So, where are we with Supply Chain Visibility? (Tobias Larsson, Altana AI, Founder of Resilience360)

00:00:02: Hello and welcome to the logistics tribe I'm boss felgendreher founder of the logistics tribe in the topic of today's show is supply chain visibility.

00:00:14: A lot has been said about this topic over the years that I've been in the business.

00:00:18: But to this day there are still more questions than answers about what visibility you actually need to run a global supply chain and how best to achieve it.

00:00:26: Today's Show features two figures from the industry that have dedicated large parts of their careers to help companies achieve supply chain visibility.

00:00:34: Our guests to be as Larson was the founder of resilience360 in is now with altana AI.

00:00:39: A company that promises to provide a single source of Truth for Global Supply chains.

00:00:44: Can a host Jonah McIntire is a Serial startup founder and currently leads procurement products for transport on.

00:00:51: Before we get started a quick thanks to our great sponsors gray orange great oranges smart robots in AI enabled automation platform are spreading across warehouses around the world

00:01:00: if you're looking to automate key Warehouse in fulfillment functions you have to check out gray orange when you have a chance

00:01:06: I will leave a link in the show notes and now please enjoy the conversation around supply chain visibility with to be us Larsson Tobias thanks for taking the time to join us today I'm been really excited to get this interview underway and I know that you and I,

00:01:20: the search added about it for a few months now.

00:01:22: Maybe for the people who haven't already had a chance to interact with you or follow you on social media can you give us a bit of background on yourself.

00:01:31: Where did you start in the industry and where if you gone since then yeah great to be on the podcast this is not a big fan of it as some.

00:01:39: I started in logistics about 2005 back in the whole country Sweden that's the management trainee and that was really a great experience because I got to do very sort of

00:01:49: Han Solo operational things I love when our Korea rides and I took calls and customer service and I worked in a warehouse my chips and so on so really good to get the full-blown experience on Logistics and I'd really gave me a

00:02:01: very good view on what will the industry has and rather respectful different kind of also in the vistas so um and then onwards from there I worked in a couple different roles but moved to the DHL Innovation Center and

00:02:13: W 2010 got involved with a topic we at that time called resilience360 which was really about creating visibility own risk

00:02:22: and the magic risk better Supply chains I was just

00:02:25: 2011 we had the earthquake in Japan and and a lot of companies Global manufacturing companies were disrupted by not being able to get sore.

00:02:35: Icky materials I thought of Japan had very little visibility even if they you know what suppliers they had there and what what they could expect from the disruption so we built resilience360 at the detail information center

00:02:46: as sort of a value-added solution to detail services and then that later became a really

00:02:51: had successful business and we scale with well and eventually carted out on a DHL became its own business chemistry knowledge but I left that it I bought a little bit more than a year ago and today I'm involved with a company called altana AI which I'm sure we're gonna talk more about yeah I'd like to hear a little bit more about it maybe just the

00:03:10: the high-level pitch the elevator pitch what is all town has perspective on visibility what are you guys trying to do what's your secret sauce

00:03:18: what I'll tell God is this doing is building a single source of Truth for Supply chains basically a living map or

00:03:25: maybe like our CEO would call to search the Google Maps also by chains which is what I think is a very appropriate way of a good analogy and analogy for what it is

00:03:34: what we're doing is really building that sort of you know supply chain map stitching together billions of datasets public data also private data and the ability to learn from

00:03:43: from data from government data from Enterprise data and build Sullivan knowledge crap of what Supply chest look like so

00:03:50: how companies are connected who's trading with who supplier to whom what are they training what products were materials.

00:03:58: Audrey our products are going between companies and where are these supplier manufacturing size sitting you know where are they

00:04:04: geographically sitting where all the facilities of those companies Factory sites the Geo locations of those so real I can you know and turn the map of Global Supply chains there's actually one of the challenges with supply chain visibility I think in the industry is that

00:04:19: it's universally acknowledged as a desirable outcome you want to have more visibility into your supply chain you want to have more visibility

00:04:26: into exposure in your supply chain for example in order to do the things that supply chain managers and leaders need to do they need to control for risk they need to optimize they need to minimize inventory they need to maximize throughput Etc.

00:04:39: And yet when you try to get into the details of how to achieve that what you know what is supply chain visibility and practice then it becomes.

