July 19, 2024 ā¢ 44 mins
Discover valuable career advice for aspiring supply chain professionals and explore best practices for demand forecasting! From industry expert and founder of MVC Logistics Academy, Professor Maria Rodriguez, who was also named one of the top Women in Supply Chain by Supply & Demand Chain Executive Magazine! She explains the importance of demand forecasting in inventory management and recommends tools and techniques to predict future demand accurately.
Don't miss this opportunity to elevate your supply chain career and master demand forecasting!
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0:00 - Teaser
0:11 - Intro
7:01 - 10 things to consider before working in supply chain management / logistics
17:09 - What is demand forecasting?
25:40 - Demand forecasting best practices
37:52 - Is AI being implemented into automation?
39:20 - Key takeaways to improve your supply chain career
43:26 - Outro
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
And then based on that,you're going to make a
better informed decision.
And I love thatbecause it's not just, okay.
Don't tell me what to do.
But in some ways, do tell me.
Tell me what to do.
Please tell me what to do.
Take that off my plate.
Hello everybody I'm Jared.
Hi, I'm Melinda, and welcomeback to The Secret Life
(00:20):
of Inventory, a showwhere we talk about all
things inventory.
In today's episode, we have avery special guest joining us
all the way fromnew Jersey, Maria Rodriguez.
Hello.
She is the founder of NVClogistics and was recently
named one of the top women inSupply Chain by Supply and
Demand Chain Executive Magazine.
Maria is also acollege instructor, a supply
chain executive with over 15years of experience.
(00:40):
She's a YouTuber extraordinairewith 17,000 subscribers,
and she's here today totalk about, you know, a lot
about some tips and tricks foranyone who's working in the
supply chain industry,some recommended tools for them
to further their career.
Um, and actually today we'regoing to be talking a lot about
demand forecastingand planning specifically.
Let's give her a warm welcome.
(01:00):
I love this and.
Feel very welcome.
Well hi Maria.
How are you doing today?
Good, good.
Doing great.
Thank you for having me.
Loving to be here.
So I know that we kindof gave you a, you know,
the abridged introduction,but maybe for the
the audience, you want to maybekind of go into your,
your origin story, if youwill, and let everyone
(01:21):
know how you got started insupply chain and logistics.
Sure.
Um, I started very young,I think, when I was about
14 or 15.
It's, um, sortof like unofficial introduction
into supply chain.
Um, I worked at this Koreanbeauty supply shop, and I think
even since then, Ihave, like, an obsession with
Korean beauty, skin care.
Maybe a little unhealthy, if youmight add, but I think
it is because I was so youngand I got introduced into this
(01:43):
retail space, andI loved it, right?
I did a lot of stockingthe shelves, that inventory,
that ordering,the customer service,
you name it, I did it.
That's when I wasin high school.
It was 14 or 15.
Stardom.
Young, huh?
Yeah, right.
And that was the unofficial,I like to call it
the unofficial start.
The official start.
When I was 18, I got a freightbrokerage company that I was
(02:05):
able to get a jobin there knowing zero about
logistics, zero.
But supply chain.
I had no idea whatsupply chain and logistics was.
I didn't even know that when Iwas 14, I was working on
something related to it.
When I was 18.
That's when I realized, okay,oh, I see this as an industry.
Let me let me look into it.
What does this about?
What does it look like?
And I got really started likeexcited to to go into it
as a career.
(02:25):
So from there yes, I said,okay, it's just a job I got.
This job is great, I love it,but what's more, and I decided
to get some degrees,working some stuff,
and eventually it led meto the opportunity to become an
instructor to teach.
And I think that's where Itruly found my passion.
I liked simple writing,working in simple content,
(02:46):
but I think I found my passionin teaching college and
teaching classes andteaching courses,
doing training, doing coaching.
That's what I really think.
It drove me to say, wow,this is something I see
myself doing lifelong.
And that's how I started.
And then the MVC LogisticsAcademy sort of came through
from that inspiration.
Okay, I see what we do withteaching college courses.
(03:07):
I see that side of education.
What can I do that can be alittle grain of salt into this
whole equation and buildsomething that anybody from any
kind of background or skilllevel can really build and grow
and have access to.
Right?
That's what I try todo with the with the Academy.
And, you know, hopefully it'sit's doing something that's
amazing and people arebenefiting from me somehow.
(03:30):
How long have you whendid you found the your academy?
It was right during Covid.
Oh, actually, perfect.
Time for it.
Yeah.
The pandemic?
Yeah.
I think a lot of people startednew endeavors around that time.
Right.
It was sort of like aninspiration of saying, okay,
I'm stuck at home,I'm working from home now.
I have a little bit more time.
My time was very structured.
pre-COVID, I was I did my mygraduate degree while I was
(03:52):
working full time.
I had this whole like schedulethat was very not flexible.
But then with Covid,everything changed.
So I was like, all right,I have a little bit more time.
What can Iinvest my creativity into?
Right?
And I said, letme see what's out there.
And I started googling stuffabout supply chain logistics,
supply chain degrees, programs.
And there was something thatseemed to me very, I don't want
(04:12):
to say unattainable, but it wassomething that wasn't like
everybody couldn'tidentify with them.
And I decided and I said, okay,what can I bring that that can
combine that sort of gap?
That's it out there with thecontent that we have already in
supply chain logistics in thisarea that can be more
accessible to what peoplelike to consume.
Now, people love to be on,you know, and TikTok blew up
(04:33):
during the pandemic, right?
TikTok and the sort of likeshorter kind of content.
It blew up.
So I said, let me see, what isit that I can do to kind of fit
what I know?
What I don't want to say?
I'm an expert, but what I knowa lot about, and I have learned
a lot about inthis experience, and how can I
bring in and put it towards theaudience that can actually see
and say, okay, I understand now,especially with Covid, Covid.
(04:55):
People started to see somuch happening with.
You know, you don't have toiletpaper on the shelves.
You know.
We always talk about toiletpaper on this podcast.
It does.
I think it's impacting becauseeverybody knows about it.
Yeah.
It's the perfect example,you know.
Right.
And you know, hand sanitizer,Lysol, whatever,
whatever you call it.
Right.
Yeah.
It was sort of this impact andshock of people, the consumer
(05:17):
seeing what's happening aroundme that I can't get the
products that I normally get.
Kind of takeit for granted, right?
Take it for.
Granted.
And I think it becamesort of this like, okay,
I'm curious about it.
And the news pickedup on it, right.
The news picks up on the stuffthat's going to get them
eyes in viewers.
So I said, oh, I see it.
There's sort of likethis little, you know, bleep of
of of an intro into what supplychain is from this side.
(05:38):
What can I do to add to it.
Yeah.
And learning online is like oneof the best ways right now
to super accessible.
Like you said.
I think people were willing tolearn online before I took
online classeswhen they started.
I don't want to age myself andcall myself old, but when they
were just rolling out allin classes, that was one of the
first ones to say, yeah,give me the online class.
I liked the setting,but everybody was sort of,
I don't want to say everybody,but a lot of people reluctant
(05:58):
to take online courses.
Covid happened.
You need to work from home.
You can't be in school.
You need to goand take your classes online.
And it pushed a lot of the thesociety and generation and
people to push intoan online setting.
And I think that helped as well.
So I saw that as well.
And I sort of had the theidea of, okay, it's now
I can do.
(06:18):
So it's a good time.
Yeah.
Right.
Well, we love your content.
I mean, you, you, you make itvery accessible, which I love
and it's very digestible.
A lot of the times you see someof the stuff and it goes way
over people's head, but you,you explain it in a way that
is very, like Isaid, accessible.
Yeah.
Yeah.
yeah, very like friendly,warm personality to listen to.
Thanks.
Thanks.
I think there's a feedback thatI get a lot from
the students too.
It's like we enjoy learningfrom you because we get a
(06:40):
conversation out of you.
Yeah, we don'tget an instructor.
There's justteaches something that's.
It could be so dry.
I love this industry, but itcould be so dry sometimes.
To learn about these conceptsbecause they are complicated,
is so complex.
There's so many things,so many levels and layers
to supply chain.
But I try to make it in a waythat it's a little bit more fun
so that you find thefun in this sort of industry
(07:01):
and feel.
So.
For those who are interested inpursuing a career in supply
chain management, what wouldyou say are the top ten things
that people should considerbefore stepping into the
industry?
Only ten.
Can I.
Get it if you want.
But do we have time?
Um, yeah, we'll focus in ten.
I think the ones that I like torun through, or the advice I
usually like to to give,is that the first one is that
you need to understandthe scope, right?
(07:23):
Um, there's so many differentareas and processes and
departments and individuals andcompanies and organizations
that operate with this withinthis whole big supply chain
umbrella that you need tounderstand how large this this
seems to be and how supplychain touches almost every
aspect of a business,and understanding that it's
(07:43):
going to be your first thinginto recognizing the impact
that supply chainshave on businesses and
commerce globally, right?
Not just you directly,but globally.
So I think understanding thescope that's really big, right?
The next thing I can say isthat because of how big it is
in scope, we do haveto focus on being data driven.
And we are an industry that isvery heavily reliant on data
(08:06):
and processing the data,analyzing the data and being
able to figure out whatto do with this data.
So if you don't like to do alot of the analytical thinking
or critical thinking.
From the data, it's not that.
You're not gonna like it.
You're gonna you're gonna beable to work with it.
We have tools special, you know,a lot of software and
stuff that that helps usbuild through that.
But you still need tounderstand the concepts of it.
(08:28):
So know that it's data driven.
Data is going to be reallyheavily within supply chain.
And you need to learn how towork these tools to to your
advantage within that.
Right.
Mhm.
I think the next thingwe can definitely say is within
supply chain, you need tohave people skills.
You're going to deal witha lot of people right back
to the scope.
There's so many things insupply chain and dealing and
knowing how to deal with peopleand having communication skills
(08:50):
that are really effective.
That's really going to guideyou and give you a good
direction within this industryin particular,
this field in particular.
Um, from there, we'd say alsowhen we're talking about
people skills, you also leadsort of into maybe management
skills as well, right?
It's not just being able tomanage and lead people, but you
can have projects that you haveto work on, right?
You're going to be able tomanage the resources that you
(09:14):
have within yoursupply chains, whether it's
your supply chain inyour business, or whether it is
the people that are functioningaround your your business.
So know how to manage peopleknow how to lead, and if
you don't, that's fine.
Everybody start somewhere,but know how to get to a point
that is going to make you agood leader, a good manager,
and that's eventually going tomake you help and grow your
(09:35):
career into something that'sgoing to fulfill you.
Right.
So I think management skills,people skills, they go
hand in hand.
Yeah, I.
Definitely think the.
Best managers are the oneswith people skills.
I would actually care.
About others feelings.
Exactly.
Empathy is a thing.
It's a.
Right.
Yeah.
I think we lacka lot of empathy sometimes.
Yeah, you're totally right.
Within that.
I think it also goes intoknowing how to network.
(09:56):
That's another tip right?
Knowing how to network.
And I get it is hard for people.
I'm an introvert.
It's not like my favorite thing.
To do, right?
Yeah.
It's not my favorite thing toto be out there and put myself
out there and to network.
Right.
And now post-Covid,everything's online and people
find it a little bit harder todo the sort of networking that
we used to do back in the.
Day hibernated for two.
(10:16):
Years.
