April 3, 2025 • 38 mins
Navigating today's complex manufacturing landscape demands unprecedented supply chain resilience. This eye-opening conversation with Barry O'Dowd (Kuehne+Nagel) and Kamal Ahluwalia (Resilinc) reveals why robust supply chains matter more than ever—particularly for semiconductor capital equipment.
The semiconductor industry operates at extraordinary precision, with equipment working at scales as small as five nanometers—roughly 1/18,000th the width of a human hair. This precision makes these multi-million dollar tools exceptionally vulnerable during transport, requiring meticulous handling across tens of thousands of miles between manufacturing and installation. With leading-edge fabs costing up to $20 billion, equipment failures or delays can trigger catastrophic financial consequences.
Our experts explain how companies are reimagining resilience through sophisticated data analysis, multi-tier visibility, and proactive risk management. Barry shares how Kuehne+Nagel's risk mitigator tool brings together all supply chain stakeholders to identify vulnerabilities and implement mitigation strategies—expertise developed during their flawless delivery of over 2 billion COVID vaccines. Meanwhile, Kamal describes how Resilinc helps organizations leverage AI to anticipate disruptions across 40 different risk categories, from natural disasters to financial instability.
The conversation offers practical advice for strengthening your own supply chain: understand your end-to-end process, engage with experienced partners, and
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Francoise von Trapp (00:00):
This episode of the 3D InCites
Podcast is sponsored by Kuehne+Nagel.
You can trust Semicon Logisticsby Kuhn Nagel to navigate even
the most demanding supply chainchallenges.
Whether you move raw materials,finish chips or sensitive
capital equipment, everyshipment is backed by the
Semicon Chain Certified Network.
Discover more atwwwkuhnandennagelcom.
(00:24):
That's K-U-E-H-N-E-N-A-G-E-L.
com.
Hi there, I'm Francoise vonTrapp, and this is the 3D
InCites Podcast.
Hi everyone, welcome to today'sdiscussion on why supply chain
(00:53):
resilience matters and how toget it.
Now more than ever around theworld, manufacturing industries
are grappling with geopolitical,economic and environmental
issues that are impacting theirsupply chains every day.
In this episode, we'll look atthese issues through the lens of
the semiconductor capitalequipment supply chain and the
ripple effect that can happenfrom just one misstep.
(01:14):
My guests today are experts inrisk mitigation, logistics and
transport.
I'll be speaking with BarryO'Dowd of Kuehne + Nage l and
Kamal Ahluwalia Resilinc.
Welcome to the podcast, guys,Thank you very much, Francoise.
Barry, this is your second timeon the podcast.
Can you remind us whatCunanoggle does and what your
role is there?
Barry O'Dowd (01:36):
Certainly I can.
has been a global logisticsprovider now for 135 years.
We were founded in Germany, butwe're now headquartered and
listed in Switzerland.
We're the global leader in bothsea and air international
transport and we operate roadoperations and contract
logistics warehousing operationsacross the world.
(01:57):
I've been with for over 20years and I am our global
business development lead forour Semicon industry.
Our Semicon business is a keygrowth focus for as part of our
roadmap 2026.
It was a strategy announced twoyears ago.
We identified an opportunity tobring industry specific
(02:21):
solutions for an industry thatreally was crying out for
quality, certified companiesthat can support the complex
semiconductor supply chain, andwe now deployed approximately 35
stations across our network tosupport the semiconductor
industry globally.
Francoise von Trapp (02:38):
Okay, thank you excellent, Kamal, this is
your first time here.
Can you briefly describeResilinc?
We have had Bindiya Vakil, whowas the founder of Resilinc, on
several times, but just forpeople who may not have heard
those, can you describe Resilincfor us and tell us what you do
there?
Kamal Ahluwalia (02:56):
Absolutely, and thanks for having me so.
Resilinc is a supply chain riskand compliance company.
Bindiya founded it 15 years agoand over the years, we've had
fantastic opportunities to serveand understand supply chains
for some of the largestorganizations in the world.
So whenever it gets to having amulti-tier supply chain whether
(03:18):
it's semiconductor tech,manufacturing, heavy
manufacturing, aerospace,pharmaceutical, et cetera we're
actually very good in mappingout both the visibility and then
what your risk opportunitiesare, as well as compliance
opportunities.
Now and as you can all imagine,I mean we're living in
(03:41):
interesting times that thisthing is now sort of moving so
fast it's almost dizzying speed.
And so what we are doing andI've been in the seat now for
about two months we will belaunching our agents to help our
customers actually manage theirsupply chain risk and
(04:03):
compliance more effectively.
Actually manage their supplychain risk and compliance more
effectively, because the numberof things that the teams have to
do is just amazing and notgetting done, and they all
realize that, and so my rolehere is the CEO, but I'm
basically running around meetingall our clients and seeing how
we can actually run faster andfaster with them.
Francoise von Trapp (04:25):
Baptism by fire.
Kamal Ahluwalia (04:28):
Yes.
Francoise von Trapp (04:30):
Okay, well, I'm really happy to talk with
both of you.
I think this is a reallyimportant topic.
In the world right now.
Things are so unpredictable anduncertain and changing every
day.
Let's start with the bigpicture.
What do we actually mean whenwe're talking about supply chain
resilience?
Barry O'Dowd (04:50):
Well, from my perspective Kuehne+Nagel within
, we're a logistics provider, sowe look at the supply chain
resilience from an operationalperspective, in particular, when
it comes to the internationaltransport and all of the
associated functions that arelinked to international
transport.
So when we think about supplychain resilience, it's about
knowing where your goods are,where they come from, where
(05:13):
they're going to, how they move,what the risks are, and have I
appropriately dealt with thoserisks?
Do I know how to do whatever Ineed to do if something happens?
Risks Do I know how to dowhatever I need to do if
something happens?
So for us, resilience is aboutdealing with risk and to improve
the capacity to react and pivotand recover from any disruption
(05:33):
that happens in that supplychain within a reasonable
timeframe.
Francoise von Trapp (05:38):
Okay, and Kamal.
Kamal Ahluwalia (05:41):
Yeah, just to add to that, I think it does
come down to, first of all,visibility, and we do have a
maturity model around this.
First is being aware of whatdoes your supply chain look like
, and especially if you have amulti-year supply chain, which
is the case with semiconductors.
Second is your ability to beingproactive.
So it's one thing to react oncethings have happened.
(06:04):
So it's one thing to react oncethings have happened, but then
you're almost at the sameplaying field, because managing
your supply chain properly isactually a competitive advantage
and everybody does not have thelatitude to be able to do what
needs to be done when somethingbad happens.
And today we track about 40different categories of events
that are happening externally.
(06:24):
Today we track about 40different categories of events
that are happening externally.
And then it's the issue ofbeing integrated up and down
across your supply chain so thateverybody understands what your
drivers are.
Incentives are aligned and thedisincentives are also aligned,
because it is that you knowyou're really as good as the
weakest part of your supplychain and the resilient part.
(06:46):
Today, I think, is verydifferent than how you would
define it five, six years ago,because today it's not just
agility, but it's also theability, as Barry said, to be
able to withstand and getthrough adverse effects, but I
would put on the table that it'sgot as much to do with the
upside also, because it's notjust because it typically sits
(07:09):
as reducing costs or managingcosts, but it is a lot more than
that now, because this is howyou're going to build, and all
the stuff about whether it'stariffs, whether it's sanctions,
whether it's the bad actors,all that stuff that's happening
today.