00:04:48: Much more challenging and I one of the things I find interesting about what you described as sort of the Google maps of Supply chains is that.

00:04:56: We reach for these metaphors I mean some of the ones I can remember are for example the glass pipeline your remember when people talk about the glass pipe line as the metaphor for supply chain visibility of this

00:05:07: this linear thing

00:05:09: that kind of was a tube of manufacturing Pratt or Transportation processes and warehousing processes and you would be able to peer inside of it for the first time because it's no longer lead or whatever the other material was.

00:05:22: Now it's glass and then I think

00:05:24: bit by bit that turned into something that looked more like networks and then that has transformed again into in the metaphors like Google Maps is sort of

00:05:32: multi hierarchical surface that covers the whole world that you should be able to kind of search within instead of Trace something like a purchase order or Supply order or

00:05:42: Askew through that is what we're trying to get at you know so we're we stitching together these billions of datasets sort of public tray data relating data ownership data on so

00:05:53: absolutely shipments have been data to really understand like how everyone is connected in the supply chain and I'd gets you to ask a lot of interesting questions you know where does you know.

00:06:02: Products for the originated from other side value chain look like if you think about some of the sort of covid induced issues in the supply chain today said of many of the issues that companies have are not sort of with the directed Pires it's materials that they Source click come from a second or a third or

00:06:18: fourth tier if you think about semiconductors in automotive industry that's really a tier 3 or tier 4 issue for mining a lot of Mana companies and

00:06:26: they simply don't have the miscibility of who this whole thing or they may have some

00:06:29: some ideas some cases of course some of the big players But ultimately very low visibility on what happens beyond the first-tier suppliers and interestingly when we think about maps to data

00:06:40: and companies today many companies don't even have correct addresses of there

00:06:45: where their first hit Supply section manufacturer something so if you think about the procurement tools that are used today they ask about it

00:06:52: you know a billing address but they don't sort of really captures fight Ended as necessary so so many companies even though we work with us could be up to 50 percent don't even have

00:07:01: good address data on the first-tier suppliers and where there actually are located and I think if you think about sort of a lot of things and the changes that companies are going through now going for more

00:07:11: efficiency mindset to to resiliency that data is going to be extremely crucial you know if you think about planning for example planning your supply chain

00:07:19: some decisions about what do you want to do multi multi Source thing or nearshoring you need to understand you know a bigger picture of what that looks like.

00:07:28: For the supplies he would then maybe switch to so you're not sort of again sort of dependent download on the wrong sources and also capacity management capacity

00:07:36: I think capacity has been a tremendous issue of course you know the room by the man shakes but many companies have just

00:07:41: very little view on capacity and I think that's something we're also aiming to help and help companies with cellist and potential capacity constraints so you know one example we have as

00:07:52: working with a Pharma company that had

00:07:54: about 60 percent of their revenue it was true 61 suppliers and and all the 61's who has had a comment here to suppliers and they were really concerned about you know why do not getting enough capacity to those two wants and it turned out that

00:08:08: the tier 2 supplier you know were giving a little business to pornography no capacity to two other two ones that were already part of that Pharma companies I change so there's a lot of things that require to have a deeper view of value chase today.

00:08:20: Which I think helped me is really allowing another think ultimately that's what autonomous driving to you know to help and help companies to build their own view of your own extended supply chain the supplier Network also yeah exhausted

00:08:32: Willie topics it's sort of crucial to be able to look deeper so there's there's many many aspects we can talk about here but it's so in a nutshell that's its that's what I'll tan is all about

00:08:40: it's it's really interesting you know it connects to a larger discussion that.

00:08:45: We've been having on this podcast and I think the industry has been happening in the last year which is 20 21 was a moment where

00:08:52: supply chain became truly a CO topic for most businesses it was not I think it's fair to say one of the other things that happens in our Industries we obsess over

00:09:02: details like the availability transport capacity and the cost of shipping but it's CEOs going to be most businesses those those inputs are going to be.

00:09:11: Sub 10% of the controllable cost and it just isn't.

00:09:15: It just isn't relevant actually for the CEO to consider those things whereas as just reading today and if you saw this that Toyota has passed General Motors for example in the US as the leading azulene car brand or manufacturer,

00:09:29: and they did it on the basis of Supply they had a better access to semiconductors and so their sales grew by 10% you are near where is General Motors fell by 11 or 13 and.

