Collaboration is quickly becoming more important than ever in today’s unpredictable supply chain.  In today’s episode, Craig Brown and Thom Singer welcome Product Development IT Director at DRiV Incorporated and Digital Enterprise Society board member Adam Specht and Jim Schwarz, founder and director at Intersphere Industries.  Together they discuss the importance of collaboration and supply chain, and the integration of suppliers to minimize risk and optimize return despite constant industry disruptions. 

 

On today’s podcast, you will learn about:

Handling industry disruption

• Change inevitably comes with an industry maturity curve combined with technical breakthroughs.

• Global supply chain is an integrated network that easily adapts to more stable markets. 
• Relationships and security are key to successful industrial manufacturing. 

 

The role of PLM in supply chain

• The true cost of supplies include tariffs and other legal considerations.
• PLM creates greater flexibility to pivot when disruptions come. 
• Supply chains need to identify alternative options when suppliers become unavailable. 

 

Understanding collaboration and risk management

• Effective collaboration requires identifying relationships with other companies. 
• Capacity collaborations work to maximize leverage and minimize risk.
• Mutual interest can no longer be the main basis for collaboration. 
• PLM is only successful if the organizations using the tools know how to use their ERP.
• Risk can actively be managed at the data level without even knowing the risks.

 

Key indicators within risk management, collaboration and PLM

• Greater risk management is needed when companies have uncontrolled and unmanaged inventory. 
• Constant warranty returns indicate that greater risk management is needed. 
• Effective collaboration can be measured by flexibility metrics.

• The speed of change from both volume and design perspective is essential.
• Current logistics has had a great impact on single sourcing. 

Do you have an example of extraordinary efforts or innovation during these unprecedented times? We would love to hear your story and possibly interview you for an upcoming episode. Please reach out to us at www.DigitalEnterpriseSociety.org