I think, if I were to, andbecause we are living through it
, just look at what's happeningwith the eggs in US.
(07:36):
Right, prices have gone up,right, so something happened.
None of us actually caused theissues that have caused the
price to go up.
Now we have only a couple ofoptions Either we suck it up and
pay, you know, a couple ofbucks an egg for this year.
The rest of the year we canstop eating eggs, and or we can
continuously look at the grocerystores that may have it
(07:57):
slightly cheaper.
But what if each of us weremaking products where eggs were
essential?
So you have to manage to getthe eggs at the best possible
price that you can and continuethe supply, because this thing
will continue for the rest ofthe year, right, so when your
(08:17):
livelihood depends on that, it'sa very much more serious
discussion on what to do witheggs.
Francoise von Trapp (08:23):
It seems that, more than ever, resilience
is important to a supply chain,more than we ever imagined,
probably since COVID and thenwith all of the geopolitical
things happening.
Barry, from a perspective ofyou know, dealing with the
logistics of semiconductorequipment, how are things like
sanctions and tariffs going toimpact that?
(08:47):
Do we know?
Barry O'Dowd (08:48):
or any of the materials, chemicals that go in
it, and the internationalizedmanufacturing process of
(09:09):
semiconductors all presents ahuge challenge to tariffs and
any of the trade barriers thathave been brought up.
The big change that came aroundas a result of COVID is the
exposure of all industries tothe semiconductor industry
became apparent and as a resultof that, supply chains have
begun to change, driven bynational security interests, etc
(09:31):
.
The impact of that is theglobalized supply chain will
change for all of the companiesthat are involved in that supply
chain as well.
So what was the supply chainpreviously for the semiconductor
industry will be different inthe future, with or without
tariffs.
Tariffs just add that extralittle bit of cost and
complexity to it, and in thepast, as companies went to look
(09:56):
for supply chain resilience,they initially looked at where
their supply bases were andlooked around diversifying their
supply chain.
And now they're really lookingat diversifying it to multiple
suppliers in multiple countries.
And that requires them, from anoperational perspective, to
really get into the detail ofall of these new supply chains
(10:19):
and have the agility to be ableto adjust those supply chains in
the future without giving upthe requirement to go into
detail to really investigate theimpact of those supply chains
and how resilient they reallyare and have to be.
Francoise von Trapp (10:36):
You're talking about the different
aspects of the semiconductorsupply chain and speaking about
materials and equipment.
Speaking about materials andequipment, it seems to me that
with equipment you have a supplychain to the equipment
manufacturers themselves wherethey're sourcing all of the
parts that go into their tools,and then there's a supply chain
of the manufacturer that issourcing the equipment into
(11:00):
their facilities.
I can see where it makes sensethe second source parts, but are
you also second sourcingequipment themselves?
Barry O'Dowd (11:10):
No well, the equipment themselves tends to be
very specialized.
Semiconductor manufacturingequipment is amongst the most
precise equipment created bymankind.
Equipment such as the advancedlithography machines can work in
a few nanometers with siliconwafers.
So when you consider that ahuman hair is 90,000 nanometers,
(11:32):
then you can understand thatwhen you're making, you're
printing, at five nanometersthey're one 18,000th of a hair
each.
So the precision that'srequired and the engineering to
get that level of precision isreally quite impressive and it
requires really delicateequipment that needs to be moved
(11:53):
in a very, very controlledenvironment.
So for the manufacturers of theequipment, so these tend to be
large items that need to bemoved on freight or aircraft and
they're so sensitive that theyneed to move on routes which
minimize the amount of touchpoints for that equipment while
it's in transit.
You know the equipment often ismoving over tens of thousands
(12:17):
of miles from the point ofmanufacturer to the point of
delivery of that equipment.
So this is really all high riskactivity to the point of
delivery of that equipment.
So this is really all high-riskactivity and the shipments need
to be handled with utmost careand attention for shock and tilt
, but also for otherenvironmental situations like
humidity and extremetemperatures etc.
(12:38):
And that all requires properinvestigation to understand that
end-to-end supply chain and afull analysis of the risks that
are involved in that so that youcater for those in the
transportation of that equipment.
When it comes to the parts,parts tend to be stored locally.
(12:59):
They tend to advance all of thecritical parts as much as they
possibly can to be near wherethe manufacturing fabs are so
that if a part is required bythe engineers they can get that
part in very, very quicklywithout any disruption for the
manufacturing.
Because that's the criticalpoint for semiconductor
(13:21):
manufacturing, that the new fabsare amongst the most
capital-intensive manufacturingsites globally.
A new leading-edge fab could beup to $20 billion of investment
.
You can't afford to have thatfab not operating.
So if a part is required andit's not actually in stock
(13:41):
nearby it has to be moved withutmost time-critical urgency and
again, that has to be on asupply chain that has active
risk mitigation, activedetermination of what risks are
there, looking at potentialimmediate weather patterns or
(14:02):
traffic delays for aircraft,traffic delays etc.
To ensure that a route ischosen that can get that part to
its destination in the fastestphysical possible time, because
the potential downside is socritical, and all of this
requires a different level ofrisk investigation and risk
(14:23):
mitigation.
Francoise von Trapp (14:25):
Kamal, you at Resilinc specialize in
identifying in real time eventsthat could disrupt the supply
chain.
Can you describe an example ofa situation that would be
critically disruptive to thecapital equipment supply chain?
Kamal Ahluwalia (14:43):
Yeah, several things have happened that one
couple of times for example, thetsunami in japan a lot of the
manufacturing was there.
It was actually a massiveimpact on so many industries,
because today everybody it'sjust both upstream and
downstream impact and the issuewas that typically you would go
(15:07):
to depending on the and we tracklike 40 different categories of
events.
In some cases, for example, itjust could be financial impact,
bankruptcy or M&A.
Those are maybe a little easierto address because you can go
to a different supplier whocould actually step in and take
care of that, who could actuallystep in and take care of that.
(15:27):
But in case of this earthquake,where the core was impacted for
a long period of time, therewas no easy way to recover from
that.
Or, for example, what's rightnow happening with Taiwan and
all the pressure that's on andhow TSMC is having to actually
rethink their FAB strategy, andTSMC is actually a very big
(15:50):
critical part of thissemiconductor industry, right.
So some of these bigger eventsare much difficult to address
and in some cases, what hashappened to your point is you
may even have be paying millionsfor your business continuity
insurance, but in some cases thefactory is right there but it
(16:12):
can't operate because otherissues were impacted, whether
the power supply was impacted orsomething else was impacted.
So you're not even getting theinsurance to cover your
operations right, and this thingcan run to hundreds of millions
of dollars of impact.
So it's not just what'shappening there.
The issue with the tariffsituation that's happening now
(16:34):
is very rarely do you havesomething that is being built
entirely inside US.
Only in some of the defensecontracts is when everything
from soup to nuts is being builtlocally, right from raw
materials to the finishedproduct.
In most other cases it is goingback and forth through different
(16:54):
factories across the world.
So managing all of that and themoment you get past the first
tier of suppliers, this thingbecomes really hard that what's
happening in tier two, what'shappening in tier three, and
just go all the way back to theraw materials we're now starting
to track 40 differentcommodities that are going into
building the chips, because it'sa long term play, but,
(17:20):
depending on where the issue is,it can take months, if not
quarters, to recover from it.
So being able to plan all thisout is very, very hard.
