On this week's Industrial Talk we're talking to Jerry Good, Regional Manager at Amazon about “Leading the way through innovation and technology”.  Get the answers to your “Supply Chain Innovation” questions along with Jerry's unique insight on the “How” on this Industrial Talk interview!

Finally, get your exclusive free access to the Industrial Academy and a series on “Why You Need To Podcast” for Greater Success in 2022. All links designed for keeping you current in this rapidly changing Industrial Market. Learn! Grow! Enjoy!

JERRY GOOD'S CONTACT INFORMATION:

Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jerry-good-2a38bab/

Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/amazon/

Company Website: https://www.aboutamazon.com/

SPONSORS:

Accruent:  https://www.accruent.com/

Fluke Reliability:  https://www.fluke.com/en-us/products/connected-reliability

PODCAST VIDEO:

THE STRATEGIC REASON “WHY YOU NEED TO PODCAST”:

OTHER GREAT INDUSTRIAL RESOURCES:

NEOM:  https://www.neom.com/en-us

Hitachi Vantara: https://www.hitachivantara.com/en-us/home.html

Industrial Marketing Solutions:  https://industrialtalk.com/industrial-marketing/

Industrial Academy: https://industrialtalk.com/industrial-academy/

Industrial Dojo: https://industrialtalk.com/industrial_dojo/

We the 15: https://www.wethe15.org/

YOUR INDUSTRIAL DIGITAL TOOLBOX:

LifterLMS: Get One Month Free for $1 – https://lifterlms.com/

Active Campaign: Active Campaign Link

Social Jukebox: https://www.socialjukebox.com/

Industrial Academy (One Month Free Access And One Free License For Future Industrial Leader):

Business Beatitude the Book

Do you desire a more joy-filled, deeply-enduring sense of accomplishment and success? Live your business the way you want to live with the BUSINESS BEATITUDES…The Bridge connecting sacrifice to success. YOU NEED THE BUSINESS BEATITUDES!

TAP INTO YOUR INDUSTRIAL SOUL, RESERVE YOUR COPY NOW! BE BOLD. BE BRAVE. DARE GREATLY AND CHANGE THE WORLD. GET THE BUSINESS BEATITUDES!

Reserve My Copy and My 25% Discount

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

amazon, package, equipment, 29th annual, product, site, fluke, industrial, magnets, basics, redundancy, conference, fulfillment center, maintenance, understand, technology, talk, data, facilities, performs

00:00

On this episode of industrial talk, we were on site at the 29th annual s MRP conference. And if you weren't there, you missed a lot. So put it on your calendar for the 30th annual SMRP conference. Well already be this year. And you know, we were talking about in this interview, we're talking about innovation, we're talking about the deployment of technology, when it impacts supply chain from one of the leading companies in the world. Let's get cracking.

00:33

Welcome to the industrial talk podcast with Scott Mackenzie. Scott is a passionate industry professional dedicated to transferring cutting edge industry focused innovations and trends while highlighting the men and women who keep the world moving. So put on your hardhat, grab your work boots, and let's go

00:51

right welcome to industrial talk. Thank you very much for joining the number one industrial related podcasts in the universe. And I don't think I'm overselling that one bit. We are once again broadcasting from the 29th annual SMRP conference. We're trying to get our, I guess world back in order. And this is sort of a collection of the best maintenance and reliability professionals around the world. It is that important. And it's a great venue here in St. Louis. And we get to talk to some of the best that I mean, I'm just it's, it's, I'm all giddy because of it. That's what it's all about. And, and we couldn't make this happen. If it wasn't for Accruent. And Fluke Reliability. You got to go out to Accruent. I'm looking at their website right now. And it says solutions, real estate facilities and asset management. It's right there. I'm looking at it right now, gaining insights to transform how your organization manages its physical resources. You can't argue with that. And then of course, I go out to fluke, and you know, the color Fluke has got the big app there. And it's got that classic, gold yellow fluke, and this is what's interesting. You go out there, they break down the barriers between data systems, data systems, and teams by aggregating everything into one place. Yeah, that's dead sexy. I'm all into it. Absolutely. Wonderful. Okay, we're gonna be talking to Amazon. We're gonna be talking with a gentleman by the name of Jeremy. Good, and he is good. But you never heard that before. No,

02:19

never great. Only good.