00:09:40: The first thing with your my mind it's well you know yes that makes sense right we're finally in a moment we're constrained Supply is lasting long enough to have an annual impact.

00:09:50: Really sustained impact

00:09:52: I find it's stick connect back to kind of the history of supply chain visibility which one things I wanted to ask your opinion on is I sort of see a contrast between

00:10:00: one of the early supply chain visibility Pioneers was was Walmart with their heavy investment in sort of Upstream visibility to their suppliers and coordination of the.

00:10:11: The flow of orders and goods but that was very much a optimization efficiency cost reduction play.

00:10:17: And then you've got something like resilience360 for at the HL which is another's which were based on mitigating unforeseen but urgent

00:10:27: issues but I think that those things like the tsunami and in Japan for example that that was a kind of a one-off event it took some time to resolve itself but it.

00:10:36: In the end it was nothing like covid where it just was two years of right we've been two years now at continuous Supply disruptions well I would the turn to a bit your perspective on the history of supply chain visibility it's something that

00:10:48: I think you're an i career has been there since since we started people were talking about supply chain visibility.

00:10:54: That's starting to be a couple decades now that it's a it's a topic so can you think of in the beginning of your career.

00:11:01: It's too early examples pivotal systems companies who had the leadership position and visibility and how those those maybe evolved towards today what was the evolution.

00:11:11: Yeah I'll do my best that's a big question but when I joined the logistics basically and worked in

00:11:18: had the sales roles and freight and express type of businesses and a lot of the discussions about disability with customers will see a box of the media are getting EDI seats at the most work for the you tell of course so he died treats from you telling it that type of visibility into their transport Management systems or Erp systems or even something more rudimentary so and EDI messages so I mean they rely on actually we usually relied on sort of manual scan events and checkpoints of Milestones along a supply chain and of course that

00:11:46: I wasn't always a hundred percent and and yeah it's data captured by by human yeah data captured by I meant upon another very.

00:11:55: Yeah that is manual and I'm thinking I found recall battery cover like the most of the sketches for about sort of like have we actually delivered something

00:12:03: can I then you know send my my invoice or maybe service performance and these type of discussions were on disability and not sort of many strategic discussions in Bollywood Tori management for example so I think then when I came to the Innovation Center in 2010 there was other work not going on RFID tags

00:12:19: and basically sensors and devices that you

00:12:22: you should you know you could attach to the shipment sort of RFID tags that they will take away so the need for manual barcode scanning but that technology had its challenges you know

00:12:32: due to price but also do tubes with no technical challenges to not being able to read out through the gates properly and then missing she of the server not start putting on the in the appropriate way for also the Gateway so so a lot of challenges with that and then the sensors

00:12:45: what sort of devices were you know too costly I think prices come down a lot that has been on the podcast here other sessions on the tripod cast was talked about this but

00:12:55: the price has come down a lot but still a lot of challenges with just adding a device to something because you could have lead to.

00:13:01: Might return flow door still not cheap enough and it's still very much a pick a niche may be encoded in Cold Supply chains on what then,

00:13:10: of course hold another 1,000 has happened on so real-time visibility in terms of leveraging assets and sell you Leverage The assets that the shipment is on you know you see you know

00:13:21: first of all it's just track Trucking and and made an ocelot in socialism budget to where the ocean vessel is through a is data and of course you know

00:13:31: parallel plates are quite easy to track as well so you just track the asset of follow called Assets in the shipment on the asset and then that to sort of a we know extended Great Leap in this is what I would say in terms of being able to see where things are and

00:13:42: we are Timeless if you go to work I think the first products that were pretty patchy service they were strong in the certain region and I think still that's that's much too case that you know some of the price like p44 or.

00:13:54: For kites or transform six-fold are you to have certain strengths in certain areas but getting us into Moto visibility write this.

00:14:05: Yeah launching and.

00:14:06: And I think about sort of like ETA s coming to play like it's it in Wausau it's not so interesting to see I thought on a map but I remember talking to some you know some of decision makers and then

00:14:16: by chance be customers of details and while I have about hundred rolling trucks at me or even 1000 won't accept me,

00:14:23: I didn't give it time suggesting it out dots on the map or something very interesting he Tas are interesting you know you know when was things arrived you know predicting etas but.

00:14:32: A lot of them you know the focus of course quickly went into sort of exception handling it all and being able to manage exceptions and I only 10 things are not going as planned and how we need to make certain adjustments to that so.