And what is compounding thisthing is, even in the largest
organizations, the risk andcompliance teams are actually
small, so you're asking too muchfrom a very small team to
(17:46):
manage basically critical partof your business.
So that's why what's coming outwith where all both of you have
called it out?
These days, managing yoursupply chain and managing the
risk is almost the number onejob, because otherwise things
can come to a standstill, andthese days nobody can afford to
(18:08):
have their factories come to astandstill.
Nobody recovers from that.
Francoise von Trapp (18:13):
You know, from an equipment perspective, I
think that it's even a littlemore complicated.
Barry, you're talking aboutsecond sourcing parts, and as
you were talking about that Iwas thinking, the tools
themselves are very sensitiveand specially designed and
complex, but so are the partsfor a lot of these.
In fact, a lot of companiesmanufacture their own parts, so
(18:37):
how does the second source thatI mean?
How much time does it take tofind another source and qualify
that in, to make that evenpossible?
Barry O'Dowd (18:47):
No, for a lot of equipment there are unique
suppliers and for the uniquesuppliers there isn't really a
second source and people designtheir manufacturing processes
around certain equipment types.
Some types there are more.
They say they're moreestablished and there might be
multiple suppliers, but for alot of the equipment you really
(19:15):
are looking at a very limitednumber of suppliers that you
have to look in to see whattheir supply chain is and how
that supply chain works.
The change that's happening inthe supply chain it's happening
up and down the supply chainsand where companies used to ship
from yesterday may be differentto tomorrow and that requires
(19:39):
new supply chains that need tobe then stress tested to see how
they operate from new originsand new destinations.
Transportation capacity from atransportation logistics
perspective to an area thatdoesn't have as much capacity or
has trade imbalances andtherefore capacity is harder to
come by.
It makes that new lane, eventhough it might be a competitive
(20:01):
place and a friend-shoringplace to ship from, it may be
much more difficult to ship on areliable basis, particularly
when it comes to specializedhandling, because that new
origin may not be established inthe same way as the previous
origin.
And these are some of thechallenges that we will come to
as the supply chain changesrapidly and going forward and
(20:33):
going forward.
Francoise von Trapp (20:33):
Now I have a feeling that each of you have
figured out how to helpcustomers with this at different
steps.
You're both working in supplychain resilience and risk
mitigation, but at differentsteps of the process, so I
wanted to ask each of you if youcould give an example of how
you evaluate and mitigate supplychain resilience for your
customers.
Kamal Ahluwalia (20:54):
Kamal Sure.
So from our perspective, thisis essentially a data problem of
all.
You need to actually haveenough data for each of these
things so that you can actuallytee up both the risk as well as
(21:15):
the mitigation opportunity.
And in most cases, largecompanies and we serve some of
the biggest companies in theworld they have their standard
operating procedure.
It's not like they're makingstuff up as it comes up.
I mean, they all know how tooperate a very large, global,
complex organization.
But as things are evolving, howdo you marry your SOP playbook
(21:39):
and be able to take action whenthings are happening?
Because when they do happen,only sometimes you have some
leading indicators thatsomething is unraveling.
But then how do you actually dothat?
So we do a couple of things.
Number one we recognized earlyon that all of this cannot be
digitized to a level that wewant, because in some cases you
(22:02):
will lose access to everythingdigital and connected up and
down your supply chaineverything digital and connected
up and down your supply chain.
So we bridge that gap so thatyou have the right cadence and
information that you need toactually understand the risk.
Second part that I'll add isand I went through this just a
few months back with one of thelargest companies in the world.
They literally, when they wereassessing us as a supplier and
(22:26):
assessing risk to them, it wasalmost as if I was having to go
through a colonoscopy with a newinvestor.
No, seriously, it's like wehave very different businesses
and for them to understand how asoftware company would operate
and clearly they are in adifferent business but how do
(22:47):
you explain to a financial teamthat this is how this thing will
work?
So there is that disconnect,right that?
What are the variables on ourside versus what they care about
?
Then the third piece is once youhave the data layer across your
multiple tiers of supply chain.
Now how do you actually startto take action up and down?
(23:08):
Now, the ones who have done thebest job with us, who are
operating at a very high levelof both visibility and being
proactive and integrated, theyactually put it in their
contracts.
If you want to do business withus, these are the things that
we need from you, and we need itin this frequency and we'll
work together so that you'realso aware and we're all looking
(23:32):
at the same stuff, because I amcounting on you to manage your
downstream suppliers as well.
Right, so it becomes one complexand extended part of the
organization and the last partis actually actually sharing the
risk across that.
What do you do?
Because they need to know whatthe action is Right At the end
(23:53):
of the day.
What I liked about serving someof these largest companies was
they did not want you to gounder.
The suppliers are as importantbecause, yes, you're always
negotiating to get the bestprice.
Important because, yes, you'realways negotiating to get the
best price.
But at the end of the day, theywere very clear up and down the
chain, whoever was negotiatingwith us, they did not want us to
(24:21):
go under.
Francoise von Trapp (24:21):
And I think that when you hear that, then
you start to realize we're allin it together, right?
Kamal Ahluwalia (24:23):
Yes, then there's some of the gaming.
Yes, you should do to maximizeprofits on all sides, but
resiliency means everybody is asstrong as the weakest link.
Barry O'Dowd (24:34):
Absolutely.
From our perspective, it'sabout bringing together all of
the stakeholders in the supplychain.
We look at it from anoperational perspective and
we've developed a key tool toevaluate that supply chain risk,
which we call our riskmitigator.
It's part of our digitalsolution suite that enables us
(24:54):
to bring together all of the keystakeholders that are involved
in the key components of thatend-to-end flow of goods and
within this tool we identify therisks and it facilitates that
we can make an assessment ofthose risks and determine on the
tool what action should betaken.
So it's effectively a strategicrisk mitigation tool.
(25:17):
It's not a live tool that'slooking at weather events that
are happening today.
They're looking at what theweather is in that origin or in
that destination or in thosetransit points, to be conscious
of that on an ongoing basis.
This is something that wedeveloped for the pharmaceutical
supply chain, which is a highlyregulated industry and within
(25:40):
that the governance requiresthat they're able to ensure the
integrity of the flow ofcomponents which are temperature
sensitive, to make sure thatthat supply chain is not
interrupted and the componentsthat are used in the manufacture
of pharmaceuticals becomeinefficient or don't work.
(26:01):
As a company, we gained a lotof experience for this, in
particular during COVID.
We delivered over 2 billionCOVID-19 vaccines during the
pandemic without a singlefailure or deviation, going to
some of the most challengingparts of the world.
And this is part of what weused our risk mitigator tool to
(26:21):
determine how these supplychains were set up, had
everybody from an operationalperspective working in this, to
determine what each lane waslike, so that we can identify
the risks in each lane andmitigate or deal with the risks.
Sometimes you have to acceptthe risks that are there because
there isn't a mitigation, butas long as everybody knows what
(26:42):
they're dealing with and whatthe challenges are, it empowers
you to make the correctdecisions.
Francoise von Trapp (26:54):
Can you give an example of how this can
be applied or the features thatyou've adapted to serve
specifically semiconductorcapital equipment?
Sure.
Barry O'Dowd (26:59):
From a semiconductor capital equipment
perspective, it's just a verysensitive supply chain that has
very specific handlingrequirements.