We're so out of practice withthis whole interacting with
other humans thing.
What is that.
Face to.
Face?
You're kidding me.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it's.
Yeah, it is very difficult forpeople that don't feel
comfortable withnetworking to network.
And I tell that tothe students all the time.
I'm like, please network.
You're going to meet a lotof people, whether it's in
your program, other students,your colleagues, people,
(10:38):
faculty, whoever it is thatyou meet, have the opportunity
and meet these people.
Hear their stories,share your story.
And with doing that,you're not just, you know,
getting friendly with peopleyou're going to work with
eventually at all these levelsof the supply chain.
But they might be anopportunity there for you to
grow your career eventually.
Hey, I know this person,and this person gave me an
introduction andthere's this opening.
You know how.
(10:59):
A lot of it.
Who?
You know, I feel likeI don't have to explain.
This interview is happeningbecause of networking, right?
So there you go.
We wouldn't all be herewith without networking.
Exactly, exactly, exactly.
Right, right.
We saw an opportunity to dosomething that we share within
the company field, andwe took it with them.
Right.
It could be a littlescary for people.
I get it, I know,I understand it, but I tried to
tell as soon as I gotit right, everybody, hey,
I don't I don't I don'twant to seem like I'm beating
(11:20):
at that horse.
But yes.
that work field sort of thatthat need and that advantage
that eventually is going tobring you to your career
because you will see it.
Believe me, you will.
It's going to be worth theinvestment to do that.
So definitely.
Yeah.
Within that, um,something else, another thing
you should know about a Koreansupply chain, I think that, uh,
pressure and howto handle pressure.
(11:41):
I think that not alot of people like to deal
with pressure, or they like ajob that they don't feel so
rushed to do things that mightnot be the case in supply chain
or an environment orsupply chain, right?
I guess you can't really bechill when things are,
you know, that hingingon the success of your
business exactly right.
And how you're so connectedto everything else.
And like one thing flowsto the next and everything
(12:02):
is so interconnected.
So you are bound to have alevel of pressure that you're
going to need tobe able to handle that.
Right.
You need tohandle that internally.
You figure out how todo that on your own.
That's how youryour are individually.
Figure out how youhandle pressure, but also learn
how to handle pressureusing tools, using ways to
handle the pressure thatlogistics and supply chain and
inventory management andprocurement and warehousing and
(12:24):
transportation and all thesedifferent things that,
you know, within supply chainthat are going to give you.
Ideally, everybody wantseverything to go smoothly,
but there's bound to tosomething to go wrong, right?
So know how to handle thepressure and be able to.
Problem solved.
Can I ask what is procurement?
I'm still a new.
Sourcing sort of sourcing.
(12:44):
Procurement comes withpurchasing buying, sourcing.
If you're a manufacturer oryou're trying to
build something,produce something, then you're
going to need to makea product happen.
And by that, you haveto source and procure and buy
material resources or.
The.
For the process of sourcing.
Yes.
Process of sourcing.
Right.
Buying what you needto make something you're going
to sell.
(13:04):
Okay.
Thank you.
There you go.
That's easy to say.
You know, a rainbow.
Yeah, I love that.
Um, but yeah, it's it's it'ssort of knowing how to handle
the pressure because there'sgoing to be a lot of pressure
put on you.
Right.
And again, backto the management skills
and people skills.
Not everybody has it.
It's not common sense.
Not everybody has common sense.
(13:24):
But you know, it's it'smanagement skills are going to
be difficult for peopleto lead somebody.
Right.
And if they don't have thetools and how to tell you how
to handle pressure, that's goingto be a nightmare to deal with.
So know how todo that internally.
You're going to face pressure.
How are you going to handlethat pressure so that you don't
drive yourself crazy?
Because now we work.
We want what workin life balance.
Mental health is sucha big thing.
(13:44):
I'm very I'm anadvocate of that.
Right.
And be in an environmentthat yeah, it's tough.
Right.
But then, you know,the pressure's going to give
you a good diamond.
Yeah.
Right.
You put pressure intosomething's gonna give you
a good result.
So figure out how to deal withit and handle it well.
So moving along to the next oneI think when we deal with
supply chain we deal supplychain in terms and stuff.
But we also haveto think about the future.
And thinking about that is howwe are structuring our supply
(14:07):
chains now to beenvironmentally conscious,
socially responsible,so important, and integrating
things into it that makes oursupply chains more aware of
our environments, right.
The environment as a whole.
We see with climate changereliever or not, we see the
effects of what climate ishappening and how it affects us.
And if we can havea little part into not making
the problem bigger.
(14:27):
And if we can have thementality of building our
supply chains in a way that itdoesn't damage, hurt or create
a bigger burden onour environment, that we should
definitely do that.
And us as professionals in thecareer that you're going to
go into, sort of figure thatthat is something that you,
as an individual need to havein mind so that you can propose
and put things into motionwith your organization.
(14:49):
Right?
Yeah.
Be socially responsible andconscious.
Right.
It's not just about procurementand sourcing the products
you're going to makeand build into a product.
Where are they coming from?
Are they being sourced fromsomewhere that's, you know,
responsible?
That you don't have childlabor involved, that you're not
breaking so many laws andthings that are going
to affect, you know,your whole globe,
your whole world, right.
So I think that's that's a bigthing that I always like
(15:11):
to tell students.
And about your career.
Think, think about that andwhat the future means.
Yeah.
I mean, it's so important.
I think that,like you're saying,
everything kind of hingeson supply chain.
So having it get thatsustainability right there
built in at the base level andeveryone else can kind
of follow suit.
It'll trickle down.
Yeah.
It's really smart.
Yeah.
No, I totally agree.
Um, something else totake it into that direction.
(15:32):
Also that, um, within a greensupply chain, you're going to
have a lot of opportunitieswithin supply chain.
So understand that there's manydifferent things that you can
do and be able to identify howto take advantage of that,
not advantage.
I don't like the wordthe answers, but take the
opportunity as it comes to youso that you're able to
build on that.
Right.
So lots of opportunities.
(15:53):
Take advantage of that.
That leads me to the next thing.
Build your knowledge base.
If you see theseopportunities happening,
it's not just knowing well,yeah, it's an opportunity.
I don't feel like I'mgreat at it.
I don't know how to handle it.
Am I going to be good?
Yeah.
It's okay to have some doubts,but know that if you're able to
build your skill setand build your knowledge base,
that's going to make youstronger candidate for whatever
is going to face youin your career.
(16:14):
And then eventually the lastthing I'm going to say,
because I don't want to soundlike I'm going too long,
but the next thing I want tosay is always think of yourself
as a lifelong learning.
The continuouslearning, continuous.
Learning student.
Always a.
Student in whatever aspectof your life.
Always be a student,but especially within supply
chain because of so manydifferent elements that come
into play in supply chainin your organizations.
(16:36):
Think of yourself asa lifelong learner.
Build yourself as a way to.
Yes, you're in this position.
Great.
But what can I do?
What can I learn to buildmyself up to the next one?
Or what can I do to learn moreabout what happens in our
company and oursupply chain internally?
Externally?
What are some of the thingsright that are out there?
And think of yourself always ashaving this mindset of building
(16:58):
your career forward with beinga lifelong learner,
lifelong student.
I imagine that things areconstantly evolving and
changing and whatnot, so keepingup with that is probably really,
really important.
So I never stopped learning.
Totally agree.
So next you want to tackle oneof the most important topics.
And it always feels likesuch a mystery to me.
Maybe because I'm not anumbers person, but we want to
dive into whatis demand forecasting.
(17:20):
And I know Jared knowsa lot about it, but.
I'm sure not as much as you.
Not trying to steal thespotlight or anything.
Can I say before?
Lifelong learning?
Yeah.
But for those whoare still learning like me.
Like, could you explain theconcept of a demand forecasting?
Uh, yeah.
So basically, um,in the forecast, we're,
we're looking to dois predict future consumer
or customer demand.
That's the big objective, right?
(17:41):
If you could take one thingaway from this in demand
forecasting is that you need tobe able to predict
future customer demand.
And we do this byusing several tools.
Right.
And several ways and methods.
And I don't want to gettoo technical, but just to give
you like an idea, right.
We use quantitativeand qualitative data.
The quantitative data is goingto be the solid numbers that
you were talking about.
(18:02):
I'm focusing in on like it.
So that sort ofthing is a historical data.
The sales data the numbersside of things.
Right.
Nice and well, we all lovenumbers if we do.
And then you alsohave the qualitative side of
things, right.
What are someof the market trends?
What are people work consumertrends that we're seeing?
What are some of the experts inthe field that you're
functioning in or you're tryingto sell your product in?
So in a business in itself,our purpose of a business is
(18:25):
to make money.
And how do we make money?
We sell things, right or weprovide a service, right?
I always tell people,don't just think of supply
chains as products.
You can also have supply chainswithin service industries.
So we want to sellas a business.
We want to sell something.
And in order to do that,we need to have enough demand
and we need tohave enough supply.
Back to economics one on oneand back to business one on one.
(18:46):
Supply and demand.
The supply is going tobe you providing that product,
you providing that good.
But you need to understandwho's going to look for
that demand, who's going tolook for that product.
That's where we tryto do in demand forecast
seeing demand planning.
We try to foresee in our nicelittle crystal ball that
sometimes it works,sometimes it doesn't.
Sometimes we break it inis shatters, but other times we
(19:08):
try to forecast or foresee thefuture or what the consumer
demand is going to look like.
What does that consumerwant to buy from us?
Do they even wantto buy from us ?
And there's so many differentparts and elements that we need
to understand in order topredict that as close as we can
to the actual demand andwithout too many errors in
that demand, and thenthat plan, why demand
(19:30):
forecasting is so important?
Because from that demand planthat we decide from the sales,
from the numbers, fromwhat the market's telling us,
that's going to flow intoour supply plan.
The supply pen is whatare we going to produce?
What is goingto be manufactured ?
What are our operations goingto do once we tell them, hey,
there's this demand forX, Y, and Z products.
(19:51):
We need to build thismany units, and we need to put
that into a supply plan that'sgoing to flow to the different
people within our supply chain.
So we start to see, right howthe man forecasting them.
And planning is so important,because it's going to build a
foundation into what the restof our operations and
manufacturing procurements,I'm sorry, in production.
Yeah.
Eventually procurement andproduction is going to need to
(20:12):
achieve as well.
Right.
A good example that Ilike to give students is the
example of, of a vehicle orbeing in a vehicle.
And I always tell the studentsI drilled this into
their brains, right.
The consumer is thedriver of the supply chain.
That's one of the thingsthat you learned.
First thing in Introduction toSupply Chain and Supply
Chain Management principles.
The consumer is thedriver of the supply chain.
(20:33):
And that goes backto demand forecasting as well.
You have to think of yourselfas a professional in supply
chain and all of us working insupply chain management are
inside this one vehicle.
And unfortunately,or fortunately for us,
there's this entity that'sdriving this vehicle.
You have no controlover this entity.
You have no control overwhat they do.
And they are the consumer.
(20:54):
This consumer is behindthe wheel, chugging along,
blasting the music, driving.
That vehicle.
Before.
You make it sound so scary.
Because it is.
Yeah, but it is.
Inside this vehicle that you asa professional, all of us
as professionals, all of us,our companies are chugging
along stuff into it like aclown car and this vehicle and
(21:16):
that the consumer is the driver.