00:14:44: I think that's for things that you know evolved into and then you know resilience360 came in to play with really also looking at these kind of external events that.

00:14:53: You know 2011 had a great impact on Supply chains and L2 odds involves there's always something to happen that.

00:14:59: The destructed and you could have enough speaking about boards today you know there's I think about 15 to 20 days you know delay that you have to add

00:15:08: need some you have to add to a certain ports and of course I've always been into the blood no black hole so understanding how delays a towards you just strikes or.

00:15:18: Became increasingly important at least external events and recalculate them into UTIs and therefore be able to drive a better exception handling so.

00:15:27: I think we've evolved a lot but there's still quite a bit of work to do in terms of.

00:15:31: Regained us into the systems that companies are using TMS systems a game that connecting this was the their Erp visibility on Supply chains

00:15:39: yeah it's fascinating to when you you or anyone else or talks through the history of supply chain visibility some of the steps in there sound so obvious to people today for example.

00:15:50: Don't show me where a shipment is.

00:15:53: Show me when it will arrive and then don't show me what really is get arrived just tell me if it's not going to arrive at the expected time right because it was gonna arrive at the expected date and time then I already planned for it I don't need my attention brought to that actually.

00:16:06: And that sounds so simple but in the actual history of these systems that was years right like there were

00:16:12: years between when we solve the wears a shipment physically where materials physically to are they going to be delayed and if so notify somebody and for a lot of Supply chains have not even,

00:16:24: at that that's not even the case concretely today but I couldn't agree more with that I mean it's it took a long time me not too long time but it took the took time to really kind of.

00:16:33: Get that mindset sort of you know fully you know adopted but then also I mean the the step now is ready to get interoperability

00:16:40: solve the system if you have time to civilian transportation for example like how do you connect it

00:16:46: properly to your your team s or you know Inventory management system so you reconnect you POs to specific you know.

00:16:53: Absence of container so you can read Drive in the term decision making I think along and some companies have definitely achieved that but there's a lot of.

00:17:01: Do I remember kind of going to a lot of different visiting you know difficult role towers and you know

00:17:06: resilience360 B1 applications that they use but they use many different applications right so I was always amazed by how many different screens were up there you know there was you know 14 ship invisibility risk visibility another one for tracking than

00:17:19: maybe there are freight shipments which wasn't integrated and then they had their kind of all something you know

00:17:25: personally your pieces the mob to get the some of the master data that they need to connect to so

00:17:31: I'm really getting all these different solutions to work together I think is sweetie where I'm still the big challenges today yeah I mean to kind of Trace back to an early to an earlier comment I remember reading about Walmart's sort of,

00:17:44: early forays into supply chain.

00:17:46: There's made they launch their own satellites right like there wasn't band width or wasn't ubiquitous internet connections to their Supply locations so they literally put up.

00:17:57: Satellites and then set up connect the physical Hardware connectivity to key suppliers but that in terms of interoperability issues that you just mentioned like

00:18:06: that was only for Walmart you know and I think it's gotten a little bit better since then I don't know very many I really know any company that has gone that far now to make

00:18:17: kind of a standalone visibility but I agree with you your earlier comment that if you look at what's available today.

00:18:24: You have a patchwork of these very good but

00:18:28: But ultimately Niche solution so if you have temperature control tracking and I don't know in Russia you're going to get the different solution and provider and datasource out of that and to wire that into something else and

00:18:41: yeah that's doing temperature control tracking and in Africa for example it's good to be a.

00:18:46: A real headache right yeah not everybody can be like Walmart right now I think they also you know Charter they're all vessels during the shipping prices we have at the moment and then.

00:18:56: Yeah they can afford to do the things they can afford to have their own satellites but that's certainly not something everyone could agree so maybe.

00:19:04: Maybe this leads into a question that is kind of the meat of the questions I always want to ask people is about where do you see yourself

00:19:12: contrarian and supply chain visibility so well I think of contrarian it's not to be argumentative it's something that you you believe that most people don't or the Converse that.

