Preparing for the future

[Transcript]

Jan Griffiths: 00:00

There's a lot going on behind the scenes at the auto supply chain prophets podcast, we are busy putting the finishing touches to our strategy.

Jan Griffiths: 00:11

And at first, you might think strategy, what are you talking about a strategy for a podcast? Oh, yes. Our podcast has a mission. Our mission is to provide you, the automotive supply chain professional, with information with tools that you can use to prepare for the transformation that's happening in our industry to help you prepare for the future. We know that this idea of delivering on the promise of delivery is much harder than that tagline would imply. We all know what happens when we're not able to deliver. As we promised, the costs, the unplanned costs can be astronomical, and can cause a business to fail. This is nothing new. We all know this.

Jan Griffiths: 01:10

Now, in addition to the stresses and strains of normal automotive supply chain operations, we are in a period of massive transformation. Yes, there's product transformation taking place. We're moving from ICE to BEV, we all get that. But this is now an opportunity for us to step back away from supply chain and say, okay, is the way that we're operating today, good enough? Will it support the transformation that's taking place in the industry? And for most of us, the answer is going to come back a resounding, no. Let me explain. Gone are the days when we had that strong Materials Manager at the plant to just sort of handled everything I know, you know, the person that I'm talking about.

Jan Griffiths: 02:07

He just knew how to handle quality issues, how to deal with problematic suppliers, how to manage all the logistics, he just kind of made it happen. He's a bit of a wizard. Typically, in this type of operation, we see spreadsheets and we see manual processes. And again, somehow a miracle happens. And it all came together, didn't it.

Jan Griffiths: 02:34

And that type of setup, with maybe a little bit of technology thrown in there somehow got us through, that is not going to get us through into the future. This is a great time to go back to the basics, to make sure that we can really transform for the future and meet the demands of the future supply chain. We talk about speed and agility. We've been talking about that for decades. But now it has a totally different meaning. As we see companies like Amazon, setting the bar, we used to think that getting our products from Amazon within three days was wonderful. Now we get frustrated, if it takes three days. We want it tomorrow. And they figured out how to make that happen. How do we apply that thinking to the automotive supply chain? How do we truly embrace technology and integrate technology into our supply chain operations? And let's not forget, supply chain is not and cannot be a silo.

Jan Griffiths: 03:38

How do we integrate with quality with IT, with purchasing with program management, with engineering? Yes, we need to integrate with all of those functions. This is a great opportunity for us to step back and look at the basics, again, to look at where we can apply technology so that we can truly operate with the speed and agility that our industry is demanding from us. We know that money is made in the supply chain, not just on the shop floor we've been saying that for decades, money is only made on the shop floor. It's the people making the parts well, yes, yes, that's one part of it. But have we learned nothing over the pandemic. We know what supply chain disruptions can cost a company and we cannot continue to operate the way that we've been operating if we are to satisfy the demands of our industry for the future.

Jan Griffiths: 04:43

This is a great time to think differently. We are taking this opportunity to step back and make sure that our strategy for the podcast in providing you with the content that you need embraces all of this thinking we're gonna go back to some basics ourselves. And our very first guest, straight out of the chute will be Tanya Bolden. If you don't know Tanya, she's the Vice President of Corporate Responsibility and Supply Chain Products and Services for AIAG Automotive Industry Action Group. And we're gonna be talking about MMOGLE. Did you know that version six is just around the corner? We're going to be sharing some information so that you know what you need to look out for, and what you need to do next. Now, we're not doing this in a vacuum. We're talking to our listeners, and we want to hear from you. If there's something related to preparing the automotive supply chain for the future that you want to hear about that you want to know about, a perspective that you think is valuable to our audience than tell us I'll put a link in the show notes. It will be easy for you to email either one of us either myself, Jan, or Terry Onica or Cathy Fisher. We would love to hear from you. So stay tuned. We're going to be back in two weeks with a tremendous lineup of guests to provide you with the information that you need for the future. Because remember, money is made in the supply chain.