Unpacked: Insights hosted by the Penn State Smeal Center for Supply Chain Research™

Natalia Lyckowski is the Global Neurodiversity Advancement Leader and Supply Chain Inventory Transformation Lead at IBM. With over 26 years of experience, Nat brings a wealth of knowledge and insight into the emergence of a neurodivergent IBM and embracing neurodivergent talent in your workplace.

Resources:

• Watch: What is it like to be Neurodivergent at IBM

• https://www.ibm.com/impact/be-equal/communities/diversability/

About

Proudly neurodivergent (ND) and parent of an autistic IT Professional, Nat enables businesses to see the value in embracing ND talent to attain highly skilled and dedicated professionals that may otherwise be overlooked. 1:20 individuals are ND and 1:50 are autistic. This talent pool brings 32% new skills, 66% higher job loyalty, and more, improving corporate citizenship and revenue. 

Nat has driven culture change, improving trust and allyship through:  

• Global Acceptance Training across >30 Countries 

Nat is also experienced with intersectionality across PWD/PWDA, LGBT+, Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and other identity groups. Nat is also a Business Transformation Leader with IBM for over 25 years. 

Identifying talent, creating long-lasting relationships with employees, and building a solid company culture are essential to any organization. This month, Charlie Saffro, President and Founder of CS Recruiting, joins the CSCR Podcast to speak on empowering others, the interconnectedness of recruitment and retention, and how she has used personal experiences to help other companies grow.

About

Charlie has over 14 years of direct recruiting experience within the Logistics, Transportation and Supply Chain space and started CS Recruiting from the ground up over a decade ago. Today, she leads a team of over 40 and manages a multi-million dollar organization. As the President and Founder of CS Recruiting, she focuses on making meaningful connections to empower others to discover their full potential. Charlie has worked with many small to medium-sized businesses, as well as with Fortune 50 companies to help them identify the right talent for their organizational needs. Clients have included Third Party Logistics providers (3PL’s), Asset Based providers, Shippers (Manufacturers and Distributors) and Vendors to the industry (transportation technology/fleet solutions). CS Recruiting’s goal is to partner with clients and candidates to develop long-lasting relationships and make appropriate and time sensitive career matches. Charlie’s team of dedicated recruiters have experience filling positions of all levels; including C Level and Executive positions, Management roles and Independent Contributor seats.

Charlie is a dedicated yogi and encourages her clients and team to practice mindfulness in the workplace and beyond. She is also the mother of three boys and active in her community, volunteering with organizations to help women in the workforce. 

It is anything but business as usual for supply chain organizations today. In this month’s episode, Steve and Irv talk with Chris Caplice, Executive Director of MIT’s Center for Transportation & Logistics (CTL), about how new technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning are being leveraged to work in concert with humans to help companies create smarter supply chains. Chris discusses his professional and academic experiences in transportation logistics and the intersection of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and supply chain.

Dr. Caplice serves as the Executive Director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Transportation & Logistics (CTL) where he is responsible for the planning and management of the research, education, and corporate outreach programs for the center. He created and currently serves as Director of the MITx MicroMaster’s Program in Supply Chain Management – the very first MicroMasters credential ever offered.  Since its inception in 2015, more than 430,000 students from 196 different countries have participated in these online courses and more than 45,000 Verified Certificates have been awarded.  A total of 2,976 MicroMasters credentials have been awarded to date. 

Dr. Caplice was selected as the first Silver Family Research Fellow in 2016 in recognition of his contribution to supply chain education and research.  Also in 2016, he received the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) Distinguished Service Award. 

Supply chains improve by leveraging the newest technologies and latest trends. The use of automation technology and robotics has emerged in recent years as a staple for modern organizations seeking to improve supply chain their processes, resilience, efficiency. Jeff Cashman, a Senior Executive Leader in Technology and Leadership, joins our hosts to explain automation's role in the supply chain and the innovative and use-case of robotics. 

Jeff Cashman is a senior supply chain leaders with extensive experiences in business development, strategy, and international marketing. Most recently Cashman served as Chief Business Officer for GreyOrange, a global technology company unifying AI-driven software and mobile robotics to modernize order fulfillment and optimize warehouse operations in real time.

Additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing, has contributed to new innovations in a number of industries and its popularity continues to grow. This month's CSCR Supply Chain Podcast guest is Tim Simpson, the Paul Morrow Professor in Engineering Design and Manufacturing at Penn State. Tim highlights the emergence of additive manufacturing in the business world and how organizations can benefit from incorporating it into their operations and strategies.----more----

Tim Simpson is the Paul Morrow Professor of Engineering Design & Manufacturing, Co-founder of the world’s first Additive Manufacturing & Design Graduate Program, and Co-Director of the Center for Innovative Materials Processing through Direct Digital Deposition (CIMP-3D) at Penn State. He specializes in new product development and Design for Additive Manufacturing, and he has helped educate and train nearly 1000 industry practitioners to use metal additive manufacturing while advising more than a dozen start-ups in the industry. He contributes a monthly column on “Additive Insights” to Modern Machine Shop, and he is an Educational Advisor for The Barnes Group Advisors, a team of experts helping industrialize additive manufacturing. 