So as we're looking to preventmishandling of shipments within
that supply chain, we wouldestablish some mitigation
strategies within the riskmitigator that they would need
to determine within the riskmitigator that they would need
(27:21):
to determine.
So one of the key ones, asKamal mentioned, is ensuring
that the SOPs are all there forhandling of the equipment and we
have developed another digitaltool, which is the Checklist app
, which guides the users thatare executing those SOPs on the
floor to undertake and conductthose handlings in a particular
(27:46):
way.
They're guided by how to handlethe goods and also record the
status of goods as they're doingthem.
We conduct comprehensivetraining programs to ensure that
all of the personnel involvedknow the handling requirements
and how to transportsemiconductor capital equipment
and components so that they'reaware of best practice and we
(28:07):
share those best practicesacross the network.
We use specialized carriers andspecialized suppliers that have
that equipment, that we havevalidated that the equipment is
there and the equipment isappropriate so that we can
minimize the shock and impactduring loading and unloading.
(28:28):
We use tools to determine themost direct way of moving
freight on critical lanes frompoint A to point B, minimizing
the amount of handling atcritical handling points,
because these are always theareas where you're most at risk
of damage.
And then we would employsensors that are monitoring
(28:50):
devices to monitor the goods asthey're being transported if
they're not built into theequipment already so that we can
track the shipments and addressany deviations as they're
happening, as we're monitoringthese in a live environment.
And from that we would thendeploy strategies to deal with
all of these risks that we'reencountering, using these
(29:14):
measures, as well as othermeasures that would be deployed
to ensure that we can meet thecustomer requirements and
understand that supply chainfrom end to end and to be able
to deal with any deviations thatcome in that supply chain by
all of the stakeholders involvedknowing what to do Okay.
Kamal Ahluwalia (29:33):
Yeah, I'll add something to what he's sharing,
because he's actually painting avery vivid, clear picture on
all the complexities and movingparts and where different pieces
are right, and what we aretrying to do is essentially work
backwards from the outcomesthat the clients are looking for
Most of them are actually veryclear on what they want at the
(29:55):
end of it but then making surethat wherever they stand, there
is a path from there to actuallyget to the state where they
feel good about their supplychain resilience and interim
part on the breaking down.
This problem is if and weclearly are bringing agents to
automate as much as possible andwherever we you need human in
(30:17):
the loop, like in regulatedindustries or very high impact
decision making, then the AI isbringing the explainability so
that the user can make aninformed decision.
And that basically means have Ilooked at all the data inputs
that I need to look at?
How does that marry with thesequencing of stuff, the smaller
(30:41):
steps that a person would takebefore they make that
recommendation, and the secondpart is the traceability or
auditability of that, so thatthings will still go sideways.
But then did you make the bestinformed decision at that point
when you had to make that callright.
So it's a marriage of this verycomplex environment and how to
(31:07):
set up people for success.
Now, what we are also seeingbecause it's always about change
management and people at theend of the day, right, we have
all the in theory, we have allthe data and technology to do a
much better job, but it doesn'thappen that easily.
So the people side is simplythis because the risk and
compliance teams are alwayssmall and always understaffed
(31:28):
and almost never have thecapacity.
Here we are not running intothe pushback that are you taking
away my job?
It is simply oh, thank God, youcan help me do my job and to
some extent, we are anticipatingthis avoided option of
essentially, agents beingbrought in, your digital labor
(31:49):
coming in to actually managethese things and tee up the
recommendations.
So it'll go from beingvisibility and awareness and
information to actions, actions,actions, actions.
And the thing that you'recalling out with tariffs is it's
not like we can change ourproduction schedule or location
or country very easily, but youhave to plan for it almost every
(32:14):
other day, if not every day,because it's moving so fast.
So that's scenario planning.
That's basically the boardlevel discussion.
Francoise von Trapp (32:23):
Okay, so we have to wrap it up.
I wanted to give you theopportunity to each answer one
final question.
What would you advise listenersto do primarily?
Maybe three top things to do tobuild resilience into their
supply chain.
Barry O'Dowd (32:39):
Yeah, into their supply chain.
Yeah, I mean.
For me, the key is to understandthat supply chain, to engage
with companies or people thathave the tools to enable you to
break down that supply chain andbring the stakeholders that are
involved in it, because thesupply chain is made up of so
(33:01):
many different stakeholdersacross a really long geographic
line that people speak indifferent languages, have
different cultures, havedifferent approaches, and you
need to bring those together,but with the operational
expertise that recognizes therisks that will come as people
(33:21):
identify where they have theappropriate measures in place
and where the gaps might be.
We bring it together in our riskmitigator tool in a very simple
assessment tool a main riskassessment that brings all of
the stakeholders together andoutputs a report that identifies
the risks that we haveidentified, what the mitigation
(33:43):
measures are or what risks weaccept, and then we bring the
key owners together to sign offon that so that people
understand the risks thatthey're embracing in these
critical supply chains.
This enables you to understandand know what you're dealing
with and it's only through thepower of that knowledge that
(34:04):
enables you to really hand inheart, say that you've been able
to mitigate the risks in thebest possible way.
Francoise von Trapp (34:10):
So there's a lot of moving parts.
Barry O'Dowd (34:13):
Absolutely.
Francoise von Trapp (34:13):
And the risk mitigator tool helps bring
it all together.
Barry O'Dowd (34:17):
With the expertise of the people who know how to
address those risks and mitigatethose risks in the best
possible way, using bestpractice, methods and Kamal.
Kamal Ahluwalia (34:31):
I think, fantastic opportunity, with all
the complexity that we are allliving in, to really see what
the current technology can dofor us.
So paint a vision that's alittle further out because
supply chain is not a short-termtactical thing and turn it into
a strategic asset and then workbackwards.
(34:53):
That these are this is what Iwould like to share with my
board, and then break it downinto smaller chunks, but think
big.
I think the issue is smallthings will take too long and
you almost don't have the impact, whereas what will happen now
is, just like with these GPUs,et cetera, that there are all
(35:13):
these young companies that arejumping in to solve the problem
in a very different way, and I'mseeing that repeatedly.
This first principle approachis what you need to apply to
your supply chain that how wouldI build it today and then make
those bigger changes, and Ithink you will see more and more
suppliers and people parts ofyour supply chain are actually
(35:37):
willing, if you're willing, tolead that change, because there
is a better way to solve thisproblem now.
It is about data and it isabout level of automation that
we've never seen before.
Francoise von Trapp (35:49):
Okay, so where can people go to learn
more about your companies?
Barry O'Dowd (35:57):
.
Go online to K-U-E-H-N-E hyphenNagel and look for
semiconductor solutions.
Francoise von Trapp (36:06):
Okay, and Kamal Resilinc?
Kamal Ahluwalia (36:09):
Resilinc.
com, and soon it'll be Resilinc.
ai.
So, yes, come find us and happyto talk more.
And I'm actually traveling alot, so happy to grab a drink as
well.
Francoise von Trapp (36:21):
So I, if it's okay with you, we'll put
links to your LinkedIn profilesin the show notes.
If people want to learn more,they can reach out directly.
Barry will be putting a link toKuehne + Nagel website website,
because it's really hard tospell, and yeah, so thank you,
both of you so much for joiningme today.
(36:43):
Thank you.
Kamal Ahluwalia (36:43):
Thanks for having us.
Thank you, thanks for having us.
Thank you, kamal.
Francoise von Trapp (36:50):
Want to learn more about the importance
of supply chain resilience?