And they're going to decide,okay, where are we going to stop
?
Where are we going to eat?
Where are we going to rest?
Where are we going to shop?
Where are we going to do?
And we have no control overthat vehicle and where
the vehicle goes.
The only thing we could do assupply to professionals in
demand forecasting is predictwhat that consumer is
going to go.
And we do that based on okay.
(21:36):
In this particular route.
Where do they go before inthe past, where did they stop
in the past?
Where do they want to eat?
What did they want to do.
And we look at thatand we check.
Their behaviors.
Track their behaviors.
Exactly.
We track the behaviors becausewe want to see or predict what
What are they going to do next?
Where is the vehicle heading?
Right.
And we do that because we wantto make sure that our supply
(21:58):
team is being reactiveto the consumer.
The consumer hasthe buying power.
And without that buying poweryou can have the best product
in the world.
But if that product is notbeing sold or bought by
a consumer, then youdon't have a business, right?
Unfortunately, you don'thave a business.
I like to sell everythingto everybody, but you can't.
You need to thinkabout your consumer.
Right.
And that's the scenario that Igive the students that I
(22:20):
think they enjoy.
Because like you said, you seehow chaotic it could be.
Yeah.
And out of control.
You can feel if you'renot the one behind the wheel
making the decisions.
You do make decisions, but youmake them based on what this
consumer is going to do.
And you have maybe very limitedcontrol to what they do.
What they decide to do is goingto be determined by a number of
(22:40):
factors internal factors,external factors,
internal factors, whether theylive, how much
they make, what is it,the graphics of this particular
consumer and the market thatthey exist or live in, and then
external factors that could beeverything from the economy,
the government,the weather, Covid.
That was something thataffected consumer behavior is
(23:01):
always tell that now,you know, consumer behavior is
completely different post-Covid.
There's a consumer pre-COVIDand a consumer post-Covid,
right, that thatchanged the behaviors of
the consumer tremendously.
And we have to understand thatand see that, hey, how do we
identify that and how does thataffect their consumer?
These internal factors andthese external factors are
going to affect howthat driver drives.
(23:22):
Right.
So I love touse that as an example.
That's a really good example.
You can really visualize it.
Yeah.
Right.
It gives you that vision of ohmy God, I'm not I'm not.
At the wheel.
No backseat driving there.
Yeah I mean, you.
Always run promotions and dothings that the consumer might.
Okay.
So I guess there'ssome backseat driving.
Yeah, there's some marketing togoing on there.
A little marketing that you cando and push the consumer,
(23:44):
but you can'talways decipher them.
Right.
You're not going to pull theirwallet out and say, yeah,
you're going to buy from me.
You can do that.
We'd all have successfulbusinesses if that
was an argument.
I'm not trying togive anybody ideas.
Don't rob people.
So when I do,corporate training is a little
bit of a different level, right?
There's people that havealready worked in the industry.
They know about theirself.
They have a particularstructure in their in their
(24:05):
setup in their company.
So I tell them, you have tothink of yourself as a
as a detective.
And we're sort of walking,think of yourself as walking
into maybe like a store, right.
And the store is going to sellall these products, and you
have to think of these productsas looking at things
that are missing.
Why did thisproduct go missing ?
Why did this productrun off the shelf?
What should be therein that in that space?
(24:27):
And you put your detective haton and you look for for clues
and you look at finding thingsand you you look at
certain things, right?
Historical data, sales data.
And you look at what, what aresome of the consumer trends
happening?
What is what is happening outthere in the market?
Because as a detective,you need to figure out, okay,
what am I going to bring backand put on those shelves?
(24:48):
The man forecasting helpsyou do that.
That helps you figure out yourdetective a job by being able
to tell and figure out why didthe consumer commit the crime?
What is the crime?
Buying.
Why did they decide to buythese items and why did they
move off the shelves?
Right.
That is your purpose todo that, right?
And in this, um, the manforecasting true crime drama.
(25:10):
We intrigue.
I love.
Intrigue, mystery, passion.
Um, you need tofigure out as a detective,
figure out what happened.
Like who did it, whodone it, what happened with
what weapon, what?
All of this.
You need to figure this outbecause all this information
is it's gold.
It's what's going to help youmake the next cycle, your next
(25:31):
period of time that your demandfor guessing for be more
accurate if you look atthese clues correctly.
Okay.
So using that example,actually you're saying we're
all detectivesworking supply chain.
So so I mean, when a detectivearrives to a crime scene, a lot
of times they'll, you know,they'll tape off the
crime scene, will draw thechalk around the body and
all that stuff.
Right?
Yeah.
(25:51):
All these best practices.
So are there any, like, kind ofbest practices that you would
like the equivalent as like asupply chain and logistics?
Yeah.
So um, I like tothere's so many best practices.
Right.
If you ask somebody everybody'sgoing to give you
a different opinion.
Right.
But I like to focus on three.
So the three the three that Ilike to focus is, is being data
driven collaboration andinformation sharing and
(26:14):
bringing in andintegrating new technologies.
So it's I think it's acombination of these that are
going to give you some of thebest practices for getting the
best results out of your demandforecasting and the strategies
that you implement onceyou put that into motion.
Right.
Mhm.
So what does thedata driven approach look like.
So when we talk about a datadriven approach in supply chain
management or always sort ofthinking about or essentially
(26:39):
we want we have so much data.
Right.
We talked about this data.
It's heavy on data when we talkabout supply chain management.
But you need to beable to gather all this data.
Figure out a way toprocess it and then analyze it.
So eventually you can get adecision out of this data.
So the best practice is togather the data and have some
sort of means or ways and havesystems and, and things in
(27:01):
place that are going to helpyou process this data because
you sit down and do everythingmanually and believe me, I know
people that do.
I know people.
That do, and I know peoplethat like, still like to do the
good old fashioned way.
But now we've become so heavyon the data sets and the value
sets that we consume and thatwe eventually use within supply
chain management and demandforecasting as a
(27:22):
best practice, that you need tobe able to process that data
accurately so that you yeah,you have good data come in,
but you analyze your processes.
So you make good decisions andyou have good decisions come
out of it.
So that's what I meanlike with that.
Right.
And we do thatby gathering historical data,
the sales numbers,the information as closely as
to the time that ishappening as possible.
(27:42):
And another part of that isalso getting not just the data
and the numbers,but also gathering insights
and market trends.
Right.
What is the market doing orwhat is happening within the
market then that we can take alook and take some clues, right.
Back to the detective thing.
Get some clues fromfrom the market and
gather that information.
Right.
(28:03):
We could do that.
We used to do that.
If you ever got in the mailback in the day, you get the
mail and the surveysin the mail.
You would have to mailit back, right?
That's not what we do.
We survey consumersin different ways.
And now even more so we look atwhat consumers are doing
on social media.
Right.
It's not just posting thatselfie of that great cup
of coffee, but it's also how usas a business can see.
(28:24):
Not to sound creepy, how we cansee what the consumers are
doing and what some of thetrends that are happening in
this particular area thatrevolves around the supply
chains and what are the mandcan benefit from those
from those trends.
Right.
And the companies that do itbest are the ones that identify
those trends early on.
So they can be on that curvethat's going to lead them to to
be able to put that to marketearlier than everybody else.
(28:45):
Right.
The first one to theball gets gets the, you know,
takes the game.
It's sort of that situation.
Right.
And we do that thatway now in this as well.
When we talk about informationand and data, we need to be
able to use advanced analytics.
And we need to be using goodforecasting models to be able
to not just have this data,but be able to do something
with the data.
(29:05):
Right.
And within this data drivenapproach is always about the
use of systems and how we canuse statistical algorithms and
technology likemachine learning, AI to be able
to enhance the accuracy of ourforecasts and how we can bring
that in and combinethe two our knowledge,
our information, our data,and then these tools,
these tech tools that we canintroduce into it now to make
(29:28):
our jobs easier.
I always say, whydo it the hard way?
Don't do it the hard way.
Bring something that's alittle bit more.
That's going to give you a toolthat's much better for you,
so that you can take advantageof that as well, and implement
that in a way thatgives you a better result.
So you mentioned that the nextcategory is collaboration
and information sharing.
Can you kind of go a littlemore into detail about that?
(29:49):
Yeah.
So we want to worktogether as a team within
supply chain trade.
right?
Um, we always used to think ofsecrecy as the first thing of
of keeping everything withinour organizations very close
to our chest.
Right.
But I think now and I thinkfrom here on out, we always
want to focus on collaborationand collaboration and
information sharing, because wewant to make sure that we're
(30:13):
not duplicating the work morethan we have to.
Right?
So in that we do this,this sort of practice is called
unifying demand insights.
We bring everybody in that wecan we bring in sales.
We bring in production,we bring in the forecasters in
the procurement, and we bringeverybody that's going to have
some sort of input within ourdemand plans, and we're going
(30:35):
to ask them to work together sowe can unify the effort into
creating a demand plan that'sgoing to make the most sense if
we integrate all thesedifferent data sets, if we
integrate all these differentexperts and people within
our organization, and then wecan ask them together, what is
the best thing that we can dowith this one demand plan?
Because you're only going tohave one demand plan,
one forecast for whatevertime frame, but one of them
(30:58):
for your organization.
And if we can all come togetherand work together as a team,
then that's going to reallybuild on a much
better demand plan.
And that's alwaysa best practice.
Yeah, I love that.
Yeah.
I mean, work makesthe dream work.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Right I love that, right?
I mean, siloing informationis never great.
It's something I think it's avery old school mentality
that like, knowledge is power.
So people are so precious aboutkeeping that close
(31:18):
to their chest.
But I think in the modern day,people are starting to realize
that it's better to have thatgood information flow, you know?
Yeah, definitely.
Definitely.
I think that we'rein the age of information.
We're in the age of AI.
Right?
We are we're we're getting somuch information even from
artificial intelligence now,not just people.
And I think, yeah,it's all about unifying that,
making sure that all of us areworking together to to do one,
(31:40):
one single task that we don'thave to repeat itself over
and over again.
So when it comes to integratingnew technologies, what would be
your main tips for this?
So I think when we're talkingabout integrating technologies
and supply chain management,I think it's really important
to use tools, and technology isgoing to help your operations
boost your operations.
One of them thatis really crucial is real
time data analytics.
(32:00):
So you have allthis information, all this data
and there's this, this jokeor this, this thing that we we
say within demand forecasting,you're planning for the future
based on the whimsof yesterday, right?
Based on what the populationand the people did yesterday.
We're doing that today withoutthat real data.
Real time data.
(32:20):
So why do that?
Now we have the tools to lookat the information and the wind
and and what people wantto do today in real time.
We see something moveout the shelf.
We can see thatin our systems right away.
We can see as that product ismoving out of the shelves right
away and sharing thatinformation back with everybody
else that is involved in thatsupply chain, that it's
(32:41):
it's so crucial.
And so it makes sucha big difference.
Right.
So the technology wouldbe to incorporate that
real time analytics.
And we do that throughthe use of machine learning
and AI systems.
I think Inflo has a greatability to do that.
Right.
Yeah.
Thank you.
We thank you forbringing that up.
We do.
In fact, I want.
To talk all about myself.
Yeah.
No inflow is great for that.
We have we have realtime data tracking.
(33:03):
So you know exactly what'sgoing on in your system when
it's happening,which is amazing.
We have agreat reporting feature.
