At North American Food Safety & Quality 2022 held September 27th and 28th in Chicago, we spoke with Joe Heinzelmann and Luke Thevenet of Neogen about the exciting union with 3M Food Safety, and what that means for FSQ professionals. In addition to even greater capabilities and offerings relevant to Food Safety and Quality, this merger also further reinforces Neogen's leadership in bringing the Digital Revolution to FSQ teams. Joe Heinzelmann is one of Neogen's experts in the digital solutions that are transforming how Food Safety works, and in this interview he shares some of his insights into current trends, as well as how the addition of 3M Food Safety to Neogen is going to bring an even more comprehensive and holistic suite of offerings to the next generation of Food Safety and Quality processes.

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At NEOGEN, we partner with our customers to protect and enhance the world’s level of food and animal safety. By offering a diverse suite
of solutions for the food, beverage, animal protein, and agriculture industries, NEOGEN empowers our customers to safeguard their brands and create better products. (NASDAQ: NEOG).

www.NEOGEN.com

At the 2022 edition of the North American Supply Chain Executive Summit series held September 11-13 in Chicago, we spoke with Joseph Slater, a Business Consultant with Logility, on how understanding what is going on in supply chains is the key to managing risk and overcoming the challenges of disruption. With that said, data management and analytics is easier said than done. How should supply chain leaders avoid being overwhelmed by the information at their fingertips to identify what really matters and bring the powerful tools of the Digital Revolution to bear on the metrics, issues, challenges, and opportunities that really matter? Listen to this interview to learn more.

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Logility, Inc.

Accelerating the digital sustainable supply chain, Logility helps companies seize new opportunities, sense and respond to changing market dynamics and more profitably manage their complex global businesses. The Logility® Digital Supply Chain Platform leverages an innovative blend of artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced analytics to automate planning, accelerate cycle times, increase precision, improve operating performance, break down business silos and deliver greater visibility. Logility’s SaaS-based platform transforms sales and operations planning (S&OP) and integrated business planning (IBP) processes; demand, inventory and replenishment planning; global sourcing; quality and compliance management; product life cycle management; supply and inventory optimization; manufacturing planning and scheduling; retail merchandise planning, assortment and allocation. Logility customers include Big Lots, Husqvarna Group, Parker Hannifin, Sonoco Products and Red Wing Shoe Company. Logility is a wholly owned subsidiary of American Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMSWA). To learn how Logility can help you make smarter decisions faster, visit www.logility.com.

At the 2022 edition of the North American Supply Chain Executive Summit series held September 11-13 in Chicago, we spoke with Larry Layden, an SVP with UCBOS, about how leading supply chain organizations are recognizing the new capabilities of the Digital Revolution can be focused and targeted down on specific issues and challenges, and that the tools can be democratized into the hands of everyone from the senior supply chain leaders right down to frontline workers. It is an exciting, transformative time to work in a supply chain organization. How should companies make the most of what is now possible?

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UCBOS, Inc. is a USA-based No-Code Software firm helping enterprises achieve strategic business advantage through a 100% Configurable Supply Chain Platform that delivers business outcomes 10x faster.

Its vision is to help enterprises self-learn, adapt, and achieve ontology-driven interoperability using dynamic business data models and rapidly gain supply chain clarity, customer promise reliability, and business agility.

www.ucbos.com

At the 2022 edition of the North American Supply Chain Executive Summit series held September 11-13 in Chicago, we spoke with Derek Bealby of AFMS, LLC about how supply chain leaders can get their arms around spiraling shipping costs in a world of inflation, rising labor costs, rising fuel costs, and frequent disruptions. Many 3PLs are under intense pressure to pass their costs on to their customers. How should supply chain executives navigate this situation with both long-term business partners, and also new shippers they need to build resiliency into their operations? Where can they get the information they need to have the right conversations the right way? Listen to this interview for more.

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For 30 years AFMS, LLC has helped over 3,000 companies reduce their shipping costs by 15-25%. Specializing in transportation benchmarking, carrier contract negotiations, full RFP and RFQ support for carrier optimization & invoice auditing, for all modes of transportation. Our expert team of former carrier pricing executives and strategists from UPS, FedEx, DHL, USPS, Hyundai, US lines, Panalpina, Topocean and the major LTL carriers has over 500 years of combined industry experience. AFMS will provide a NO Charge full shipping analysis and profile of where you stand in the market today.

www.afms.com

At the 2022 edition of the North American Supply Chain Executive Summit series held September 11-13 in Chicago, we spoke with Madhav Durbha, the VP, Supply Chain Strategy of Coupa, about building resiliency and sustainability into supply chains, and the role Centers of Excellence play in gathering together the right people with the right tools and processes to drive successful outcomes.