Coming in June, we're hosting awebinar roundtable discussion,
sponsored Kuehne + Nagel.
Find out what equipmentsuppliers and IDMs need to
consider as part of their Scope3 plans as they work with
(37:12):
logistics and transport expertsto address resiliency with
sustainable solutions.
And next time, on the 3DInCites Podcast, it's back to
the IMAPS Device PackagingConference and conversations
with the winners of the 2025 3DInCites Awards.
Thanks for listening.
There's lots more to come, sotune in next time to the 3D
InCites Awards.
Thanks for listening.
There's lots more to come, sotune in next time to the 3D
InCites Podcast.
The 3D InCites Podcast is aproduction of 3D InCites LLC.
This episode of the 3D InCites
Podcast is sponsored by Kuehne+Nagel.
You can trust Semicon Logisticsby Kuhn Nagel to navigate even
the most demanding supply chainchallenges.
Whether you move raw materials,finish chips or sensitive
capital equipment, everyshipment is backed by the
Semicon Chain Certified Network.
Discover more atwwwkuhnandennagelcom.
(00:24):
That's K-U-E-H-N-E-N-A-G-E-L.
com.
Hi there, I'm Francoise vonTrapp, and this is the 3D
InCites Podcast.
Hi everyone, welcome to today'sdiscussion on why supply chain
(00:53):
resilience matters and how toget it.
Now more than ever around theworld, manufacturing industries
are grappling with geopolitical,economic and environmental
issues that are impacting theirsupply chains every day.
In this episode, we'll look atthese issues through the lens of
the semiconductor capitalequipment supply chain and the
ripple effect that can happenfrom just one misstep.
(01:14):
My guests today are experts inrisk mitigation, logistics and
transport.
I'll be speaking with BarryO'Dowd of Kuehne + Nage l and
Kamal Ahluwalia Resilinc.
Welcome to the podcast, guys,Thank you very much, Francoise.
Barry, this is your second timeon the podcast.
Can you remind us whatCunanoggle does and what your
role is there?
Barry O'Dowd (01:36):
Certainly I can.
has been a global logisticsprovider now for 135 years.
We were founded in Germany, butwe're now headquartered and
listed in Switzerland.
We're the global leader in bothsea and air international
transport and we operate roadoperations and contract
logistics warehousing operationsacross the world.
(01:57):
I've been with for over 20years and I am our global
business development lead forour Semicon industry.
Our Semicon business is a keygrowth focus for as part of our
roadmap 2026.
It was a strategy announced twoyears ago.
We identified an opportunity tobring industry specific
(02:21):
solutions for an industry thatreally was crying out for
quality, certified companiesthat can support the complex
semiconductor supply chain, andwe now deployed approximately 35
stations across our network tosupport the semiconductor
industry globally.
Francoise von Trapp (02:38):
Okay, thank you excellent, Kamal, this is
your first time here.
Can you briefly describeResilinc?
We have had Bindiya Vakil, whowas the founder of Resilinc, on
several times, but just forpeople who may not have heard
those, can you describe Resilincfor us and tell us what you do
there?
Kamal Ahluwalia (02:56):
Absolutely, and thanks for having me so.
Resilinc is a supply chain riskand compliance company.
Bindiya founded it 15 years agoand over the years, we've had
fantastic opportunities to serveand understand supply chains
for some of the largestorganizations in the world.
So whenever it gets to having amulti-tier supply chain whether
(03:18):
it's semiconductor tech,manufacturing, heavy
manufacturing, aerospace,pharmaceutical, et cetera we're
actually very good in mappingout both the visibility and then
what your risk opportunitiesare, as well as compliance
opportunities.
Now and as you can all imagine,I mean we're living in
(03:41):
interesting times that thisthing is now sort of moving so
fast it's almost dizzying speed.
And so what we are doing andI've been in the seat now for
about two months we will belaunching our agents to help our
customers actually manage theirsupply chain risk and
(04:03):
compliance more effectively.
Actually manage their supplychain risk and compliance more
effectively, because the numberof things that the teams have to
do is just amazing and notgetting done, and they all
realize that, and so my rolehere is the CEO, but I'm
basically running around meetingall our clients and seeing how
we can actually run faster andfaster with them.
Francoise von Trapp (04:25):
Baptism by fire.
Kamal Ahluwalia (04:28):
Yes.
Francoise von Trapp (04:30):
Okay, well, I'm really happy to talk with
both of you.
I think this is a reallyimportant topic.
In the world right now.
Things are so unpredictable anduncertain and changing every
day.
Let's start with the bigpicture.
What do we actually mean whenwe're talking about supply chain
resilience?
Barry O'Dowd (04:50):
Well, from my perspective Kuehne+Nagel within
, we're a logistics provider, sowe look at the supply chain
resilience from an operationalperspective, in particular, when
it comes to the internationaltransport and all of the
associated functions that arelinked to international
transport.
So when we think about supplychain resilience, it's about
knowing where your goods are,where they come from, where
(05:13):
they're going to, how they move,what the risks are, and have I
appropriately dealt with thoserisks?
Do I know how to do whatever Ineed to do if something happens?
Risks Do I know how to dowhatever I need to do if
something happens?
So for us, resilience is aboutdealing with risk and to improve
the capacity to react and pivotand recover from any disruption
(05:33):
that happens in that supplychain within a reasonable
timeframe.
Francoise von Trapp (05:38):
Okay, and Kamal.
Kamal Ahluwalia (05:41):
Yeah, just to add to that, I think it does
come down to, first of all,visibility, and we do have a
maturity model around this.
First is being aware of whatdoes your supply chain look like
, and especially if you have amulti-year supply chain, which
is the case with semiconductors.
Second is your ability to beingproactive.
So it's one thing to react oncethings have happened.
(06:04):
So it's one thing to react oncethings have happened, but then
you're almost at the sameplaying field, because managing
your supply chain properly isactually a competitive advantage
and everybody does not have thelatitude to be able to do what
needs to be done when somethingbad happens.
And today we track about 40different categories of events
that are happening externally.
(06:24):
Today we track about 40different categories of events
that are happening externally.
And then it's the issue ofbeing integrated up and down
across your supply chain so thateverybody understands what your
drivers are.
Incentives are aligned and thedisincentives are also aligned,
because it is that you knowyou're really as good as the
weakest part of your supplychain and the resilient part.
(06:46):
Today, I think, is verydifferent than how you would
define it five, six years ago,because today it's not just
agility, but it's also theability, as Barry said, to be
able to withstand and getthrough adverse effects, but I
would put on the table that it'sgot as much to do with the
upside also, because it's notjust because it typically sits
(07:09):
as reducing costs or managingcosts, but it is a lot more than
that now, because this is howyou're going to build, and all
the stuff about whether it'stariffs, whether it's sanctions,
whether it's the bad actors,all that stuff that's happening
today.
I think, if I were to, andbecause we are living through it
, just look at what's happeningwith the eggs in US.
(07:36):
Right, prices have gone up,right, so something happened.
None of us actually caused theissues that have caused the
price to go up.
Now we have only a couple ofoptions Either we suck it up and
pay, you know, a couple ofbucks an egg for this year.
The rest of the year we canstop eating eggs, and or we can
continuously look at the grocerystores that may have it
(07:57):
slightly cheaper.
But what if each of us weremaking products where eggs were
essential?
So you have to manage to getthe eggs at the best possible
price that you can and continuethe supply, because this thing
will continue for the rest ofthe year, right, so when your
(08:17):
livelihood depends on that, it'sa very much more serious
discussion on what to do witheggs.