So we have like we're obviouslyvery data driven as well.
We even have like a reorderpoint system where like our our
software will help you figureout what the best
reorder points are.
So you're not ordering too muchor too little of anything.
Yeah.
Like we're all about thedata for sure.
And that's part that'spart of the next thing.
(33:23):
Right.
Another best practice is tobring in real.
It's not just a real time databut big data analytics.
Right.
It's putting all thisinformation in and having
something that is able toprocess it and give you a help.
You make abetter decision, right,
and better informed decision.
And having systems in placelike that, it's what's going to
really the technology is goingto drive us all forward.
And you don't haveto be afraid of it.
(33:44):
You just have to know how towork those tools to incorporate
them and become abest practice within your
demand forecasting,demand planning, supply chain
management as a whole.
Right.
Mhm.
Um, another technology that Ithink a lot of people either
have heard or they're startingto hear a lot more
is predictive analytics.
So within this big data,within this real time data,
(34:05):
we also want to be able to notjust use the system to process
the data and give usa analytic report.
Now there's ways to do that andhave a predictive analysis.
Tell the system, let the systemtell you what they think is
going to happen.
And then based you take thatand then based on that,
you're going to make abetter informed decision.
Right.
And I love that because it'snot just okay, don't tell me
(34:27):
what to do, but insome ways do tell me.
Tell me what to do.
Please tell me what to do.
Take that off my plate.
And if you can't,please do it right.
I all of these things.
Don't be afraid of it.
And I and I tell that to thestudents more recently,
now that I'm starting.
I'm not an expert on this.
I can't claim to be an experton AI and all this stuff, but I
(34:47):
do have some sort ofinformation and I like
to inform myself.
Lifelong learner here.
Mhm.
How to to to douse some of these tools.
Right.
And how they're going to comein and leverage some of the
other things that we havewithin supply chain and demand
planning and how that's goingto be implemented.
So always always learn aboutthose stuff and don't be
afraid of it.
Right.
It's a technology that's somepeople say, and I hear this
(35:08):
all the time.
It's going to take away jobsand it's going to it's going to
replace a lot ofthe things that we do.
To some extent, unfortunately,that is the case.
But then to some other extent,you have to be aware of it and
be ahead of the ball and say,you know, how am I going to use
this as a tool?
We're always going toneed to have that human
factor of things.
Right?
Exactly.
All of us are still going tohave to come in and tell the,
the intelligence what to dowith the AI, what to.
(35:29):
Do.
Until.
Skynet.
Yeah, exactly.
Until Skynet.
To put it out.
There.
Yeah.
But but.
Yeah, that.
They're listening.
Um.
So.
Yeah.
So don't be afraid of it.
Right.
You're going to be ableto use this as a tool.
Think of it as a tool that'sgoing to make you a
better professional,that's going to make you
a better, you know,supply chain professionals,
(35:49):
a whole a betterthan man planner.
But at the man forecaster,it's going to make you better
by using these tools.
So don't don't beafraid to do that right.
And another best practicewithin the man forecasting
is cloud computing.
Right.
And this is sort ofwe're going back.
This is not a technology that'snew that but this is something
that I, I always like to put inhere because I always like to
have the message out there thatthe least level you can do is
(36:12):
have something that'scloud based, have your systems
run in a system thatis at least cloud based.
Why?
Because that leads to betterintegration of your efforts,
right?
We talkedabout sharing information
and unifying efforts.
Right.
When you at least have a cloudbased system, then you're able
to do this in a cloud.
Everybody has access to putdata in everybody's access
to that data.
Everybody has has a wayto work from that one
(36:34):
particular cloud.
And that's at least as a base.
Right.
And when we talk to a lot ofsmall businesses in corporate
training that we do, and wetalk to them and we try to get
them out of this bubble of howthey are used to doing things
and push them a little to seethat there are better ways to
do things that are notgoing to be so scary.
Get your feet wetinto cloud computing.
And then from there, maybe wetalk about machine learning,
(36:56):
and maybe then we're talkingabout other other technology,
but at the very least, do somecloud computing and cloud based
computing for your supply chain.
You're the man forecasteverything that deals with
this collaboration approach.
Yeah, I mean, inflow actuallystarted off as an on premise
software as a solution.
Right.
right?
So there wasn't cloudbased at all.
And of course, we saw thebenefits of going to the cloud
gives you real time data.
(37:16):
You can multiple locations canshare information a lot easier.
So yeah, we definitely movedinto that field.
And it became so popular soquick that we just completely
stopped with ouron premise entirely.
Wow.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So you can seethe benefits of it, right?
I think everybody should thatworks in supply chain and ready
to secure to do it.
Don't be scared to scared.
Do it.
I do have a little questionabout going back to AI because
(37:38):
it's such a hot topic.
Um, did you do you find insupply chain and logistics,
it's used mostly justfor like, you know,
digesting data and making senseof that data.
Or are we seeing any morein like, you know, I see on
like LinkedIn, like robotscarrying boxes or like pallet
moving pallets and whatnot.
Is is AI being implemented intolike automation at all or is it
just really fordigesting the information?
(37:59):
Like I said, I'm not an expertof it, so I'm still learning
from it, from what I can seeand I'm familiar with, I do see
the data analytics sideof things, right.
How it helps us process data.
That's the first impact,the first interaction that I've
had when it comes towarehousing and the structures
of operations within warehousingand transportation, I knew I
know that the systems arestarting to incorporate, WMS are
starting to work withAI and machine learning to
(38:19):
figure out what are the bestaccommodations and capacities
for warehouses, right?
How can we base structure thisthis structure that we have?
How can we do the to the bestcapacity and how could we bring
in robotics, you know, AI andall these different tools to
make our operationsa lot better?
Right.
That's because that is a muchbigger investment for companies
(38:41):
and for for people todo and to learn about.
I think that is not somethingthat we see so frequently,
and I think onthe larger companies have done
that right.
Walmart, Amazon, they have the.
Budget for it.
Because you do need tohave the budget.
Is that money, money, money?
Yeah.
You do need to have thatinvestment to be able to
incorporate those thosethose systems, that technology.
(39:01):
When it comes to data, it's notsuch a big investment, right?
You're able to have system andsoftware that are much
more accessible, takes less ofa learning curve.
And there were able toadapt much easier.
So why not that be theintroduction into some of the
tools that youdo within AI, right.
And eventually, if that helpsbuild a stronger AI based
supply chain as awhole, why not ?
(39:22):
We welcome that.
So to wrap things up,what would you say are some of
the key takeaways for thoselooking to improve their career
and take their knowledgeto the next level?
Um, I don't I don't want tosound repetitive, but it goes
back to always be opento learning, right?
Be a lifelong student,be a lifelong learner,
because that's always going tobuild your skill set right.
And it's going to help youbuild a better career that
(39:42):
makes the mostsense to you, right?
Figure out what it is that youwant to do personally, what you
want to do professionally,and try to figure out a career
path that makes the mostsense to you.
I like to take the students.
This little tidbit is look atwhat ultimately what position
you want to do right?
What is the ultimategoal in your career?
What ultimately do you envisionyourself doing as far as a
(40:02):
position right?
What is your dream positionlike and then sort of work your
way backwards from that?
Figure out what isthe career path from that.
Don't just figure out, yeah,I'm going to go to school.
Yeah, I'm going to get a degree.
Yeah okay.
Hopefully it helps.
But no try to build away that it goes a blueprint
backwards.
Right.
What is ultimatelythe building, the construction
you want to do and what is thatcareer in that ultimate goal in
(40:22):
your career?
A position maybe open yourown business, logistics or
whatever might be right?
What is ultimately what youwant to do that makes the most
sense for you as a professionaland your personal life,
everything as a whole,and then build yourself
backwards from that.
What I try to do that with theMVC Logistics Academy is sort
of bring that connectionto students, right?
If you're sort of lost as whatto do, that's what I like to do.
(40:45):
I like to tell you the toolsthat you can use to build your
career from that.
Right.
And the way that I've done thatis by building some courses.
And I build, for example,this course that we rolling out
is called the Advance DemandForecasting Masterclass.
The master class is such apopular word now, but is the
Advanced DemandForecasting masterclass.
And in this masterclass, if youreally want to know about
(41:05):
demand forecasting, this iswhere we tell you the nitty
gritty of ofdemand forecasting, right?
So you're going to learn like adeep dive into what the
man forecasting is.
So that course is great forpeople interested in that.
Another course that we have issort of like the introduction
for people that arejust starting, just kind of get
their feet wet and wantto find out.
Exactly.
Okay, I've heard this, but whatis it we have?
I built this course that I thatit took me a while to
(41:28):
build this course.
Because always your first babyis like the one that you put
the most work into.
And the intro to supplychain management, that was
my first baby.
That is the one that I put somuch time and love into because
I was like, all right, this iswhat I'm going to pour my soul
into this cause.
And as the introduction tosimulation management and it's
sort of if you're starting.
It's a great way to get your,your intro into the field or if
(41:49):
you're somebody that's alreadyin there, how to refresh some
of the things on the conceptsthat you've learned or know,
but how to really,really know exactly what
we're talking about.
Right.
And then also within that andfrom that inception of the
baby of, of the of the course,I sort of build in the coaching
and the mentoringprogram into, into that
as well, because it's not justlearning the material, but how
(42:10):
do I put this intomotion in my own career?
Is this something that I'mgoing to be able to really
actually make ithappen for myself?
Right.
I just want topay for something.
I want to be ableto get something out of it.
And I try to helpstudents with that as well.
And then also, you know,we have some great free
resources on the site.
We call this the Career andLife Assessment, which is
basically sort of thissort of questionnaire.
(42:32):
They have to be really honestwith yourself, and you have to
go through it and sit down andtake your time and you sort of
see what are some of the thingsthat you're going to have to do
personally and professionally,and what's going to make the
most sense for you to build acareer that's going to really
fulfill you, but also thatmakes the most sense for you
and your family, right?
Because we all have commitments.
We all got bills to pay.
We can't just drop and say,we're going to go and build my
(42:52):
career supply chain.
No, you have to do itconsciously in a way that makes
the most sense to you, right?
Make the commitment.
Yes, of course, be 100%in the class in that course,
in that mentoring, but alsoknow how it's going to affect
the rest of your life.
So the assessment is great toolthat I always recommend
students to get, because it's asort of way of saying, okay,
let me be honest with myself.
What do I haveto do with the picture?
Yeah, exactly.
And what do I need toto, to do to make this happen?
(43:14):
Yeah.
I mean, I thinkit's great that you have.
Sounds like you have a lot ofthings for all different skill
levels and you know,so everyone kind of, you know,
either if you're just gettingstarted or if you want to learn
more and advance, you know,you got something you can
turn to, which is great.
Thanks.
Thanks, thanks.
All right, everybody, that is awrap on this episode.
Thank you so much toMaria for coming and talking
with us today.
It's been awesome.
(43:34):
A lot of great insights.
Yeah.
Of course if you guys haveany questions, make sure to
leave a comment below.
And for those whowant to dive deeper into
inventory management, where canthey go to find you?
Yeah.
So we have our website.
That's theNVC logistics Economy.com.
That's where we have all thecourses and posted that are
open for enrollment.
So you can check those out.
We also have the YouTubechannel which is an
MVC logistics academy.
(43:55):
We post a lot of great contentthere that you can consume as
however you like.