As resilience and sustainability rise to the top of the supply chain agenda, people, process, technology, and strategy must come together to proactively design and plan your supply chain to withstand disruptions. Listen to this interview to learn more.

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Madhav Durbha
VP, Supply Chain Strategy
Coupa

Dr. Madhav Durbha is the Vice President of Supply Chain Strategy Coupa Software, where his team helps customers and prospects solve various supply chain challenges. Prior to Coupa, Dr. Durbha held positions at LLamasoft, Kinaxis, JDA Software and i2 Technologies, Inc. With more than 20 years in the supply chain industry, Dr. Durbha has broad experience in strategy & process consulting, supply chain software, program management, software application development & deployment, machine learning and data science. He received his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Florida and his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology at Madras.

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Coupa Supply Chain Design & Planning powered by LLamasoft delivers the science behind smarter, faster supply chain decisions. Many of the world’s most innovative companies, including 19 of the Gartner Supply Chain Top 25, use Coupa to digitally transform their supply chains for profitability, sustainability, and growth. Our solution enables continuous design with one common data model, a supply chain digital twin, rich algorithm library, scenarios and simulation, and a platform where apps are deployed to decision-makers.

www.coupa.com

At the 2022 edition of the Pharma Manufacturing World Summit series held March 29-30 in Boston, MA, we spoke with Glenn Griffin of Aizon about how pharmaceutical manufacturers are using Artificial Intelligence. What can these powerful new tools do in the Life Sciences space, and how does that differ from applications in other industries? How does Compliance shape strategy when it comes to leveraging new tools and capabilities? What should senior executives keep in mind as they weigh the pros and cons of different options available to them in this space?

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Aizon is an AI software provider that transforms manufacturing operations with the use of advanced analytics, artificial intelligence, and other smart factory technologies focused on optimizing production and quality within highly regulated industries. The Aizon platform seamlessly integrates unlimited sources of structured and unstructured data to deliver actionable insights across all manufacturing sites. Aizon offers an intuitive way to gain meaningful operational intelligence by enabling real-time visibility and predictive insights in a GxP compliant manner with end-to-end data integrity.

www.aizon.ai

At the 2022 edition of the Pharma Manufacturing World Summit series held March 29-30 in Boston, MA, we spoke with Daniel Dennehy of CoreRx about how pharmaceutical manufacturers are looking to enhance capacity and improve their speed in both the clinical and commercial space in a constrained business environment. From virtual and small companies all the way through to giants in the industry, every company is looking to grow and accelerate their abilities. What are some of the biggest trends and topics of conversation happening today on this important issue?

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CoreRx is an industry leading Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization with a focus on enhanced formulations and customized development, handling and manufacturing solutions that enable our partners to meet their drug program and commercialization goals. CoreRx provides expert, added-value drug development, formulation optimization and manufacturing and packaging services for oral solid, oral liquid and semi-solid topical dosage forms. From our state-of-the-art facilities in Clearwater, Florida and San Rafael, California, we support, enhance and accelerate drug programs from clinical to commercial scale. We invite you to get to know CoreRx better and to learn how our experts can provide solutions to your most challenging drug program problems at www.corerxpharma.com.

One of the most popular features at Executive Platforms events are the lunch-and-learn roundtable discussions hosted by attendees for attendees. The only downside is that by their very nature, only ten people can participate on any given topic to allow everyone to contribute to an interactive and free-ranging conversation. In this episode of the bluEPrint podcast we speak with Skotti Fietsam, the VP Corporate Supply Chain of Accuride Corporation. She will be hosting a roundtable this September in Chicago at the 2022 edition of the North American Supply Chain Executive Summit on, "Current Trends in Sourcing and Procurement." Why did she choose that topic? What does she want to share? Who does she hope will be part of the conversation?  For all this and more, give this episode a listen!

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Skotti Fietsam, VP Corporate Supply Chain at Accuride Corporation

Skotti Fietsam has served as Vice President of Supply Chain for Accuride Corporation since October 2021. She is responsible for Accuride’s global activities in the areas of procurement and strategic sourcing, logistics and distribution, supplier quality and development. She is a member of the Company’s Executive Committee and reports to the Board and President/CEO.