Francoise von Trapp (08:23):
It seems that, more than ever, resilience
is important to a supply chain,more than we ever imagined,
probably since COVID and thenwith all of the geopolitical
things happening.
Barry, from a perspective ofyou know, dealing with the
logistics of semiconductorequipment, how are things like
sanctions and tariffs going toimpact that?
(08:47):
Do we know?
Barry O'Dowd (08:48):
or any of the materials, chemicals that go in
it, and the internationalizedmanufacturing process of
(09:09):
semiconductors all presents ahuge challenge to tariffs and
any of the trade barriers thathave been brought up.
The big change that came aroundas a result of COVID is the
exposure of all industries tothe semiconductor industry
became apparent and as a resultof that, supply chains have
begun to change, driven bynational security interests, etc
(09:31):
.
The impact of that is theglobalized supply chain will
change for all of the companiesthat are involved in that supply
chain as well.
So what was the supply chainpreviously for the semiconductor
industry will be different inthe future, with or without
tariffs.
Tariffs just add that extralittle bit of cost and
complexity to it, and in thepast, as companies went to look
(09:56):
for supply chain resilience,they initially looked at where
their supply bases were andlooked around diversifying their
supply chain.
And now they're really lookingat diversifying it to multiple
suppliers in multiple countries.
And that requires them, from anoperational perspective, to
really get into the detail ofall of these new supply chains
(10:19):
and have the agility to be ableto adjust those supply chains in
the future without giving upthe requirement to go into
detail to really investigate theimpact of those supply chains
and how resilient they reallyare and have to be.
Francoise von Trapp (10:36):
You're talking about the different
aspects of the semiconductorsupply chain and speaking about
materials and equipment.
Speaking about materials andequipment, it seems to me that
with equipment you have a supplychain to the equipment
manufacturers themselves wherethey're sourcing all of the
parts that go into their tools,and then there's a supply chain
of the manufacturer that issourcing the equipment into
(11:00):
their facilities.
I can see where it makes sensethe second source parts, but are
you also second sourcingequipment themselves?
Barry O'Dowd (11:10):
No well, the equipment themselves tends to be
very specialized.
Semiconductor manufacturingequipment is amongst the most
precise equipment created bymankind.
Equipment such as the advancedlithography machines can work in
a few nanometers with siliconwafers.
So when you consider that ahuman hair is 90,000 nanometers,
(11:32):
then you can understand thatwhen you're making, you're
printing, at five nanometersthey're one 18,000th of a hair
each.
So the precision that'srequired and the engineering to
get that level of precision isreally quite impressive and it
requires really delicateequipment that needs to be moved
(11:53):
in a very, very controlledenvironment.
So for the manufacturers of theequipment, so these tend to be
large items that need to bemoved on freight or aircraft and
they're so sensitive that theyneed to move on routes which
minimize the amount of touchpoints for that equipment while
it's in transit.
You know the equipment often ismoving over tens of thousands
(12:17):
of miles from the point ofmanufacturer to the point of
delivery of that equipment.
So this is really all high riskactivity to the point of
delivery of that equipment.
So this is really all high-riskactivity and the shipments need
to be handled with utmost careand attention for shock and tilt
, but also for otherenvironmental situations like
humidity and extremetemperatures etc.
(12:38):
And that all requires properinvestigation to understand that
end-to-end supply chain and afull analysis of the risks that
are involved in that so that youcater for those in the
transportation of that equipment.
When it comes to the parts,parts tend to be stored locally.
(12:59):
They tend to advance all of thecritical parts as much as they
possibly can to be near wherethe manufacturing fabs are so
that if a part is required bythe engineers they can get that
part in very, very quicklywithout any disruption for the
manufacturing.
Because that's the criticalpoint for semiconductor
(13:21):
manufacturing, that the new fabsare amongst the most
capital-intensive manufacturingsites globally.
A new leading-edge fab could beup to $20 billion of investment
.
You can't afford to have thatfab not operating.
So if a part is required andit's not actually in stock
(13:41):
nearby it has to be moved withutmost time-critical urgency and
again, that has to be on asupply chain that has active
risk mitigation, activedetermination of what risks are
there, looking at potentialimmediate weather patterns or
(14:02):
traffic delays for aircraft,traffic delays etc.
To ensure that a route ischosen that can get that part to
its destination in the fastestphysical possible time, because
the potential downside is socritical, and all of this
requires a different level ofrisk investigation and risk
(14:23):
mitigation.
Francoise von Trapp (14:25):
Kamal, you at Resilinc specialize in
identifying in real time eventsthat could disrupt the supply
chain.
Can you describe an example ofa situation that would be
critically disruptive to thecapital equipment supply chain?
Kamal Ahluwalia (14:43):
Yeah, several things have happened that one
couple of times for example, thetsunami in japan a lot of the
manufacturing was there.
It was actually a massiveimpact on so many industries,
because today everybody it'sjust both upstream and
downstream impact and the issuewas that typically you would go
(15:07):
to depending on the and we tracklike 40 different categories of
events.
In some cases, for example, itjust could be financial impact,
bankruptcy or M&A.
Those are maybe a little easierto address because you can go
to a different supplier whocould actually step in and take
care of that, who could actuallystep in and take care of that.
(15:27):
But in case of this earthquake,where the core was impacted for
a long period of time, therewas no easy way to recover from
that.
Or, for example, what's rightnow happening with Taiwan and
all the pressure that's on andhow TSMC is having to actually
rethink their FAB strategy, andTSMC is actually a very big
(15:50):
critical part of thissemiconductor industry, right.
So some of these bigger eventsare much difficult to address
and in some cases, what hashappened to your point is you
may even have be paying millionsfor your business continuity
insurance, but in some cases thefactory is right there but it
(16:12):
can't operate because otherissues were impacted, whether
the power supply was impacted orsomething else was impacted.
So you're not even getting theinsurance to cover your
operations right, and this thingcan run to hundreds of millions
of dollars of impact.
So it's not just what'shappening there.
The issue with the tariffsituation that's happening now
(16:34):
is very rarely do you havesomething that is being built
entirely inside US.
Only in some of the defensecontracts is when everything
from soup to nuts is being builtlocally, right from raw
materials to the finishedproduct.
In most other cases it is goingback and forth through different
(16:54):
factories across the world.
So managing all of that and themoment you get past the first
tier of suppliers, this thingbecomes really hard that what's
happening in tier two, what'shappening in tier three, and
just go all the way back to theraw materials we're now starting
to track 40 differentcommodities that are going into
building the chips, because it'sa long term play, but,
(17:20):
depending on where the issue is,it can take months, if not
quarters, to recover from it.
So being able to plan all thisout is very, very hard.
And what is compounding thisthing is, even in the largest
organizations, the risk andcompliance teams are actually
small, so you're asking too muchfrom a very small team to
(17:46):
manage basically critical partof your business.
So that's why what's coming outwith where all both of you have
called it out?
These days, managing yoursupply chain and managing the
risk is almost the number onejob, because otherwise things
can come to a standstill, andthese days nobody can afford to
(18:08):
have their factories come to astandstill.
Nobody recovers from that.
Francoise von Trapp (18:13):
You know, from an equipment perspective, I
think that it's even a littlemore complicated.