And we also haveour social media handles and
NVC Logistics Academy.
You can also get in touchwith me, send a message,
reach out whatever you want todo or you do socially.
We can you can dothat at NVC Logistics Academy.
Awesome.
So thanks so much forjoining us everyone.
We will see you inthe next episode.
And again thanks to Marinafor joining us.
(44:16):
Thank you guys okay.
Bye everybody.
Bye.
And then based on that,you're going to make a
better informed decision.
And I love thatbecause it's not just, okay.
Don't tell me what to do.
But in some ways, do tell me.
Tell me what to do.
Please tell me what to do.
Take that off my plate.
Hello everybody I'm Jared.
Hi, I'm Melinda, and welcomeback to The Secret Life
(00:20):
of Inventory, a showwhere we talk about all
things inventory.
In today's episode, we have avery special guest joining us
all the way fromnew Jersey, Maria Rodriguez.
Hello.
She is the founder of NVClogistics and was recently
named one of the top women inSupply Chain by Supply and
Demand Chain Executive Magazine.
Maria is also acollege instructor, a supply
chain executive with over 15years of experience.
(00:40):
She's a YouTuber extraordinairewith 17,000 subscribers,
and she's here today totalk about, you know, a lot
about some tips and tricks foranyone who's working in the
supply chain industry,some recommended tools for them
to further their career.
Um, and actually today we'regoing to be talking a lot about
demand forecastingand planning specifically.
Let's give her a warm welcome.
(01:00):
I love this and.
Feel very welcome.
Well hi Maria.
How are you doing today?
Good, good.
Doing great.
Thank you for having me.
Loving to be here.
So I know that we kindof gave you a, you know,
the abridged introduction,but maybe for the
the audience, you want to maybekind of go into your,
your origin story, if youwill, and let everyone
(01:21):
know how you got started insupply chain and logistics.
Sure.
Um, I started very young,I think, when I was about
14 or 15.
It's, um, sortof like unofficial introduction
into supply chain.
Um, I worked at this Koreanbeauty supply shop, and I think
even since then, Ihave, like, an obsession with
Korean beauty, skin care.
Maybe a little unhealthy, if youmight add, but I think
it is because I was so youngand I got introduced into this
(01:43):
retail space, andI loved it, right?
I did a lot of stockingthe shelves, that inventory,
that ordering,the customer service,
you name it, I did it.
That's when I wasin high school.
It was 14 or 15.
Stardom.
Young, huh?
Yeah, right.
And that was the unofficial,I like to call it
the unofficial start.
The official start.
When I was 18, I got a freightbrokerage company that I was
(02:05):
able to get a jobin there knowing zero about
logistics, zero.
But supply chain.
I had no idea whatsupply chain and logistics was.
I didn't even know that when Iwas 14, I was working on
something related to it.
When I was 18.
That's when I realized, okay,oh, I see this as an industry.
Let me let me look into it.
What does this about?
What does it look like?
And I got really started likeexcited to to go into it
as a career.
(02:25):
So from there yes, I said,okay, it's just a job I got.
This job is great, I love it,but what's more, and I decided
to get some degrees,working some stuff,
and eventually it led meto the opportunity to become an
instructor to teach.
And I think that's where Itruly found my passion.
I liked simple writing,working in simple content,
(02:46):
but I think I found my passionin teaching college and
teaching classes andteaching courses,
doing training, doing coaching.
That's what I really think.
It drove me to say, wow,this is something I see
myself doing lifelong.
And that's how I started.
And then the MVC LogisticsAcademy sort of came through
from that inspiration.
Okay, I see what we do withteaching college courses.
(03:07):
I see that side of education.
What can I do that can be alittle grain of salt into this
whole equation and buildsomething that anybody from any
kind of background or skilllevel can really build and grow
and have access to.
Right?
That's what I try todo with the with the Academy.
And, you know, hopefully it'sit's doing something that's
amazing and people arebenefiting from me somehow.
(03:30):
How long have you whendid you found the your academy?
It was right during Covid.
Oh, actually, perfect.
Time for it.
Yeah.
The pandemic?
Yeah.
I think a lot of people startednew endeavors around that time.
Right.
It was sort of like aninspiration of saying, okay,
I'm stuck at home,I'm working from home now.
I have a little bit more time.
My time was very structured.
pre-COVID, I was I did my mygraduate degree while I was
(03:52):
working full time.
I had this whole like schedulethat was very not flexible.
But then with Covid,everything changed.
So I was like, all right,I have a little bit more time.
What can Iinvest my creativity into?
Right?
And I said, letme see what's out there.
And I started googling stuffabout supply chain logistics,
supply chain degrees, programs.
And there was something thatseemed to me very, I don't want
(04:12):
to say unattainable, but it wassomething that wasn't like
everybody couldn'tidentify with them.
And I decided and I said, okay,what can I bring that that can
combine that sort of gap?
That's it out there with thecontent that we have already in
supply chain logistics in thisarea that can be more
accessible to what peoplelike to consume.
Now, people love to be on,you know, and TikTok blew up
(04:33):
during the pandemic, right?
TikTok and the sort of likeshorter kind of content.
It blew up.
So I said, let me see, what isit that I can do to kind of fit
what I know?
What I don't want to say?
I'm an expert, but what I knowa lot about, and I have learned
a lot about inthis experience, and how can I
bring in and put it towards theaudience that can actually see
and say, okay, I understand now,especially with Covid, Covid.
(04:55):
People started to see somuch happening with.
You know, you don't have toiletpaper on the shelves.
You know.
We always talk about toiletpaper on this podcast.
It does.
I think it's impacting becauseeverybody knows about it.
Yeah.
It's the perfect example,you know.
Right.
And you know, hand sanitizer,Lysol, whatever,
whatever you call it.
Right.
Yeah.
It was sort of this impact andshock of people, the consumer
(05:17):
seeing what's happening aroundme that I can't get the
products that I normally get.
Kind of takeit for granted, right?
Take it for.
Granted.
And I think it becamesort of this like, okay,
I'm curious about it.
And the news pickedup on it, right.
The news picks up on the stuffthat's going to get them
eyes in viewers.
So I said, oh, I see it.
There's sort of likethis little, you know, bleep of
of of an intro into what supplychain is from this side.
(05:38):
What can I do to add to it.
Yeah.
And learning online is like oneof the best ways right now
to super accessible.
Like you said.
I think people were willing tolearn online before I took
online classeswhen they started.
I don't want to age myself andcall myself old, but when they
were just rolling out allin classes, that was one of the
first ones to say, yeah,give me the online class.
I liked the setting,but everybody was sort of,
I don't want to say everybody,but a lot of people reluctant
(05:58):
to take online courses.
Covid happened.
You need to work from home.
You can't be in school.
You need to goand take your classes online.
And it pushed a lot of the thesociety and generation and
people to push intoan online setting.
And I think that helped as well.
So I saw that as well.
And I sort of had the theidea of, okay, it's now
I can do.
(06:18):
So it's a good time.
Yeah.
Right.
Well, we love your content.
I mean, you, you, you make itvery accessible, which I love
and it's very digestible.
A lot of the times you see someof the stuff and it goes way
over people's head, but you,you explain it in a way that
is very, like Isaid, accessible.
Yeah.
Yeah.
yeah, very like friendly,warm personality to listen to.
Thanks.
Thanks.
I think there's a feedback thatI get a lot from
the students too.
It's like we enjoy learningfrom you because we get a
(06:40):
conversation out of you.
Yeah, we don'tget an instructor.
There's justteaches something that's.
It could be so dry.
I love this industry, but itcould be so dry sometimes.
To learn about these conceptsbecause they are complicated,
is so complex.
There's so many things,so many levels and layers
to supply chain.
But I try to make it in a waythat it's a little bit more fun
so that you find thefun in this sort of industry
(07:01):
and feel.
So.
For those who are interested inpursuing a career in supply
chain management, what wouldyou say are the top ten things
that people should considerbefore stepping into the
industry?
Only ten.
Can I.
Get it if you want.
But do we have time?
Um, yeah, we'll focus in ten.
I think the ones that I like torun through, or the advice I
usually like to to give,is that the first one is that
you need to understandthe scope, right?
(07:23):
Um, there's so many differentareas and processes and
departments and individuals andcompanies and organizations
that operate with this withinthis whole big supply chain
umbrella that you need tounderstand how large this this
seems to be and how supplychain touches almost every
aspect of a business,and understanding that it's
(07:43):
going to be your first thinginto recognizing the impact
that supply chainshave on businesses and
commerce globally, right?
Not just you directly,but globally.
So I think understanding thescope that's really big, right?
The next thing I can say isthat because of how big it is
in scope, we do haveto focus on being data driven.
And we are an industry that isvery heavily reliant on data
(08:06):
and processing the data,analyzing the data and being
able to figure out whatto do with this data.
So if you don't like to do alot of the analytical thinking
or critical thinking.
From the data, it's not that.
You're not gonna like it.
You're gonna you're gonna beable to work with it.
We have tools special, you know,a lot of software and
stuff that that helps usbuild through that.
But you still need tounderstand the concepts of it.
(08:28):
So know that it's data driven.
Data is going to be reallyheavily within supply chain.
And you need to learn how towork these tools to to your
advantage within that.
Right.
Mhm.
I think the next thingwe can definitely say is within
supply chain, you need tohave people skills.
You're going to deal witha lot of people right back
to the scope.
There's so many things insupply chain and dealing and
knowing how to deal with peopleand having communication skills
(08:50):
that are really effective.
That's really going to guideyou and give you a good
direction within this industryin particular,
this field in particular.
Um, from there, we'd say alsowhen we're talking about
people skills, you also leadsort of into maybe management
skills as well, right?
It's not just being able tomanage and lead people, but you
can have projects that you haveto work on, right?
You're going to be able tomanage the resources that you
(09:14):
have within yoursupply chains, whether it's
your supply chain inyour business, or whether it is
the people that are functioningaround your your business.
So know how to manage peopleknow how to lead, and if
you don't, that's fine.
Everybody start somewhere,but know how to get to a point
that is going to make you agood leader, a good manager,
and that's eventually going tomake you help and grow your
(09:35):
career into something that'sgoing to fulfill you.
Right.
So I think management skills,people skills, they go
hand in hand.
Yeah, I.
Definitely think the.
Best managers are the oneswith people skills.
I would actually care.
About others feelings.
Exactly.
Empathy is a thing.
It's a.
Right.
Yeah.
I think we lacka lot of empathy sometimes.
Yeah, you're totally right.
Within that.
I think it also goes intoknowing how to network.
(09:56):
That's another tip right?
Knowing how to network.
And I get it is hard for people.
I'm an introvert.
It's not like my favorite thing.
To do, right?
Yeah.
It's not my favorite thing toto be out there and put myself
out there and to network.
Right.
And now post-Covid,everything's online and people
find it a little bit harder todo the sort of networking that
we used to do back in the.
Day hibernated for two.
(10:16):
Years.
We're so out of practice withthis whole interacting with
other humans thing.
What is that.
Face to.
Face?
You're kidding me.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it's.
Yeah, it is very difficult forpeople that don't feel
comfortable withnetworking to network.
And I tell that tothe students all the time.
I'm like, please network.
You're going to meet a lotof people, whether it's in
your program, other students,your colleagues, people,
(10:38):
faculty, whoever it is thatyou meet, have the opportunity
and meet these people.