00:19:23: Most people seem to believe something but you have reason to doubt it I think that these can be very fruitful generators of insights and discussions for the for the listeners so it on this topic supply chain visibility what what something that you're contrarian on

00:19:37: yeah I don't know how contrarian embolus but so my view,

00:19:41: is that there's been a lot of focus in the in the supply chain industry on transport visibility which is of course important but if you think about how you invest and divide your mess was a list of different things

00:19:54: I think what will companies to do the visibility

00:19:58: the chemistry lacking is this more of the value chain visibility dust poker Buffalo written in the context of all time low so really understanding you know where your suppliers are the start with and.

00:20:08: As I mentioned like and there's all kinds of eating have that type of facility all over suppliers been Factor something for them

00:20:14: I will Mark out there you know in a cumbersome way but ultimately sort of you know where

00:20:19: words they originated from and who are the tier 2 suppliers to the tier three suppliers it's interesting that Mackenzie put out some interesting research that but two or three percent.

00:20:30: Companies know anything about their tier 3 yet that's been a lot of the disruption that we see now you know do to cope with and the crisis has been.

00:20:40: Issues don't really originated from lower tiers and if you think about the whole topic of sustainability and you know what consumers demand today you not a

00:20:49: will you be able to understand how things are that they consume are produced and very little of the value creation actually happens on the soil where.

00:20:57: The final assembly is and where something is sold and much of the like gracious happens you know in other parts of the world through multiple different steps so consumers will increasingly demand to understand this transparency.

00:21:08: Carbon footprint of course you know of that standpoint but also you know from more Basics to the ethical standpoint it's like they're 40 million people in the world that are vital to Modern slavery in the workforces and.

00:21:23: That's of course I'll acceptable and you can see there's a lot of Regulation coming out as well I mean we have the forced labor after coming to practice in the US but also Germany has this the new supply chain law coming in to act

00:21:35: I think beginning of next year 2023 so companies are already gearing up to understand how they what they need to do to be compliant with the the supply-chain law

00:21:43: a lot of odd sort of that disability that you know who my sourcing from where are they located like it and how can I ensure that their ethical and that there

00:21:51: sustainable and if they treat environment rocket like so so if you ask me should have contrarian out of the market or this but.

00:21:58: Definitely you know just with this place in Portland and especially with this huge variability and so shipment lead times today it's of course a huge challenge but I was certainly argue to invest also and so the value chain visibility there's quite a long way to go for companies

00:22:12: as touching the yeah I hear you I think that.

00:22:16: I don't know what it is but I know what you mean there's this magnetic draw in the industry towards achieving a world as a warehouse type visibility where.

00:22:26: You simply can identify the physical location of all of your inventory or precursors damn it Tori maybe and if they're interested so if they're at rest you identify their location if they're at if they're in transit.

00:22:38: You know the details of when they'll arrive at their new location and this idea of the treating the world the entirety of the world is a warehouse also unlocks things that retailers love like DC bypass and.

00:22:50: The ability to make commits on purchase orders

00:22:53: for goods that are in transit and the sort of unlocking the multi echelons of inventory to make it sellable so it's not it's not simply locked up until it gets to its final four DC location so it's very very attractive especially people come from the logistics because your.

00:23:08: You're constantly butting your head up against the limitations.

00:23:11: Keeping track of where things are and assuring they arrive on time but this value chain perspective as you mentioned is I agree with you as sort of an overlooked area.

00:23:21: I wondered in your perspective is there a minimum level of maturity that supply chain needs to happen Supply Chain management needs to have.

00:23:29: Before they start looking at Value chain visibility so do you need to already have handle to have like in transit order visibility.

00:23:37: Carbon emission visibility those sort of things do you need to have those things kind of under head.

00:23:43: Before you look at Value chain or do you see these as that you can these can do be done in parallel there really.

00:23:48: No here yet another board I think it can be done in parallel I don't think you know you.

00:23:53: Different aspects you can work on this in parallel basically and try to get excel in both directions so yeah so I don't think.

00:24:01: One doesn't have to happen before the other bottle mmm and the.

00:24:05: Play out of the value chain visibility so the upside to it if you think about it like a bet and if you're going to bet your.

00:24:12: Your money on on value chain visibility and invest your resources there

00:24:16: the upside to this is I understand it would be things like avoidance of kind of catastrophic risk so third-tier supplier goes out of business second-tier supplier.

00:24:26: You know can't fulfill orders blah blah blah.

00:24:29: Also reputational risk pick you mentioned you don't want to be discovered to have used forced labor in the Upstream of your supply chain.