02:23

Jeremy spectacular. All right, Jeremy. Welcome. How you doing, man?

02:29

Good, good.

02:31

Well, I like that. I like that. Good. Good. All right, double. So anyway, you're here, in at the conference, give us a little background on who you are, and why you're such an incredible professional. And then we're going to venture into what you talked about here at this conference. All right.

02:45

Well, I've got a lot of years of experience. I started off with Chrysler. Actually Chrysler back then,

02:55

I was gonna say in the new saw the acquisition of Fiat, right.

02:59

I saw lots of acquisitions, the merger of equals with Daimler. Oh, yeah. And then then we went to Chrysler Group and then a private equity had us for a little bit we almost went bankrupt. I remember that merger with fiyat. And now the merger with KSA with Atlantis. A lot of and I know after a while we were doing the merger was still Lanta so

03:21

it was funny, because there's just a lot of drama there. Remember that? It was just like, oh, another thing? Oh, another challenge? Oh, yes. Yeah,

03:28

Yeah. Look it. And we had good products. I mean, Jeep Dodge.

03:33

Oh, yeah. No, nobody's gonna debate that. I mean, it was just a lot of drama going on over there was, but look at you. You got a smile on your face. You. You survived. That's right now you're with Amazon.

03:42

Now I am. What do you do? So I am a maintenance Summit, regional manager for maintenance and reliability. So I have a the southwest region right now. And this week, it's gonna be announced that I get a little bit broader responsibility. When I'll have a third of North America for the large fulfillment, the ARS the Yeah, Amazon robotics centers near the large fulfillment.

04:11

Yeah, he's doing robotics. And of course, that's, that's cool, right?

04:16

Well imagine a site with eight to 10,000 robots. And really, yeah, that moves anywhere from 600,000 up to a little over a million packages per day.

04:28

And all the facilities are one facet. What and each one of those is that the type of commerce that is taking place? It's amazing. It's a hell of a stat.

04:37

Yes, it is. And so you think of cell towers is very similar to that. So you as a customer, so their goal is to give you a package in two hours or less. That's where we want to be okay. And in order to do that, you have multiple fulfillment centers strategically located To where if one site is down, another one can then do the fulfillment for that package, roughly.

05:06

And again, you're throwing out a lot of stuff here. But you're saying two hours, two hours or less that I'm on, I'm on your side, I order a home, you know, whatever widget, right? Whatever it might be. When that that process starts, you're trying to fulfill it in, in and in two hours.

05:27

Correct. So if you when you push that button, within the first 12 hours, say within the first five minutes, Amazon already knows what fulfillment center is the least expensive for them to bring that package to you. within that time frame that you have, if you have Amazon Prime, if you're on the coast right now, there, I think there are six sites that can guarantee within six hours of when you order, the little trivia see is the fastest is 12 minutes. From the time somebody pushed the button and was delivered,

06:05

you know, you understand the problem here. You guys are establishing a an expectation. And you're constantly pushing that from, from a consumer perspective, I have an expectation that I'm going to get that product. And I'm going to get that product relatively quick. And I'm not going to wait. And and that is a heck of an expectation. And I think you're disrupting logistics as a whole.

06:35

It's not a bad thing that's meeting the customers.

06:39

And I'm telling you, I love it. Don't get me wrong, man. I'm I'm all big into. Yeah, I need that. I need that. And you make it easy. That's right, you make it easy to get that widget, I don't have to sit there and struggle to find a widget that's there I go there Heck of a business model.

06:57

And that's because we're focused on the customer.

07:02

Yeah, no, no, note that because that is a very important component associated with any business, right? It is, you got it, you gotta focus on the customer, don't focus on yourself, provide what the customer needs solution, right? Solve that problem. Right? Now, all of a sudden, you're just screwing up everything just because my expectations are off through the roof. Now, let's talk a little bit about why you're here the SMRP. Tell us a little bit about the topic that you were discussing, so that you can share with the individuals.

07:29

Yeah, so we talked about challenging the norms. So we have so much technology now that we're losing sight of some of the basics. And without the basics to build upon. The technology starts to unravel.