Hear their stories,share your story.
And with doing that,you're not just, you know,
getting friendly with peopleyou're going to work with
eventually at all these levelsof the supply chain.
But they might be anopportunity there for you to
grow your career eventually.
Hey, I know this person,and this person gave me an
introduction andthere's this opening.
You know how.
(10:59):
A lot of it.
Who?
You know, I feel likeI don't have to explain.
This interview is happeningbecause of networking, right?
So there you go.
We wouldn't all be herewith without networking.
Exactly, exactly, exactly.
Right, right.
We saw an opportunity to dosomething that we share within
the company field, andwe took it with them.
Right.
It could be a littlescary for people.
I get it, I know,I understand it, but I tried to
tell as soon as I gotit right, everybody, hey,
I don't I don't I don'twant to seem like I'm beating
(11:20):
at that horse.
But yes.
that work field sort of thatthat need and that advantage
that eventually is going tobring you to your career
because you will see it.
Believe me, you will.
It's going to be worth theinvestment to do that.
So definitely.
Yeah.
Within that, um,something else, another thing
you should know about a Koreansupply chain, I think that, uh,
pressure and howto handle pressure.
(11:41):
I think that not alot of people like to deal
with pressure, or they like ajob that they don't feel so
rushed to do things that mightnot be the case in supply chain
or an environment orsupply chain, right?
I guess you can't really bechill when things are,
you know, that hingingon the success of your
business exactly right.
And how you're so connectedto everything else.
And like one thing flowsto the next and everything
(12:02):
is so interconnected.
So you are bound to have alevel of pressure that you're
going to need tobe able to handle that.
Right.
You need tohandle that internally.
You figure out how todo that on your own.
That's how youryour are individually.
Figure out how youhandle pressure, but also learn
how to handle pressureusing tools, using ways to
handle the pressure thatlogistics and supply chain and
inventory management andprocurement and warehousing and
(12:24):
transportation and all thesedifferent things that,
you know, within supply chainthat are going to give you.
Ideally, everybody wantseverything to go smoothly,
but there's bound to tosomething to go wrong, right?
So know how to handle thepressure and be able to.
Problem solved.
Can I ask what is procurement?
I'm still a new.
Sourcing sort of sourcing.
(12:44):
Procurement comes withpurchasing buying, sourcing.
If you're a manufacturer oryou're trying to
build something,produce something, then you're
going to need to makea product happen.
And by that, you haveto source and procure and buy
material resources or.
The.
For the process of sourcing.
Yes.
Process of sourcing.
Right.
Buying what you needto make something you're going
to sell.
(13:04):
Okay.
Thank you.
There you go.
That's easy to say.
You know, a rainbow.
Yeah, I love that.
Um, but yeah, it's it's it'ssort of knowing how to handle
the pressure because there'sgoing to be a lot of pressure
put on you.
Right.
And again, backto the management skills
and people skills.
Not everybody has it.
It's not common sense.
Not everybody has common sense.
(13:24):
But you know, it's it'smanagement skills are going to
be difficult for peopleto lead somebody.
Right.
And if they don't have thetools and how to tell you how
to handle pressure, that's goingto be a nightmare to deal with.
So know how todo that internally.
You're going to face pressure.
How are you going to handlethat pressure so that you don't
drive yourself crazy?
Because now we work.
We want what workin life balance.
Mental health is sucha big thing.
(13:44):
I'm very I'm anadvocate of that.
Right.
And be in an environmentthat yeah, it's tough.
Right.
But then, you know,the pressure's going to give
you a good diamond.
Yeah.
Right.
You put pressure intosomething's gonna give you
a good result.
So figure out how to deal withit and handle it well.
So moving along to the next oneI think when we deal with
supply chain we deal supplychain in terms and stuff.
But we also haveto think about the future.
And thinking about that is howwe are structuring our supply
(14:07):
chains now to beenvironmentally conscious,
socially responsible,so important, and integrating
things into it that makes oursupply chains more aware of
our environments, right.
The environment as a whole.
We see with climate changereliever or not, we see the
effects of what climate ishappening and how it affects us.
And if we can havea little part into not making
the problem bigger.
(14:27):
And if we can have thementality of building our
supply chains in a way that itdoesn't damage, hurt or create
a bigger burden onour environment, that we should
definitely do that.
And us as professionals in thecareer that you're going to
go into, sort of figure thatthat is something that you,
as an individual need to havein mind so that you can propose
and put things into motionwith your organization.
(14:49):
Right?
Yeah.
Be socially responsible andconscious.
Right.
It's not just about procurementand sourcing the products
you're going to makeand build into a product.
Where are they coming from?
Are they being sourced fromsomewhere that's, you know,
responsible?
That you don't have childlabor involved, that you're not
breaking so many laws andthings that are going
to affect, you know,your whole globe,
your whole world, right.
So I think that's that's a bigthing that I always like
(15:11):
to tell students.
And about your career.
Think, think about that andwhat the future means.
Yeah.
I mean, it's so important.
I think that,like you're saying,
everything kind of hingeson supply chain.
So having it get thatsustainability right there
built in at the base level andeveryone else can kind
of follow suit.
It'll trickle down.
Yeah.
It's really smart.
Yeah.
No, I totally agree.
Um, something else totake it into that direction.
(15:32):
Also that, um, within a greensupply chain, you're going to
have a lot of opportunitieswithin supply chain.
So understand that there's manydifferent things that you can
do and be able to identify howto take advantage of that,
not advantage.
I don't like the wordthe answers, but take the
opportunity as it comes to youso that you're able to
build on that.
Right.
So lots of opportunities.
(15:53):
Take advantage of that.
That leads me to the next thing.
Build your knowledge base.
If you see theseopportunities happening,
it's not just knowing well,yeah, it's an opportunity.
I don't feel like I'mgreat at it.
I don't know how to handle it.
Am I going to be good?
Yeah.
It's okay to have some doubts,but know that if you're able to
build your skill setand build your knowledge base,
that's going to make youstronger candidate for whatever
is going to face youin your career.
(16:14):
And then eventually the lastthing I'm going to say,
because I don't want to soundlike I'm going too long,
but the next thing I want tosay is always think of yourself
as a lifelong learning.
The continuouslearning, continuous.
Learning student.
Always a.
Student in whatever aspectof your life.
Always be a student,but especially within supply
chain because of so manydifferent elements that come
into play in supply chainin your organizations.
(16:36):
Think of yourself asa lifelong learner.
Build yourself as a way to.
Yes, you're in this position.
Great.
But what can I do?
What can I learn to buildmyself up to the next one?
Or what can I do to learn moreabout what happens in our
company and oursupply chain internally?
Externally?
What are some of the thingsright that are out there?
And think of yourself always ashaving this mindset of building
(16:58):
your career forward with beinga lifelong learner,
lifelong student.
I imagine that things areconstantly evolving and
changing and whatnot, so keepingup with that is probably really,
really important.
So I never stopped learning.
Totally agree.
So next you want to tackle oneof the most important topics.
And it always feels likesuch a mystery to me.
Maybe because I'm not anumbers person, but we want to
dive into whatis demand forecasting.
(17:20):
And I know Jared knowsa lot about it, but.
I'm sure not as much as you.
Not trying to steal thespotlight or anything.
Can I say before?
Lifelong learning?
Yeah.
But for those whoare still learning like me.
Like, could you explain theconcept of a demand forecasting?
Uh, yeah.
So basically, um,in the forecast, we're,
we're looking to dois predict future consumer
or customer demand.
That's the big objective, right?
(17:41):
If you could take one thingaway from this in demand
forecasting is that you need tobe able to predict
future customer demand.
And we do this byusing several tools.
Right.
And several ways and methods.
And I don't want to gettoo technical, but just to give
you like an idea, right.
We use quantitativeand qualitative data.
The quantitative data is goingto be the solid numbers that
you were talking about.
(18:02):
I'm focusing in on like it.
So that sort ofthing is a historical data.
The sales data the numbersside of things.
Right.
Nice and well, we all lovenumbers if we do.
And then you alsohave the qualitative side of
things, right.
What are someof the market trends?
What are people work consumertrends that we're seeing?
What are some of the experts inthe field that you're
functioning in or you're tryingto sell your product in?
So in a business in itself,our purpose of a business is
(18:25):
to make money.
And how do we make money?
We sell things, right or weprovide a service, right?
I always tell people,don't just think of supply
chains as products.
You can also have supply chainswithin service industries.
So we want to sellas a business.
We want to sell something.
And in order to do that,we need to have enough demand
and we need tohave enough supply.
Back to economics one on oneand back to business one on one.
(18:46):
Supply and demand.
The supply is going tobe you providing that product,
you providing that good.
But you need to understandwho's going to look for
that demand, who's going tolook for that product.
That's where we tryto do in demand forecast
seeing demand planning.
We try to foresee in our nicelittle crystal ball that
sometimes it works,sometimes it doesn't.
Sometimes we break it inis shatters, but other times we
(19:08):
try to forecast or foresee thefuture or what the consumer
demand is going to look like.
What does that consumerwant to buy from us?
Do they even wantto buy from us ?
And there's so many differentparts and elements that we need
to understand in order topredict that as close as we can
to the actual demand andwithout too many errors in
that demand, and thenthat plan, why demand
(19:30):
forecasting is so important?
Because from that demand planthat we decide from the sales,
from the numbers, fromwhat the market's telling us,
that's going to flow intoour supply plan.
The supply pen is whatare we going to produce?
What is goingto be manufactured ?
What are our operations goingto do once we tell them, hey,
there's this demand forX, Y, and Z products.
(19:51):
We need to build thismany units, and we need to put
that into a supply plan that'sgoing to flow to the different
people within our supply chain.
So we start to see, right howthe man forecasting them.
And planning is so important,because it's going to build a
foundation into what the restof our operations and
manufacturing procurements,I'm sorry, in production.
Yeah.
Eventually procurement andproduction is going to need to
(20:12):
achieve as well.
Right.
A good example that Ilike to give students is the
example of, of a vehicle orbeing in a vehicle.
And I always tell the studentsI drilled this into
their brains, right.
The consumer is thedriver of the supply chain.
That's one of the thingsthat you learned.
First thing in Introduction toSupply Chain and Supply
Chain Management principles.
The consumer is thedriver of the supply chain.
(20:33):
And that goes backto demand forecasting as well.
You have to think of yourselfas a professional in supply
chain and all of us working insupply chain management are
inside this one vehicle.
And unfortunately,or fortunately for us,
there's this entity that'sdriving this vehicle.
You have no controlover this entity.
You have no control overwhat they do.
And they are the consumer.
(20:54):
This consumer is behindthe wheel, chugging along,
blasting the music, driving.
That vehicle.
Before.
You make it sound so scary.
Because it is.
Yeah, but it is.
Inside this vehicle that you asa professional, all of us
as professionals, all of us,our companies are chugging
along stuff into it like aclown car and this vehicle and
(21:16):
that the consumer is the driver.
And they're going to decide,okay, where are we going to stop
?
Where are we going to eat?
Where are we going to rest?
Where are we going to shop?
Where are we going to do?
And we have no control overthat vehicle and where
the vehicle goes.
The only thing we could do assupply to professionals in
demand forecasting is predictwhat that consumer is
going to go.
And we do that based on okay.
(21:36):
In this particular route.
