Tony Ehrbar, Owner & President of tent and sidewall manufacturer American Tent, joins William to talk about some of his secrets for successfully growing a small business, benefits of outsourcing and using on-demand partners, surrounding yourself with experts who have strengths to make up for your weaknesses, and how clutch it is to go all-in focusing on your core products or services.

E33 Covering All Your Bases To Scale With Confidence

Welcome to the Supply Chain Innovation podcast, hosted by IndustryStar Founder & CEO, William Crane. In this podcast series we share real-world lessons learned, big ideas, and resources from some of the top industry change-makers and leaders at firms across supply chain, procurement, quality, materials, logistics, product development, engineering, and manufacturing with the hope that you'll learn new strategies, tactics, and tools for improving supply chain operations.

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Management & Marketing

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Brian Diephuis, CEO at thyssenkrupp Materials North America, joins William to talk about leading the team to grow their supply chain services, the tremendous impact that inventory management has on the overall supply chain, how they help customers better manage inventory and materials flow, and how important organizational culture is to driving both internal and customer success.

E58 Optimizing Hands, Wheels, & Walls

Phil Ross, Director of Global Supply Chain Management at automotive Tier I supplier Flex-N-Gate, is joined by William on site in Warren, MI to share his knowledge and advice on supply chain best practices, including the deployment of Kata for continuous improvement, how and why his team uses Plan for Every Part (PFEP), personal traits to look for when building your supply chain team, and some vital tips for launching new products.

E57 Kata & KPIs

Wil Knibloe III, Principal at advisory services firm Crowe, LLP, joins William to discuss the topics of procurement and strategic sourcing, including what type of roles procurement and sourcing play in an organization, leadership methods that consistently maximize results, and which strategic sourcing metrics matter the most.

E56 Procurement Metrics That Matter

Alan Shevela, Global Director of Supply Chain at lightweighting solutions and components supplier Aludyne, links up with William to discuss the professional and supply chain skills that are "automation-proof," how to prepare your teams for future changes in strategy, and how having multiple facilities in different geographic regions and countries impacts the company's approach to supply chain and operations.

E55 Acumen To Augmentation To Automation

Samantha Huang, Principal at BMW i Ventures, joins William to share her venture capital perspective on investing in new supply chain innovations, highlighting two examples of optimization solutions developed by startups, her recommendations for companies with new products/technologies looking to move beyond the perpetual pilot cycle, and the factors her team considers when looking to invest in AI or ML applications.

E33 Covering All Your Bases To Scale With Confidence

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