07:48

Okay, you're gonna have to expand, what are the basics,

07:51

so the basics being knowing and understanding your equipment, seeing how it's the essentials, what we call within Amazon, essential skills, crafts. So knowing that how a bearing performs, knowing what the wear characteristics of different components of, of the equipment, how a motor runs, how, how the equipment at a, at a basic level, whether it's rollers, whether it's pulley shafts, gear ratios, whether it's a gearbox, how those things all work together, and no, no, that not have data just being fed to you saying, hey, the problems over here, and you need to go fix it. If you don't understand the why behind it, then when things change, you end up getting into more more problems. And we're talking about letting, letting software now software and technology have its place, there are tools, but there are tools that need to be grown upon, off of the basics and off of knowing and understanding those basics

09:03

is a part of the basics. The the human element. I mean,

09:10

I mean it is it is and it's it's so probably one of the best tools that break things down to the basic is a filmmaker failure mode with the criticality on how you how you do the maintenance to maintain that the empowerment, so but it is it there there the skills of of what the individual has, when you walk by a motor and you it's using your senses, smell, hearing, even taste is one of the senses. So how is that piece of equipment performing? And I'll tell you one of the examples when you look at a good site to a great site, so you want to go to something where you're running 99% 99.9999% uptime yeah The sites that are different, and that differentiate them are the ones that have those skill sets and do things like critical walks, where they're walking through the critical piece of equipment and seeing the different components and where they're at. And from a health standpoint, and then doing things proactively before they fail.

10:22

Yeah, because yeah, it does. Because your obligation, your fundamental driver is fulfilling that order in two hours or less. That's it correct. And that does not leave room for any, you know, reactive situation where something was breaking broke down, right?

10:38

Correct. On critical equipment there is there are redundancies built in sites.

10:43

If you notice my note down here, I get a little word that says redundancy and might not spell it right. But it does say redundancy, I was gonna ask that question. So when you start talking about critical critical equipment, do you from a criticality perspective? Do you create a redundancy? inventory that looks like you're here? No.

11:02

So Amazon does not build whip in different areas work in process or inventory, right? To help cushion that that those are ways? So right,

11:14

right? Because they are, don't get me wrong. I

11:16

mean, and when you're moving that much product, you've got to look at the equipment and say, okay, the things that are critical to our operation, need to be well known and understood. And the maintenance plan for that, including a lot of machine learning. And a lot of data points are average, I mean, we're five to 10,000 data points in one site coming in feeding information to us on the health of that piece of equipment and how it's performing. And are there other things that we need to be looking at from it, whether it's heat vibration,

11:52

so that's a that's a Iot, right? That's an IoT solution, data collection going someplace. And then there's this the analytics behind that that says, hey, this is just garbage. This is noisy data and noisy data, whatever data you don't worry about that data. But here in this little swim lane here, these this is the these are the data's that that data's is can I say data's there's a gentleman out there that I know real well, and he's a good guy. And I'm sorry, because we're alive. I see how No, don't even don't point way does take time. Anyway. So yeah, and then if you're saying, hey, something's out of parameter or whatever, in this, whatever, analytics, this algorithm, then it notifies

12:40

and notifies and let you know that there's something wrong. Yeah. The thing is, you have to go back and look at the why behind it. Because if you do act on that, and you don't see a result, or you don't see an effect of that, and you need to understand the why behind it.

12:57

But why have the failure? The why of the problem? Why? What would like what, what's that? Why?

13:01

Yes, it is, it's, it's all inclusive, right? You want to know why it failed. So so because

13:09

you don't use for example, with just pencil whipping and then and then just sort of sit there and, and, okay, it's fixed now, but you never understood the why. And it could happen again,

13:17

well, we understand we know enough of the equipment, and how it performs. That it's not the exception, it's not the normal things for the equipment that that catches us off guard. It's the human intervention beforehand, bringing product in that, for example, a bunch of magnets, and they break loose, because they're not box properly. And I got magnets on a conveyor that's going 400 feet per minute, or feet per second. And with diverters, and all kinds of stuff on it, and it just doesn't perform because it's got magnets stuck everywhere. So it's those things like that, that create the, the event that you need to understand. Okay, so now, we need to package this differently. We need to do this differently to make sure that it doesn't happen again.