Barry, you're talking aboutsecond sourcing parts, and as
you were talking about that Iwas thinking, the tools
themselves are very sensitiveand specially designed and
complex, but so are the partsfor a lot of these.
In fact, a lot of companiesmanufacture their own parts, so
(18:37):
how does the second source thatI mean?
How much time does it take tofind another source and qualify
that in, to make that evenpossible?
Barry O'Dowd (18:47):
No, for a lot of equipment there are unique
suppliers and for the uniquesuppliers there isn't really a
second source and people designtheir manufacturing processes
around certain equipment types.
Some types there are more.
They say they're moreestablished and there might be
multiple suppliers, but for alot of the equipment you really
(19:15):
are looking at a very limitednumber of suppliers that you
have to look in to see whattheir supply chain is and how
that supply chain works.
The change that's happening inthe supply chain it's happening
up and down the supply chainsand where companies used to ship
from yesterday may be differentto tomorrow and that requires
(19:39):
new supply chains that need tobe then stress tested to see how
they operate from new originsand new destinations.
Transportation capacity from atransportation logistics
perspective to an area thatdoesn't have as much capacity or
has trade imbalances andtherefore capacity is harder to
come by.
It makes that new lane, eventhough it might be a competitive
(20:01):
place and a friend-shoringplace to ship from, it may be
much more difficult to ship on areliable basis, particularly
when it comes to specializedhandling, because that new
origin may not be established inthe same way as the previous
origin.
And these are some of thechallenges that we will come to
as the supply chain changesrapidly and going forward and
(20:33):
going forward.
Francoise von Trapp (20:33):
Now I have a feeling that each of you have
figured out how to helpcustomers with this at different
steps.
You're both working in supplychain resilience and risk
mitigation, but at differentsteps of the process, so I
wanted to ask each of you if youcould give an example of how
you evaluate and mitigate supplychain resilience for your
customers.
Kamal Ahluwalia (20:54):
Kamal Sure.
So from our perspective, thisis essentially a data problem of
all.
You need to actually haveenough data for each of these
things so that you can actuallytee up both the risk as well as
(21:15):
the mitigation opportunity.
And in most cases, largecompanies and we serve some of
the biggest companies in theworld they have their standard
operating procedure.
It's not like they're makingstuff up as it comes up.
I mean, they all know how tooperate a very large, global,
complex organization.
But as things are evolving, howdo you marry your SOP playbook
(21:39):
and be able to take action whenthings are happening?
Because when they do happen,only sometimes you have some
leading indicators thatsomething is unraveling.
But then how do you actually dothat?
So we do a couple of things.
Number one we recognized earlyon that all of this cannot be
digitized to a level that wewant, because in some cases you
(22:02):
will lose access to everythingdigital and connected up and
down your supply chaineverything digital and connected
up and down your supply chain.
So we bridge that gap so thatyou have the right cadence and
information that you need toactually understand the risk.
Second part that I'll add isand I went through this just a
few months back with one of thelargest companies in the world.
They literally, when they wereassessing us as a supplier and
(22:26):
assessing risk to them, it wasalmost as if I was having to go
through a colonoscopy with a newinvestor.
No, seriously, it's like wehave very different businesses
and for them to understand how asoftware company would operate
and clearly they are in adifferent business but how do
(22:47):
you explain to a financial teamthat this is how this thing will
work?
So there is that disconnect,right that?
What are the variables on ourside versus what they care about
?
Then the third piece is once youhave the data layer across your
multiple tiers of supply chain.
Now how do you actually startto take action up and down?
(23:08):
Now, the ones who have done thebest job with us, who are
operating at a very high levelof both visibility and being
proactive and integrated, theyactually put it in their
contracts.
If you want to do business withus, these are the things that
we need from you, and we need itin this frequency and we'll
work together so that you'realso aware and we're all looking
(23:32):
at the same stuff, because I amcounting on you to manage your
downstream suppliers as well.
Right, so it becomes one complexand extended part of the
organization and the last partis actually actually sharing the
risk across that.
What do you do?
Because they need to know whatthe action is Right At the end
(23:53):
of the day.
What I liked about serving someof these largest companies was
they did not want you to gounder.
The suppliers are as importantbecause, yes, you're always
negotiating to get the bestprice.
Important because, yes, you'realways negotiating to get the
best price.
But at the end of the day, theywere very clear up and down the
chain, whoever was negotiatingwith us, they did not want us to
(24:21):
go under.
Francoise von Trapp (24:21):
And I think that when you hear that, then
you start to realize we're allin it together, right?
Kamal Ahluwalia (24:23):
Yes, then there's some of the gaming.
Yes, you should do to maximizeprofits on all sides, but
resiliency means everybody is asstrong as the weakest link.
Barry O'Dowd (24:34):
Absolutely.
From our perspective, it'sabout bringing together all of
the stakeholders in the supplychain.
We look at it from anoperational perspective and
we've developed a key tool toevaluate that supply chain risk,
which we call our riskmitigator.
It's part of our digitalsolution suite that enables us
(24:54):
to bring together all of the keystakeholders that are involved
in the key components of thatend-to-end flow of goods and
within this tool we identify therisks and it facilitates that
we can make an assessment ofthose risks and determine on the
tool what action should betaken.
So it's effectively a strategicrisk mitigation tool.
(25:17):
It's not a live tool that'slooking at weather events that
are happening today.
They're looking at what theweather is in that origin or in
that destination or in thosetransit points, to be conscious
of that on an ongoing basis.
This is something that wedeveloped for the pharmaceutical
supply chain, which is a highlyregulated industry and within
(25:40):
that the governance requiresthat they're able to ensure the
integrity of the flow ofcomponents which are temperature
sensitive, to make sure thatthat supply chain is not
interrupted and the componentsthat are used in the manufacture
of pharmaceuticals becomeinefficient or don't work.
(26:01):
As a company, we gained a lotof experience for this, in
particular during COVID.
We delivered over 2 billionCOVID-19 vaccines during the
pandemic without a singlefailure or deviation, going to
some of the most challengingparts of the world.
And this is part of what weused our risk mitigator tool to
(26:21):
determine how these supplychains were set up, had
everybody from an operationalperspective working in this, to
determine what each lane waslike, so that we can identify
the risks in each lane andmitigate or deal with the risks.
Sometimes you have to acceptthe risks that are there because
there isn't a mitigation, butas long as everybody knows what
(26:42):
they're dealing with and whatthe challenges are, it empowers
you to make the correctdecisions.
Francoise von Trapp (26:54):
Can you give an example of how this can
be applied or the features thatyou've adapted to serve
specifically semiconductorcapital equipment?
Sure.
Barry O'Dowd (26:59):
From a semiconductor capital equipment
perspective, it's just a verysensitive supply chain that has
very specific handlingrequirements.
So as we're looking to preventmishandling of shipments within
that supply chain, we wouldestablish some mitigation
strategies within the riskmitigator that they would need
to determine within the riskmitigator that they would need
(27:21):
to determine.
So one of the key ones, asKamal mentioned, is ensuring
that the SOPs are all there forhandling of the equipment and we
have developed another digitaltool, which is the Checklist app
, which guides the users thatare executing those SOPs on the
floor to undertake and conductthose handlings in a particular
(27:46):
way.
They're guided by how to handlethe goods and also record the
status of goods as they're doingthem.
We conduct comprehensivetraining programs to ensure that
all of the personnel involvedknow the handling requirements
and how to transportsemiconductor capital equipment
and components so that they'reaware of best practice and we
(28:07):
share those best practicesacross the network.