Where do they go before inthe past, where did they stop
in the past?
Where do they want to eat?
What did they want to do.
And we look at thatand we check.
Their behaviors.
Track their behaviors.
Exactly.
We track the behaviors becausewe want to see or predict what
What are they going to do next?
Where is the vehicle heading?
Right.
And we do that because we wantto make sure that our supply
(21:58):
team is being reactiveto the consumer.
The consumer hasthe buying power.
And without that buying poweryou can have the best product
in the world.
But if that product is notbeing sold or bought by
a consumer, then youdon't have a business, right?
Unfortunately, you don'thave a business.
I like to sell everythingto everybody, but you can't.
You need to thinkabout your consumer.
Right.
And that's the scenario that Igive the students that I
(22:20):
think they enjoy.
Because like you said, you seehow chaotic it could be.
Yeah.
And out of control.
You can feel if you'renot the one behind the wheel
making the decisions.
You do make decisions, but youmake them based on what this
consumer is going to do.
And you have maybe very limitedcontrol to what they do.
What they decide to do is goingto be determined by a number of
(22:40):
factors internal factors,external factors,
internal factors, whether theylive, how much
they make, what is it,the graphics of this particular
consumer and the market thatthey exist or live in, and then
external factors that could beeverything from the economy,
the government,the weather, Covid.
That was something thataffected consumer behavior is
(23:01):
always tell that now,you know, consumer behavior is
completely different post-Covid.
There's a consumer pre-COVIDand a consumer post-Covid,
right, that thatchanged the behaviors of
the consumer tremendously.
And we have to understand thatand see that, hey, how do we
identify that and how does thataffect their consumer?
These internal factors andthese external factors are
going to affect howthat driver drives.
(23:22):
Right.
So I love touse that as an example.
That's a really good example.
You can really visualize it.
Yeah.
Right.
It gives you that vision of ohmy God, I'm not I'm not.
At the wheel.
No backseat driving there.
Yeah I mean, you.
Always run promotions and dothings that the consumer might.
Okay.
So I guess there'ssome backseat driving.
Yeah, there's some marketing togoing on there.
A little marketing that you cando and push the consumer,
(23:44):
but you can'talways decipher them.
Right.
You're not going to pull theirwallet out and say, yeah,
you're going to buy from me.
You can do that.
We'd all have successfulbusinesses if that
was an argument.
I'm not trying togive anybody ideas.
Don't rob people.
So when I do,corporate training is a little
bit of a different level, right?
There's people that havealready worked in the industry.
They know about theirself.
They have a particularstructure in their in their
(24:05):
setup in their company.
So I tell them, you have tothink of yourself as a
as a detective.
And we're sort of walking,think of yourself as walking
into maybe like a store, right.
And the store is going to sellall these products, and you
have to think of these productsas looking at things
that are missing.
Why did thisproduct go missing ?
Why did this productrun off the shelf?
What should be therein that in that space?
(24:27):
And you put your detective haton and you look for for clues
and you look at finding thingsand you you look at
certain things, right?
Historical data, sales data.
And you look at what, what aresome of the consumer trends
happening?
What is what is happening outthere in the market?
Because as a detective,you need to figure out, okay,
what am I going to bring backand put on those shelves?
(24:48):
The man forecasting helpsyou do that.
That helps you figure out yourdetective a job by being able
to tell and figure out why didthe consumer commit the crime?
What is the crime?
Buying.
Why did they decide to buythese items and why did they
move off the shelves?
Right.
That is your purpose todo that, right?
And in this, um, the manforecasting true crime drama.
(25:10):
We intrigue.
I love.
Intrigue, mystery, passion.
Um, you need tofigure out as a detective,
figure out what happened.
Like who did it, whodone it, what happened with
what weapon, what?
All of this.
You need to figure this outbecause all this information
is it's gold.
It's what's going to help youmake the next cycle, your next
(25:31):
period of time that your demandfor guessing for be more
accurate if you look atthese clues correctly.
Okay.
So using that example,actually you're saying we're
all detectivesworking supply chain.
So so I mean, when a detectivearrives to a crime scene, a lot
of times they'll, you know,they'll tape off the
crime scene, will draw thechalk around the body and
all that stuff.
Right?
Yeah.
(25:51):
All these best practices.
So are there any, like, kind ofbest practices that you would
like the equivalent as like asupply chain and logistics?
Yeah.
So um, I like tothere's so many best practices.
Right.
If you ask somebody everybody'sgoing to give you
a different opinion.
Right.
But I like to focus on three.
So the three the three that Ilike to focus is, is being data
driven collaboration andinformation sharing and
(26:14):
bringing in andintegrating new technologies.
So it's I think it's acombination of these that are
going to give you some of thebest practices for getting the
best results out of your demandforecasting and the strategies
that you implement onceyou put that into motion.
Right.
Mhm.
So what does thedata driven approach look like.
So when we talk about a datadriven approach in supply chain
management or always sort ofthinking about or essentially
(26:39):
we want we have so much data.
Right.
We talked about this data.
It's heavy on data when we talkabout supply chain management.
But you need to beable to gather all this data.
Figure out a way toprocess it and then analyze it.
So eventually you can get adecision out of this data.
So the best practice is togather the data and have some
sort of means or ways and havesystems and, and things in
(27:01):
place that are going to helpyou process this data because
you sit down and do everythingmanually and believe me, I know
people that do.
I know people.
That do, and I know peoplethat like, still like to do the
good old fashioned way.
But now we've become so heavyon the data sets and the value
sets that we consume and thatwe eventually use within supply
chain management and demandforecasting as a
(27:22):
best practice, that you need tobe able to process that data
accurately so that you yeah,you have good data come in,
but you analyze your processes.
So you make good decisions andyou have good decisions come
out of it.
So that's what I meanlike with that.
Right.
And we do thatby gathering historical data,
the sales numbers,the information as closely as
to the time that ishappening as possible.
(27:42):
And another part of that isalso getting not just the data
and the numbers,but also gathering insights
and market trends.
Right.
What is the market doing orwhat is happening within the
market then that we can take alook and take some clues, right.
Back to the detective thing.
Get some clues fromfrom the market and
gather that information.
Right.
(28:03):
We could do that.
We used to do that.
If you ever got in the mailback in the day, you get the
mail and the surveysin the mail.
You would have to mailit back, right?
That's not what we do.
We survey consumersin different ways.
And now even more so we look atwhat consumers are doing
on social media.
Right.
It's not just posting thatselfie of that great cup
of coffee, but it's also how usas a business can see.
(28:24):
Not to sound creepy, how we cansee what the consumers are
doing and what some of thetrends that are happening in
this particular area thatrevolves around the supply
chains and what are the mandcan benefit from those
from those trends.
Right.
And the companies that do itbest are the ones that identify
those trends early on.
So they can be on that curvethat's going to lead them to to
be able to put that to marketearlier than everybody else.
(28:45):
Right.
The first one to theball gets gets the, you know,
takes the game.
It's sort of that situation.
Right.
And we do that thatway now in this as well.
When we talk about informationand and data, we need to be
able to use advanced analytics.
And we need to be using goodforecasting models to be able
to not just have this data,but be able to do something
with the data.
(29:05):
Right.
And within this data drivenapproach is always about the
use of systems and how we canuse statistical algorithms and
technology likemachine learning, AI to be able
to enhance the accuracy of ourforecasts and how we can bring
that in and combinethe two our knowledge,
our information, our data,and then these tools,
these tech tools that we canintroduce into it now to make
(29:28):
our jobs easier.
I always say, whydo it the hard way?
Don't do it the hard way.
Bring something that's alittle bit more.
That's going to give you a toolthat's much better for you,
so that you can take advantageof that as well, and implement
that in a way thatgives you a better result.
So you mentioned that the nextcategory is collaboration
and information sharing.
Can you kind of go a littlemore into detail about that?
(29:49):
Yeah.
So we want to worktogether as a team within
supply chain trade.
right?
Um, we always used to think ofsecrecy as the first thing of
of keeping everything withinour organizations very close
to our chest.
Right.
But I think now and I thinkfrom here on out, we always
want to focus on collaborationand collaboration and
information sharing, because wewant to make sure that we're
(30:13):
not duplicating the work morethan we have to.
Right?
So in that we do this,this sort of practice is called
unifying demand insights.
We bring everybody in that wecan we bring in sales.
We bring in production,we bring in the forecasters in
the procurement, and we bringeverybody that's going to have
some sort of input within ourdemand plans, and we're going
(30:35):
to ask them to work together sowe can unify the effort into
creating a demand plan that'sgoing to make the most sense if
we integrate all thesedifferent data sets, if we
integrate all these differentexperts and people within
our organization, and then wecan ask them together, what is
the best thing that we can dowith this one demand plan?
Because you're only going tohave one demand plan,
one forecast for whatevertime frame, but one of them
(30:58):
for your organization.
And if we can all come togetherand work together as a team,
then that's going to reallybuild on a much
better demand plan.
And that's alwaysa best practice.
Yeah, I love that.
Yeah.
I mean, work makesthe dream work.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Right I love that, right?
I mean, siloing informationis never great.
It's something I think it's avery old school mentality
that like, knowledge is power.
So people are so precious aboutkeeping that close
(31:18):
to their chest.
But I think in the modern day,people are starting to realize
that it's better to have thatgood information flow, you know?
Yeah, definitely.
Definitely.
I think that we'rein the age of information.
We're in the age of AI.
Right?
We are we're we're getting somuch information even from
artificial intelligence now,not just people.
And I think, yeah,it's all about unifying that,
making sure that all of us areworking together to to do one,
(31:40):
one single task that we don'thave to repeat itself over
and over again.
So when it comes to integratingnew technologies, what would be
your main tips for this?
So I think when we're talkingabout integrating technologies
and supply chain management,I think it's really important
to use tools, and technology isgoing to help your operations
boost your operations.
One of them thatis really crucial is real
time data analytics.
(32:00):
So you have allthis information, all this data
and there's this, this jokeor this, this thing that we we
say within demand forecasting,you're planning for the future
based on the whimsof yesterday, right?
Based on what the populationand the people did yesterday.
We're doing that today withoutthat real data.
Real time data.
(32:20):
So why do that?
Now we have the tools to lookat the information and the wind
and and what people wantto do today in real time.
We see something moveout the shelf.
We can see thatin our systems right away.
We can see as that product ismoving out of the shelves right
away and sharing thatinformation back with everybody
else that is involved in thatsupply chain, that it's
(32:41):
it's so crucial.
And so it makes sucha big difference.
Right.
So the technology wouldbe to incorporate that
real time analytics.
And we do that throughthe use of machine learning
and AI systems.
I think Inflo has a greatability to do that.
Right.
Yeah.
Thank you.
We thank you forbringing that up.
We do.
In fact, I want.
To talk all about myself.
Yeah.
No inflow is great for that.
We have we have realtime data tracking.
(33:03):
So you know exactly what'sgoing on in your system when
it's happening,which is amazing.
We have agreat reporting feature.
So we have like we're obviouslyvery data driven as well.
We even have like a reorderpoint system where like our our
software will help you figureout what the best
reorder points are.
So you're not ordering too muchor too little of anything.
Yeah.
Like we're all about thedata for sure.
And that's part that'spart of the next thing.
(33:23):
Right.
Another best practice is tobring in real.
It's not just a real time databut big data analytics.
Right.