00:24:37: And then there's the general value alignment of ensuring that your supply base is sort of themselves.

00:24:45: Investing in developing in a direction that you want them to write so they're not.

00:24:50: They're they're growing at the pace and direction that you yourself are tried to grow are there other levers or mechanisms that you expect.

00:24:58: Value gets created out of value chain visibility no I think you hit the key things about but also may be adding on the.

00:25:07: You know when you think about how you plan and potentially redesign your supply chain I think there's a lotto.

00:25:13: Steals at the moment there's no ahead of my chest about how you want to redesign how you could potentially design your supply chain so.

00:25:20: And what's a Orioles we future you're ready for I think many of those questions become you answer those questions very in a very shallow way.

00:25:29: If you if you don't have a mean more of a value chain you want and extended beyond the supply chain.

00:25:36: I call sort of Tears because yeah if you think about lead times while you could be fine with your lead tug from your diary so Firebug you know why are they not getting in with materials and I think also I think this era of kind of pushing,

00:25:48: liability just you know Upstream so I want to hit my feet just in time just for my production I don't want to hold inventory.

00:25:57: Possible but I want my my diary suppliers to be able to always deliver.

00:26:02: I mean that area is really think / -

00:26:08: Now you have to build trust in Supply chains and we've had conversations with them you know Chief procurement officers were.

00:26:17: They try to understand sort of you know delete times you know why Early Times aren't working and.

00:26:22: They need to look beyond our suppliers and understand like okay who's used to tear to artwork where are they are they somewhere in China.

00:26:28: How can I can I meet with of how can discuss you know my business plan is for them as well so we can see that we are aligned so.

00:26:35: I'm not saying you know you can always get to the the perfect map and get to all and the extreme 11 tears.

00:26:42: Divided chain it is challenging you know we slowly get there but but definitely I think take a few more steps deeper.

00:26:50: We'll help you when and just you know planning your sulphide showing considering resourcing decisions.

00:26:55: Yeah or looking at sort of multiple suppliers Duo sourcing or multiple sources,

00:27:01: how do you best do that and how do you make sure you're still not sort of reliant on to a few sources and over terrorism.

00:27:07: Which also leads back to the server topic I'll risk and cost ratio risk and Supply chains but there's been a lot of disruptions around that but I think fundamentally it's normally much broader Topic in terms of just.

00:27:20: Be able to drive necessary changes in supply chain planning changes go for work so.

00:27:26: What will you raise your raise something there which I just went double click on which is perhaps one of the reasons why you brought up at your contrarian on the

00:27:35: overemphasis on on in transit or or inventory visibility and more when you have more emphasis on value chain visibility.

00:27:45: Maybe part of the reason is that you're describing decisions and discuss a decision outcomes which are.

00:27:51: Are really the area of procurement right so their procurement decisions of their procurement.

00:27:56: Outcomes may be may be part of the the Paradox here is that.

00:28:01: It's called it sounds like it's supply chain visibility but it's really a procurement function procurement tool is that is that fair to say that.

00:28:09: Value chain visibility primarily manifest itself at through procurement decisions it's almost like a philosophical discussion we know what supply chain was procurement and you know what's its we're in which companies and who sort of reporting to whom.

00:28:22: I think I think you just need to look at it more holistically like yes it's procurement but it's also how you source and how you decide your supply chains which suppliers you make yourself or lying down and making sure that

00:28:36: that they could deliver the necessary capacity or that you at least you know.

00:28:41: Get in the kit is for when when when there is capacity issue so you can start to see if you can do something that in your production Network and plan around that and maybe allocate more to other suppliers so.

00:28:52: So yes it's of course it's related to procurement and sourcing and picking the rights of fires or work with red supplies building the relationships and really building that trust as I said for procurements done by but it really is a lot to supply chain decisions as well so.

00:29:07: Is our hard to say that this is some just enough for procurement as I think that supply chain Kerman saw Birds organized and copies have to work together.

00:29:16: To resolve some of these issues

00:29:18: okay so just briefly you know what something that if you had to give one suggestion to supply chain leaders right now would be a no regret move

00:29:28: that you think they can take on visibility I imagine it's something like take value chain take value chain seriously but but is there something concrete within that because that's still a large Endeavor that's a that's its own projects and life cycles is there some

00:29:42: something kind of.