Since joining Accuride, Fietsam has navigated a global supply chain freight shortage, unprecedented fluctuations in raw material and significant cost increase diversions.

Fietsam began her Supply Chain career at Chrysler where she worked in Finance, Purchasing, Supplier Quality and IT. During that time, she achieved $6M in cost savings on the purchase of minivan seats; led supplier quality manager for seven transmission and steel processing plants and launched a Chrysler outsourcing initiative, sending over $40M in transactional processes offshore.

After leaving Chrysler, Fietsam was hired by BorgWarner as a strategy manager for the Global Supply Management team. She was responsible for setting the sourcing strategy for 61 plants across the globe, with the task of reducing suppliers and building a more centralized purchasing organization. In this role, she was negotiating contracts for steel, aluminum, plastics, and iron commodities amounting to a $1.1 billion spend.

Fietsam’s goal at BorgWarner was to become Vice President of Supply Chain. To prepare for the role, she was encouraged to run operations. With that career advice, she accepted a Plant Manager position at a new site near Sao Paulo, Brazil. The first engine timing chain ever produced in Brazil was made there. The plant quickly became a $60 million business with Fiat, VW, and Ford as customers.

Following success in Brazil, Fietsam was asked to lead a larger plant ($110M) in Guadalajara, Mexico with the challenge to grow sales with OEs that had moved to Mexico. Profitably grew by 40% through new product introduction (transmission chains) and strong supplier collaboration. Customer base included Ford, Nissan, VW, FCA, GM, and Magna.

Prior to joining Accuride, Fietsam served as Senior Operations and then Product Manager in IT Supply Chain at Amazon. She was responsible for developing mechanisms that decreased customer delivery time by automating supply chain process for procuring and delivering IT equipment over $1.2 billion spent annually across >3200 sites globally.

In 2018, Fietsam served as President of State of Jalisco, Mexico, Automotive Supplier Group. She is the recipient of the STEP Award – Top 100 Women in Manufacturing. She is a Certified Professional Supply Management (CPSM), Member of the Institute of Supply Management (ISM), and Lean Six Sigma, Black Belt.

Fietsam earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the Wayne State University in Computer Science/Mathematics and a Master of Business Administration, Finance degree from the University of Detroit.

Data Management is a major topic of discussion for every agenda Executive Platforms organizes, but there are added dimensions of complexity when that conversation is amongst senior leaders of pharma manufacturing. At the 2022 edition of the Pharma Manufacturing World Summit series held March 29-30 in Boston, MA, we spoke with Brooke Cote of Elemental Machines about the current issues and trends she is hearing in this space, how data management means different things to different disciplines within life sciences, and what executives should be thinking about to make sure they are getting the most out of their digital transformations.

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The Elemental Machines platform harnesses IoT technology to unite a laboratory full of data onto a single mobile dashboard.

The vendor-agnostic solution gives lab managers real-time visibility into virtually any lab equipment, from any brand, with any function, from any era. Changes in utilization, temperature, humidity, light, vibration, and more are reported instantly, while AI identifies potential root causes behind sudden temperature changes.

Our universal dashboard and plug-and-play sensors begin transmitting data 60 seconds after unboxing and are on duty 24/7 so lab managers don’t have to be.

elementalmachines.com

One of the most popular features at Executive Platforms events are the lunch-and-learn roundtable discussions hosted by attendees for attendees. The only downside is by their very nature, only ten people can participate on any given topic to allow everyone to contribute to an interactive and free-ranging conversation. In this episode of the bluEPrint podcast we speak with Jeff Estes, the General Manger - Parts Supply Chain for Toyota Motor North America. He will be hosting a roundtable this September in Chicago at the 2022 edition of the North American Supply Chain Executive Summit on "Cyber Security Risk Assessments on Your Supply Chain." Why did he choose that topic? What does he want to share? Who does he hope will be part of the conversation? What should everyone be thinking about further on this important issue? For all this and more, give this episode a listen!

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Jeff Estes, General Manager - Parts Supply Chain at Toyota Motor NA

Jeff has 34 years with Toyota NA with current responsibility for service parts and accessories forecasting, inventory planning, ordering and delivery, transportation, and supplier development. Previous experience in vehicle project management, production planning, and manufacturing.