It's putting all thisinformation in and having
something that is able toprocess it and give you a help.
You make abetter decision, right,
and better informed decision.
And having systems in placelike that, it's what's going to
really the technology is goingto drive us all forward.
And you don't haveto be afraid of it.
(33:44):
You just have to know how towork those tools to incorporate
them and become abest practice within your
demand forecasting,demand planning, supply chain
management as a whole.
Right.
Mhm.
Um, another technology that Ithink a lot of people either
have heard or they're startingto hear a lot more
is predictive analytics.
So within this big data,within this real time data,
(34:05):
we also want to be able to notjust use the system to process
the data and give usa analytic report.
Now there's ways to do that andhave a predictive analysis.
Tell the system, let the systemtell you what they think is
going to happen.
And then based you take thatand then based on that,
you're going to make abetter informed decision.
Right.
And I love that because it'snot just okay, don't tell me
(34:27):
what to do, but insome ways do tell me.
Tell me what to do.
Please tell me what to do.
Take that off my plate.
And if you can't,please do it right.
I all of these things.
Don't be afraid of it.
And I and I tell that to thestudents more recently,
now that I'm starting.
I'm not an expert on this.
I can't claim to be an experton AI and all this stuff, but I
(34:47):
do have some sort ofinformation and I like
to inform myself.
Lifelong learner here.
Mhm.
How to to to douse some of these tools.
Right.
And how they're going to comein and leverage some of the
other things that we havewithin supply chain and demand
planning and how that's goingto be implemented.
So always always learn aboutthose stuff and don't be
afraid of it.
Right.
It's a technology that's somepeople say, and I hear this
(35:08):
all the time.
It's going to take away jobsand it's going to it's going to
replace a lot ofthe things that we do.
To some extent, unfortunately,that is the case.
But then to some other extent,you have to be aware of it and
be ahead of the ball and say,you know, how am I going to use
this as a tool?
We're always going toneed to have that human
factor of things.
Right?
Exactly.
All of us are still going tohave to come in and tell the,
the intelligence what to dowith the AI, what to.
(35:29):
Do.
Until.
Skynet.
Yeah, exactly.
Until Skynet.
To put it out.
There.
Yeah.
But but.
Yeah, that.
They're listening.
Um.
So.
Yeah.
So don't be afraid of it.
Right.
You're going to be ableto use this as a tool.
Think of it as a tool that'sgoing to make you a
better professional,that's going to make you
a better, you know,supply chain professionals,
(35:49):
a whole a betterthan man planner.
But at the man forecaster,it's going to make you better
by using these tools.
So don't don't beafraid to do that right.
And another best practicewithin the man forecasting
is cloud computing.
Right.
And this is sort ofwe're going back.
This is not a technology that'snew that but this is something
that I, I always like to put inhere because I always like to
have the message out there thatthe least level you can do is
(36:12):
have something that'scloud based, have your systems
run in a system thatis at least cloud based.
Why?
Because that leads to betterintegration of your efforts,
right?
We talkedabout sharing information
and unifying efforts.
Right.
When you at least have a cloudbased system, then you're able
to do this in a cloud.
Everybody has access to putdata in everybody's access
to that data.
Everybody has has a wayto work from that one
(36:34):
particular cloud.
And that's at least as a base.
Right.
And when we talk to a lot ofsmall businesses in corporate
training that we do, and wetalk to them and we try to get
them out of this bubble of howthey are used to doing things
and push them a little to seethat there are better ways to
do things that are notgoing to be so scary.
Get your feet wetinto cloud computing.
And then from there, maybe wetalk about machine learning,
(36:56):
and maybe then we're talkingabout other other technology,
but at the very least, do somecloud computing and cloud based
computing for your supply chain.
You're the man forecasteverything that deals with
this collaboration approach.
Yeah, I mean, inflow actuallystarted off as an on premise
software as a solution.
Right.
right?
So there wasn't cloudbased at all.
And of course, we saw thebenefits of going to the cloud
gives you real time data.
(37:16):
You can multiple locations canshare information a lot easier.
So yeah, we definitely movedinto that field.
And it became so popular soquick that we just completely
stopped with ouron premise entirely.
Wow.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So you can seethe benefits of it, right?
I think everybody should thatworks in supply chain and ready
to secure to do it.
Don't be scared to scared.
Do it.
I do have a little questionabout going back to AI because
(37:38):
it's such a hot topic.
Um, did you do you find insupply chain and logistics,
it's used mostly justfor like, you know,
digesting data and making senseof that data.
Or are we seeing any morein like, you know, I see on
like LinkedIn, like robotscarrying boxes or like pallet
moving pallets and whatnot.
Is is AI being implemented intolike automation at all or is it
just really fordigesting the information?
(37:59):
Like I said, I'm not an expertof it, so I'm still learning
from it, from what I can seeand I'm familiar with, I do see
the data analytics sideof things, right.
How it helps us process data.
That's the first impact,the first interaction that I've
had when it comes towarehousing and the structures
of operations within warehousingand transportation, I knew I
know that the systems arestarting to incorporate, WMS are
starting to work withAI and machine learning to
(38:19):
figure out what are the bestaccommodations and capacities
for warehouses, right?
How can we base structure thisthis structure that we have?
How can we do the to the bestcapacity and how could we bring
in robotics, you know, AI andall these different tools to
make our operationsa lot better?
Right.
That's because that is a muchbigger investment for companies
(38:41):
and for for people todo and to learn about.
I think that is not somethingthat we see so frequently,
and I think onthe larger companies have done
that right.
Walmart, Amazon, they have the.
Budget for it.
Because you do need tohave the budget.
Is that money, money, money?
Yeah.
You do need to have thatinvestment to be able to
incorporate those thosethose systems, that technology.
(39:01):
When it comes to data, it's notsuch a big investment, right?
You're able to have system andsoftware that are much
more accessible, takes less ofa learning curve.
And there were able toadapt much easier.
So why not that be theintroduction into some of the
tools that youdo within AI, right.
And eventually, if that helpsbuild a stronger AI based
supply chain as awhole, why not ?
(39:22):
We welcome that.
So to wrap things up,what would you say are some of
the key takeaways for thoselooking to improve their career
and take their knowledgeto the next level?
Um, I don't I don't want tosound repetitive, but it goes
back to always be opento learning, right?
Be a lifelong student,be a lifelong learner,
because that's always going tobuild your skill set right.
And it's going to help youbuild a better career that
(39:42):
makes the mostsense to you, right?
Figure out what it is that youwant to do personally, what you
want to do professionally,and try to figure out a career
path that makes the mostsense to you.
I like to take the students.
This little tidbit is look atwhat ultimately what position
you want to do right?
What is the ultimategoal in your career?
What ultimately do you envisionyourself doing as far as a
(40:02):
position right?
What is your dream positionlike and then sort of work your
way backwards from that?
Figure out what isthe career path from that.
Don't just figure out, yeah,I'm going to go to school.
Yeah, I'm going to get a degree.
Yeah okay.
Hopefully it helps.
But no try to build away that it goes a blueprint
backwards.
Right.
What is ultimatelythe building, the construction
you want to do and what is thatcareer in that ultimate goal in
(40:22):
your career?
A position maybe open yourown business, logistics or
whatever might be right?
What is ultimately what youwant to do that makes the most
sense for you as a professionaland your personal life,
everything as a whole,and then build yourself
backwards from that.
What I try to do that with theMVC Logistics Academy is sort
of bring that connectionto students, right?
If you're sort of lost as whatto do, that's what I like to do.
(40:45):
I like to tell you the toolsthat you can use to build your
career from that.
Right.
And the way that I've done thatis by building some courses.
And I build, for example,this course that we rolling out
is called the Advance DemandForecasting Masterclass.
The master class is such apopular word now, but is the
Advanced DemandForecasting masterclass.
And in this masterclass, if youreally want to know about
(41:05):
demand forecasting, this iswhere we tell you the nitty
gritty of ofdemand forecasting, right?
So you're going to learn like adeep dive into what the
man forecasting is.
So that course is great forpeople interested in that.
Another course that we have issort of like the introduction
for people that arejust starting, just kind of get
their feet wet and wantto find out.
Exactly.
Okay, I've heard this, but whatis it we have?
I built this course that I thatit took me a while to
(41:28):
build this course.
Because always your first babyis like the one that you put
the most work into.
And the intro to supplychain management, that was
my first baby.
That is the one that I put somuch time and love into because
I was like, all right, this iswhat I'm going to pour my soul
into this cause.
And as the introduction tosimulation management and it's
sort of if you're starting.
It's a great way to get your,your intro into the field or if
(41:49):
you're somebody that's alreadyin there, how to refresh some
of the things on the conceptsthat you've learned or know,
but how to really,really know exactly what
we're talking about.
Right.
And then also within that andfrom that inception of the
baby of, of the of the course,I sort of build in the coaching
and the mentoringprogram into, into that
as well, because it's not justlearning the material, but how
(42:10):
do I put this intomotion in my own career?
Is this something that I'mgoing to be able to really
actually make ithappen for myself?
Right.
I just want topay for something.
I want to be ableto get something out of it.
And I try to helpstudents with that as well.
And then also, you know,we have some great free
resources on the site.
We call this the Career andLife Assessment, which is
basically sort of thissort of questionnaire.
(42:32):
They have to be really honestwith yourself, and you have to
go through it and sit down andtake your time and you sort of
see what are some of the thingsthat you're going to have to do
personally and professionally,and what's going to make the
most sense for you to build acareer that's going to really
fulfill you, but also thatmakes the most sense for you
and your family, right?
Because we all have commitments.
We all got bills to pay.
We can't just drop and say,we're going to go and build my
(42:52):
career supply chain.
No, you have to do itconsciously in a way that makes
the most sense to you, right?
Make the commitment.
Yes, of course, be 100%in the class in that course,
in that mentoring, but alsoknow how it's going to affect
the rest of your life.
So the assessment is great toolthat I always recommend
students to get, because it's asort of way of saying, okay,
let me be honest with myself.
What do I haveto do with the picture?
Yeah, exactly.
And what do I need toto, to do to make this happen?
(43:14):
Yeah.
I mean, I thinkit's great that you have.
Sounds like you have a lot ofthings for all different skill
levels and you know,so everyone kind of, you know,
either if you're just gettingstarted or if you want to learn
more and advance, you know,you got something you can
turn to, which is great.
Thanks.
Thanks, thanks.
All right, everybody, that is awrap on this episode.
Thank you so much toMaria for coming and talking
with us today.
It's been awesome.
(43:34):
A lot of great insights.
Yeah.
Of course if you guys haveany questions, make sure to
leave a comment below.
And for those whowant to dive deeper into
inventory management, where canthey go to find you?
Yeah.
So we have our website.
That's theNVC logistics Economy.com.
That's where we have all thecourses and posted that are
open for enrollment.
So you can check those out.
We also have the YouTubechannel which is an
MVC logistics academy.
(43:55):
We post a lot of great contentthere that you can consume as
however you like.
And we also haveour social media handles and
NVC Logistics Academy.
You can also get in touchwith me, send a message,
reach out whatever you want todo or you do socially.
We can you can dothat at NVC Logistics Academy.
Awesome.
So thanks so much forjoining us everyone.
We will see you inthe next episode.
And again thanks to Marinafor joining us.
(44:16):
Thank you guys okay.
Bye everybody.
Bye.
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