14:09

Walk us through that process. So you sit there and you clearly you're you're trying to understand the why. Fantastic, that's really important. Where does that go? I mean, that's, that's a human conversation. So

14:22

that goes back into the systems on the inputs. So and we have, there's a term that they use on a product description that shows this product can be packaged only this way, this way or this way. And it needs to be have this much density around it or whatever to protect, really, and then it goes through. So you may not realize there's a lot of those things from the lessons learned. So, we know we have this failure. So now the product cannot be packaged this way the way it was that it failed. Now it can only be package this way and this way.

15:02

So let's say let's say on packaging, I'm the packaging person I'm trying to fulfill this order, then it comes, it comes in on a screen, right? And and I look at and it's magnets will just keep on running with that analogy. So it's magnets. And then I get from from, from whatever interface direction on

15:23

only package in this box, but this material packing material with this tape, and I mean, it lights up for them. So that tells you intuitively exactly what you do and what sequence and

15:37

so so what if it's a new product, whether it's like, okay, Amazon, your process a lot, don't get me wrong, I don't know, if you've, it's like trying to find a domain name. Does it even exist out there? Like all domain names? It? What if it's a new product? So then

15:54

it's tested? In different variations on Bob, really everything else? Yeah, there are some standards that it'll come in at just because of package, right. And there's less expensive packaging, to more expensive packaging as well. So you start with the less expensive, try to make it as reliable as you can, and you work your way up to the more expensive if you need it. So there is a there is a method and a science to everything.

16:22

Yeah, a guy that likes process. Me, I love that I always I was always process something out. This is exciting and giddy. For me. I just think it's, it's the coolest thing since sliced bread. Eventually, I would imagine that Amazon's gonna have put a some sort of monitor in my head. And I don't even have to go to the website. I could just sort of say, I need potato chips. And there it is. And it's like, Oh, it's right there.

16:50

Yeah, we look at your buying habits. So we can have it show up exactly when you do it. But he chips every Sunday afternoon.

16:59

But you do. Yeah. Yeah. Because I do. Yes. And it's it's very effective. Very, very effective. I didn't know I needed those things. But at that particular time, I did. And thank goodness that was right there for me to Yeah. Hey, consider these. Yes. All right. The the last final question I have is where do you see all this going? I mean, that's pretty doggone you're, you're constantly. I mean, every day, every day, every day, you're you're making it more efficient. You're always trying to figure out more better, faster, the Steve Austin approach, right? Where do you see it going? I mean, is there a point of diminishing returns? Or is just sort of That's it. That's life. Well, Amazon's

17:47

extremely innovative. So you will see new markets being developed. So right now we're delivering packages. Pretty soon it's going to be delivering food, fresh food. It could be technology in the home. I mean, it's gonna go go go.

18:14

For somebody that's just founded on impatience. That's me. I am impatient. Amazon is absolutely. Yeah, it's for me. Oh, my gosh, I'm so glad that you. I mean, this is a this is a great conversation. It's pretty cool. Yeah, I didn't mean it. I just I had there's so much more I, I want on my bucket list. I want to just tour one of those facilities just to say it. Absolutely. Look at I know somebody. That's right. And as I stare at you, creepy, but stare at you, nonetheless. How do people get a hold of you? They're saying, Hey, I like what he's talking about. Jeremy is a great guy. He's good. But he's really fantastic. How do I get ahold of

18:54

my email is probably the best good jr@amazon.com All right.

18:59

Once again, I just want to say thank you very much for being on the industrial talk podcast because you were absolutely wonderful. All right, listeners. We're broadcasting from the 29th annual SMRP conference here in St. Louis. It's fantastic. It's got a collection of the best maintenance reliability professionals known to man or woman or people, whatever. And we're brought to you by Accruent and Fluke Reliability, you got to go out to their website because their specialty, they've got great people, great solutions, great company, so don't hesitate. And then finally, just finally, you're saying I gotta get a hold Jeremy. Fear not. We're gonna wrap it up on the OSI, all the contact information that you need to be aware of. So stay tuned. And thank you very much for joining industrial talk.

19:44

You're listening to the industrial talk Podcast Network.