00:29:44: Smaller that's a no regrets move and your mind I'm as say no regrets move is probably to get get prepared for scenario planning right pretty so the cost of shipping this remains some very high levels you know what does your supply chain.

00:29:59: How can you spot a cope with that in terms of the cost impacts and as I said like many see also start asking about sort of possible changes how you.

00:30:07: Source differently so or what if what if sort of the issue would this issues with China become works then.

00:30:14: How how can we kind of you know and make us less dependent on this so really you know running through different scenarios and we having some of the basic data for that I think will be a no-brainer what do you do for digital twins I think that's.

00:30:27: An interesting topic but also more you know simpler methods to get to to better scenario planning capabilities that I think that would be a digital piano yeah scenario planning or scenario checks against.

00:30:40: About trade or a plan.

00:30:42: Can be done at all levels of sophistication right mean you can be as simple as when departmental or Regional Regional plan is put together having a list of of questions to ask to pose in return like.

00:30:57: Could you do this if,

00:30:58: are would this be feasible assuming X and just go through a list of I know 10 possible scenarios and that's the very low end of the sophistication the very high in the sophistication could be.

00:31:10: That all those things are continuously done automated digital twin twin Supply chains and so on and so forth so it's it,

00:31:18: it's interesting I like that as a no regret move because it suits sort of every level of sophistication from supply chain organizations out there.

00:31:27: Yeah no not really I think so and yeah I think there's just more you know the simple ways to get to that when you think about scenario planning just to the setting you know running through some of the the key scenarios are likely to hit you you know and then that you need to be prepared for so.

00:31:41: On the place I don't Transportation slide on shipping costs on sourcing decisions and and sort of you know potentially assure English decisions so.

00:31:50: Not so true you know trade barriers try to talk too much about that but like well you know what was the future perspective on that.

00:31:56: Shifting trade of course very difficult and not sort of making many cases

00:32:02: economically feasible and as you know another interesting study that because they did was that they asked before you know during the crisis sort of what some of the you know key.

00:32:13: Changes that supply chain leaders for were contemplating and sort of.

00:32:17: The nearshoring aspect came up and that's like 60 percent of cases but then they asked sort of like I think 1/2 years later and only 10% it actually.

00:32:24: Been able to do something about that so so I think it's definitely you know understanding which scenarios you.

00:32:31: Can be prepared for what's realistic is yeah that I wore special I'll just throw out there what other things up.

00:32:38: I've done in the past and continue to do is I check.

00:32:42: Check future beddings betting markets one of the challenges anybody will have when they do this is coming up with the list the concrete list of scenarios to consider

00:32:52: and there are many possible scenarios in the future there are many ways to break you know a company's plan or budget and you only want to prepare for the for the ones which are the most likely and.

00:33:02: Getting that perspective requires some internal expertise but whether wasting to is you look at betting markets.

00:33:08: Just to throw out to that I know by heart I find super fascinating you know betting markets put over forty percent chance that Russia.

00:33:18: Invades Ukraine in some manner you know goes to war with Ukraine in some in some manner more than they're already doing today with occupying areas.

00:33:26: And something like a 10% chance of military confrontation between China and Taiwan.

00:33:33: Now both of those have incredible supply chain consequences you know worldwide really but but but

00:33:40: especially for folks in Europe if you have a lot of listeners in Europe just that the magnitude of the consequences of either one of those is huge and yet I know very few companies that are sort of looking at and saying hey.

00:33:52: Betting markets say there's a 40% chance of this and the ten percent chance of that you are are we ready.

00:33:58: Yeah absolutely I've never thought about this way but but that could maybe potentially be an interesting input to their applauding and seeing what are some of the highlights of scenarios and Miriam.

00:34:08: For our land and you know from benefit from so yeah and that's an interesting perspective so so last question I had for you was it if you this again something I like to ask people but if you think about what would be

00:34:22: breakthrough fundamental changes.

00:34:25: In the area of supply chain visibility and what's an event or a development and some of these could be technical I think obviously if we get just.

00:34:34: As an example if we get active RFID down to a price point where it would be feasible to produce and throw away at the end and not have to return or recycle at the end hopefully

00:34:45: that might be an example but it could be technical to be legal it could be something about changes in the business

00:34:51: in the business cycle for example if we.

00:34:55: If there really was A disruption between China and Europe and US trade because of a military confrontation and Taiwan.