We use specialized carriers andspecialized suppliers that have
that equipment, that we havevalidated that the equipment is
there and the equipment isappropriate so that we can
minimize the shock and impactduring loading and unloading.
(28:28):
We use tools to determine themost direct way of moving
freight on critical lanes frompoint A to point B, minimizing
the amount of handling atcritical handling points,
because these are always theareas where you're most at risk
of damage.
And then we would employsensors that are monitoring
(28:50):
devices to monitor the goods asthey're being transported if
they're not built into theequipment already so that we can
track the shipments and addressany deviations as they're
happening, as we're monitoringthese in a live environment.
And from that we would thendeploy strategies to deal with
all of these risks that we'reencountering, using these
(29:14):
measures, as well as othermeasures that would be deployed
to ensure that we can meet thecustomer requirements and
understand that supply chainfrom end to end and to be able
to deal with any deviations thatcome in that supply chain by
all of the stakeholders involvedknowing what to do Okay.
Kamal Ahluwalia (29:33):
Yeah, I'll add something to what he's sharing,
because he's actually painting avery vivid, clear picture on
all the complexities and movingparts and where different pieces
are right, and what we aretrying to do is essentially work
backwards from the outcomesthat the clients are looking for
Most of them are actually veryclear on what they want at the
(29:55):
end of it but then making surethat wherever they stand, there
is a path from there to actuallyget to the state where they
feel good about their supplychain resilience and interim
part on the breaking down.
This problem is if and weclearly are bringing agents to
automate as much as possible andwherever we you need human in
(30:17):
the loop, like in regulatedindustries or very high impact
decision making, then the AI isbringing the explainability so
that the user can make aninformed decision.
And that basically means have Ilooked at all the data inputs
that I need to look at?
How does that marry with thesequencing of stuff, the smaller
(30:41):
steps that a person would takebefore they make that
recommendation, and the secondpart is the traceability or
auditability of that, so thatthings will still go sideways.
But then did you make the bestinformed decision at that point
when you had to make that callright.
So it's a marriage of this verycomplex environment and how to
(31:07):
set up people for success.
Now, what we are also seeingbecause it's always about change
management and people at theend of the day, right, we have
all the in theory, we have allthe data and technology to do a
much better job, but it doesn'thappen that easily.
So the people side is simplythis because the risk and
compliance teams are alwayssmall and always understaffed
(31:28):
and almost never have thecapacity.
Here we are not running intothe pushback that are you taking
away my job?
It is simply oh, thank God, youcan help me do my job and to
some extent, we are anticipatingthis avoided option of
essentially, agents beingbrought in, your digital labor
(31:49):
coming in to actually managethese things and tee up the
recommendations.
So it'll go from beingvisibility and awareness and
information to actions, actions,actions, actions.
And the thing that you'recalling out with tariffs is it's
not like we can change ourproduction schedule or location
or country very easily, but youhave to plan for it almost every
(32:14):
other day, if not every day,because it's moving so fast.
So that's scenario planning.
That's basically the boardlevel discussion.
Francoise von Trapp (32:23):
Okay, so we have to wrap it up.
I wanted to give you theopportunity to each answer one
final question.
What would you advise listenersto do primarily?
Maybe three top things to do tobuild resilience into their
supply chain.
Barry O'Dowd (32:39):
Yeah, into their supply chain.
Yeah, I mean.
For me, the key is to understandthat supply chain, to engage
with companies or people thathave the tools to enable you to
break down that supply chain andbring the stakeholders that are
involved in it, because thesupply chain is made up of so
(33:01):
many different stakeholdersacross a really long geographic
line that people speak indifferent languages, have
different cultures, havedifferent approaches, and you
need to bring those together,but with the operational
expertise that recognizes therisks that will come as people
(33:21):
identify where they have theappropriate measures in place
and where the gaps might be.
We bring it together in our riskmitigator tool in a very simple
assessment tool a main riskassessment that brings all of
the stakeholders together andoutputs a report that identifies
the risks that we haveidentified, what the mitigation
(33:43):
measures are or what risks weaccept, and then we bring the
key owners together to sign offon that so that people
understand the risks thatthey're embracing in these
critical supply chains.
This enables you to understandand know what you're dealing
with and it's only through thepower of that knowledge that
(34:04):
enables you to really hand inheart, say that you've been able
to mitigate the risks in thebest possible way.
Francoise von Trapp (34:10):
So there's a lot of moving parts.
Barry O'Dowd (34:13):
Absolutely.
Francoise von Trapp (34:13):
And the risk mitigator tool helps bring
it all together.
Barry O'Dowd (34:17):
With the expertise of the people who know how to
address those risks and mitigatethose risks in the best
possible way, using bestpractice, methods and Kamal.
Kamal Ahluwalia (34:31):
I think, fantastic opportunity, with all
the complexity that we are allliving in, to really see what
the current technology can dofor us.
So paint a vision that's alittle further out because
supply chain is not a short-termtactical thing and turn it into
a strategic asset and then workbackwards.
(34:53):
That these are this is what Iwould like to share with my
board, and then break it downinto smaller chunks, but think
big.
I think the issue is smallthings will take too long and
you almost don't have the impact, whereas what will happen now
is, just like with these GPUs,et cetera, that there are all
(35:13):
these young companies that arejumping in to solve the problem
in a very different way, and I'mseeing that repeatedly.
This first principle approachis what you need to apply to
your supply chain that how wouldI build it today and then make
those bigger changes, and Ithink you will see more and more
suppliers and people parts ofyour supply chain are actually
(35:37):
willing, if you're willing, tolead that change, because there
is a better way to solve thisproblem now.
It is about data and it isabout level of automation that
we've never seen before.
Francoise von Trapp (35:49):
Okay, so where can people go to learn
more about your companies?
Barry O'Dowd (35:57):
.
Go online to K-U-E-H-N-E hyphenNagel and look for
semiconductor solutions.
Francoise von Trapp (36:06):
Okay, and Kamal Resilinc?
Kamal Ahluwalia (36:09):
Resilinc.
com, and soon it'll be Resilinc.
ai.
So, yes, come find us and happyto talk more.
And I'm actually traveling alot, so happy to grab a drink as
well.
Francoise von Trapp (36:21):
So I, if it's okay with you, we'll put
links to your LinkedIn profilesin the show notes.
If people want to learn more,they can reach out directly.
Barry will be putting a link toKuehne + Nagel website website,
because it's really hard tospell, and yeah, so thank you,
both of you so much for joiningme today.
(36:43):
Thank you.
Kamal Ahluwalia (36:43):
Thanks for having us.
Thank you, thanks for having us.
Thank you, kamal.
Francoise von Trapp (36:50):
Want to learn more about the importance
of supply chain resilience?
Coming in June, we're hosting awebinar roundtable discussion,
sponsored Kuehne + Nagel.
Find out what equipmentsuppliers and IDMs need to
consider as part of their Scope3 plans as they work with
(37:12):
logistics and transport expertsto address resiliency with
sustainable solutions.
And next time, on the 3DInCites Podcast, it's back to
the IMAPS Device PackagingConference and conversations
with the winners of the 2025 3DInCites Awards.
Thanks for listening.
There's lots more to come, sotune in next time to the 3D
InCites Awards.
Thanks for listening.
There's lots more to come, sotune in next time to the 3D
InCites Podcast.
The 3D InCites Podcast is aproduction of 3D InCites LLC.
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