with several FBI supply chain experts who track down the invoices and cargo data. These are the types of experts the FBI and the US Customs & Border Patrol department so desperately need today. Students that understand shipping and receiving and the technology that can be used to make it more predictable and accurate are in strong demand today and it's only going to get stronger.

Several universities such as Penn State, Arizona State, Michigan State, Stanford and M.I.T. have very extensive supply chain curriculums that can prepare students. And if you aren't interested in the public sector, corporations as well are rapidly building supply chain divisions to leverage their massive supply chains to gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace. But students need to take the first step.

What happens when supply chain security is working?

This may sound like a little supply chain humor (which by the way is always welcome on this blog), but the punchline is "nothing." Nothing should happen when supply chain security is working, that is why it's so difficult to find an IT budget and why its so difficult to determine the ROI. Plenty of best practices have been developed for determining the ROI for a CRM or ERP implementation. The before and after are easy to compare and contrast. But with security unless something disastrous happens you'll never know. If anyone has had any success in securing a supply chain security IT budget please post your strategy here.