Developing an agile culture allows an organization to transform business processes, bolster innovation, and better serve its team members and constituents. Galen Smith, Digital Supply Chain Transformation Leader at IBM, joins us to discuss ways to implement organizational change, including creating an agile culture and empowering individuals across the supply chain to grow and develop their skills. Alongside our hosts, Smith outlines how IBM has engrained agile practices into their core foundations, why it’s important to do so, and how adopting this mindset can drive change in the field of supply chain.----more----

Galen Smith is an accelerator of transformation in IBM's AI-enabled supply chain where she utilizes design thinking and cutting-edge technology to generate change. She is an IBM certified Consulting Supply Chain Management Professional who hold patents in the supply chain processes. Smith is a speaker at supply chain summits and conferences on AI, Blockchain, and Design Thinking and has published several articles on innovation and supply chain agility. She earned her MBA from Duke and her bachelor’s in Industrial Engineering for Georgia Institute of Technology.

Seamless supply chain collaboration is key to effective supply chain management and essential in business resilience. During today’s episode, supply chain professionals will learn more about the importance of stakeholder collaboration in achieving supply chain sustainability. Tune in to hear from Niki King, Head of Sustainability at Unilever, North America – a CSCR corporate sponsor. Niki shares provides insight into how the multinational consumer goods company is innovating in the space of sustainability and tips for those seeking to level up their supply chain sustainability.----more----

Niki King is the Head of Sustainability for Unilever North America. In her role, she is responsible for ensuring the development and implementation of North America roadmaps for Unilever’s Sustainable Business Strategy, the Compass, commitments. She also partners with Unilever’s customers to develop collaborative partnerships to deliver on mutual sustainability goals.  In addition, she works with Unilever North America brands to guide their sustainability and purpose activation. 

She earned a bachelor's degree in social sciences, a master's degree in business management, and a certificate in organizational leadership from Thomas Edison State University.

This month we are joined by Dr. Bob Novack, CSCR Director of Student Research and Outreach and Associate Professor of Supply Chain Management at the Penn State Smeal College of Business. During this episode, supply chain professionals will receive insights and tips about talent management from the perspective of a seasoned college professor interacting with top-tier talent daily. Dr. Novack and our hosts discuss what he's discovered regarding ways companies can stand out in a crowd, challenges in recruitment, and strategies for how to best connect with students.----more----

Dr. Novack is currently the CSCR Director of Student Research and Student Outreach and Associate Professor of Supply Chain Management at the Penn State Smeal College of Business. From 1979 to 1981, Novack worked in Operations and planning for the Yellow Freight Corporation in Overland park, KS. From 1981 to 1984, Novack worked for the Drackett Company in Cincinnati, OH. He is the co-author of two textbooks: Transportation (with John Coyle and Ed Bardi), and Creating Logistics Value: Themes for the Future (with Lloyd Rinehart and John Langley). He has published numerous articles in the Journal of Business Logistics and the Transportation Journal, among others. Novack is a member of AST&L, CLM, and WERC.

Choice modeling focuses on the way that we make decisions. This month, Penn State Supply Chain Podcast hosts Steve and Irv speak to Aydin Alptekinoglu, Director of Research of CSCR, about the importance of choice modeling and how it relates to demand. When looking at aspects such as variety, pricing, and availability, demand can be traced to indicate customer interaction with a company compared to competitors. Dr. Alptekinoglu explains the process of identifying discrete individual choices to create demand models for physical products or services used by many companies today.----more----

Aydin Alptekinoğlu is a professor of supply chain management at Smeal College of Business, Robert G. Schwartz University Endowed Fellow in Business Administration, and Director of Research of the Center for Supply Chain Research. He received his PhD in Operations Management from the UCLA Anderson School of Management in 2004. Prior to joining Smeal in 2013, he held faculty positions at University of Florida and Southern Methodist University. His broad research interests involve three elements of product strategy: variety, price, and availability.

Our hosts Steve Tracey and Irv Grossman with the help of Shaye Brotherton, will explore pandemic-related implications on the workforce. Listeners will learn more about what industry leader LMI has found regarding challenges in shifting culture and engagement, recruitment and attrition, and navigating unintentional inequities created by the changing landscape. The panel discusses best practices and actionable behaviors that supply chain professionals can use in this new accelerated hybrid workforce.

Shaye has a Bachelor’s of Science in biology and computer science from Duke University, a Master's of Business Administration with a strategy concentration from the London Business School, and is currently working on a doctorate in human and organizational learning from George Washington University’s Graduate School of Education and Human Development (GSEHD). She is a PMI-certified project management professional and Scrum Alliance-certified scrum master, and she holds additional certificates in Prosci Change Management, HCI Strategic Workforce Planning, Luma Human Centered Design Facilitation, and Harvard’s Continuing Education certificate in Strategy & Innovation.