00:35:04: But can you think of an event or breakthrough that from your perspective would be something that just would be absolutely a fundamental change to the use of supply chain visibility yeah I think I mean.

00:35:15: Hey I will support I mean you mentioned sort of RFID tags and then they coming down to so certain active RFID tags come down to Causeway can actually sort of way I live

00:35:25: I don't like to throw things away but I think you know you're right Lex and it's attacking if that can materialize I think there's Merit to that type of Technology would makes the visibility take a huge step forward in terms of visibility.

00:35:36: But I think also a i in terms of using both public and learning from you know private data from its prices in order to really understand how everything is linked together.

00:35:49: Supply chain I think they're just going to be you just kind of looks forward online data

00:35:53: they're just much more data out there that just has to be so organized and stitched together in a way so you can.

00:35:59: Actually you know query it also AI that that to that but then some of the regulatory changes that are.

00:36:07: There were seeing though and also you level I think there will be something coming out which is going to be potentially even stricter than the German supply chain law well you know just

00:36:16: Force companies to focus more on supply chain visibility understanding how they do business with it in business but there's a huge territory Porsche and also for national security reasons you know governments want to know.

00:36:30: What Supply chains look like and never tried a lot of new technology as well so but I think also simply I mean on more simple level.

00:36:40: Consolidation in terms of software vendors and software applications such as as you syllable beginning there so many different

00:36:48: applications in supply chain visibility cell focused on temperature control some focus on risks of focus on Transportation disability in our strong in certain regions

00:36:57: and then everyone has an Erp system right so and how do you get this to this work together so I think you know constellation in the software industry would also lead to better Solutions hopefully I'm worried Setia Solutions you see a lot

00:37:09: a lot of innovation and low-tech at the moment I think there's a lot of great Innovation coming to play but you know to really have.

00:37:16: A solution that drives to the you know more prescriptive decision making so they would like prescription.

00:37:22: Strip prescriptions on what companies had to do were automated even automated source of financial decision-making there's has to be laundered sort of consolation list different Technologies coming together and just the interoperability of those will make huge difference

00:37:35: yeah I mean when I take personally when I think about supply chain visibility progress I see it predicated on three foundations that one is the capture of data.

00:37:44: The s that integration of that data into a kind of a so from the point of capture in to wherever it might be.

00:37:50: Be needed in a later stage and then the third is.

00:37:54: Using that to interrupt a decision that would have been done through path a and switch to path be I mean not physical pass but just if you don't interrupt a decision it kind of doesn't matter right like if you if you capture the data you enter.

00:38:07: Do something with the data but then it never results in a change decision.

00:38:12: Then by definition you know you didn't need to capture data or integrated the data and when I flick at these three steps is sort of data capture data integration and insertion into decision-making.

00:38:23: It kind of looks like all three still need to mature because although there's been great things on data capture there's so many things that are captured by hand and and kind of laborious Lee and incorrectly and.

00:38:35: Not in a timely manner the data integration I think we talked about to some degree already is like it's just a patchwork there's just no.

00:38:44: Dominant player or data or standard even those less I've talked about companies talk about standards right.

00:38:50: And then the insertion into decision-making is very much pivot chair could a swing from one system to the other human being decides in the middle if they're actually going to use it or not.

00:39:01: Don't really have any capture about how they used it etcetera so it's sort of if I look at the future actually but imagine that there's a lot more maturing left to do in this space

00:39:10: along the same lines that you described yeah fully agree I mean I think so punches they are still very opaque so there's there's a lot of capturing data is deleted and there are good examples of sort of prescriptive decision-making in Supply chains and

00:39:25: and where you know the real time data that it's capture flows into a decision that's made to drive sort of you know tangible outcome.

00:39:32: But there's just obvious that I've achieved that so so I think there's this little worried to go on and all these three areas so I couldn't agree more with you Jenna

00:39:41: well to be a say it's worth thank you again for coming on the show it's been really interesting for me I'm sure it's going to be very interesting for the listeners as well and

00:39:50: I hope that sometime in the future can have you back and we can look at how things are going with altana and the work that you're doing and what's been achieved in the meantime absolutely it's been a pleasure Joe thanks very much thank you bye bye.

00:40:03: All right that was the logistics tribe podcast episode on supply chain visibility with Tobias Larsson if you enjoyed Today's Show please make sure you subscribe so you don't miss any of the future episodes thanks for listening.