19:54

All right. That is Jeremy. Good. He goes by Jerry. I didn't mention it in the interview. Why? We're at the 29th annual SMRP conference. But you could call him Jerry. I have his email address out and industrial talk.com. They're doing fantastic things as you could tell by the interview, that they're doing incredible things at Amazon big time. It's an exciting time. Now. As we wrap up, I'm reminded of a quote that I just recently heard again, confused minds say, No, don't be confused. We've got to in this in this industrial age, this this innovation industry for Dotto, we've got to educate. That means we've got to do everything we can to consume that content. Because we depend on you each and every day. Because you're bold, brave you dare greatly Jerry is and many of the great people who have been on industrial talk are all bold, brave and daring greatly. Let's change the world industries changing the world because you guys are our people. So another great interview right around the corner so stay tuned.

The post Jerry Good with Amazon appeared first on Industrial Talk.

In this week's Industrial Talk Podcast we're talking to Ricky Watts, Industrial Solutions Director at Intel Corporation about “Utility 2.0 and Modernizing Utilities Supply and Demand through Digital Transformation”. Get the answers to your “Utility 2.0” questions along with Ricky's unique insight on the “How” on this Industrial Talk interview!

You can find out more about Ricky and the wonderful team at Intel Corporation on solution to modernizing the Utility Industry by the links below. Finally, get your exclusive free access to the Industrial Academy and a series on “Why You Need To Podcast” for Greater Success in 2020. All links designed for keeping you current in this rapidly changing Industrial Market. Learn! Grow! Enjoy!

RICKY WATTS' CONTACT INFORMATION:

Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wattsricky/

Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/intel-corporation/

Company Website: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/homepage.html

PODCAST VIDEO:

THE STRATEGIC REASON “WHY YOU NEED TO PODCAST”:

OTHER GREAT INDUSTRIAL RESOURCES:

CAP Logistics: https://www.caplogistics.com/

Hitachi Vantara: https://www.hitachivantara.com/en-us/home.html

Industrial Marketing Solutions:  https://industrialtalk.com/industrial-marketing/

Industrial Academy: https://industrialtalk.com/industrial-academy/

Industrial Dojo: https://industrialtalk.com/industrial_dojo/

Safety With Purpose Podcast: https://safetywithpurpose.com/

YOUR INDUSTRIAL DIGITAL TOOLBOX:

LifterLMS: Get One Month Free for $1 – https://lifterlms.com/

Active Campaign: Active Campaign Link

BombBomb: BombBomb Link

Social Jukebox: https://www.socialjukebox.com/

Industrial Academy (One Month Free Access And One Free License For Future Industrial Leader):

Business Beatitude the Book

Do you desire a more joy-filled, deeply-enduring sense of accomplishment and success? Live your business the way you want to live with the BUSINESS BEATITUDES…The Bridge connecting sacrifice to success. YOU NEED THE BUSINESS BEATITUDES!

TAP INTO YOUR INDUSTRIAL SOUL, RESERVE YOUR COPY NOW! BE BOLD. BE BRAVE. DARE GREATLY AND CHANGE THE WORLD. GET THE BUSINESS BEATITUDES!

Reserve My Copy and My 25% Discount

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

vehicle, Balyo, talk, distribution centers, industry, people, company, concept, driving, industrial, tech, moving, equipment, world, john, floor, expensive, autonomous vehicles, important, solving

SPEAKERS

Scott MacKenzie, John Hayes

Scott MacKenzie 00:04

Welcome to the industrial talk podcast with Scott MacKenzie. Scott is a passionate industry professional dedicated to transferring cutting edge industry focused innovations and trends while highlighting the men and women who keep the world moving. So put on your hard hat, grab your work boots, and let's go Alright, welcome to the industrial talk podcast. Once again, we take a journey into why industry is so doggone cool. I'm telling you right now you're bold, you're brave, you dare greatly you solve problems. you innovate like nobody's business. You're changing lives and you're changing the world. That's why we on this podcast, celebrate you, the industrial hero, that's who you are. Thank you very much for what you do. And that's why we love you here on this platform. In a hot seat in the industrial talk hotseat, we got a gentleman by the name of john Hayes. He is the director of sales at a company called Balyo. And we're going to be talking about autonomous vehicles. So let's get going. Yeah, so there's some challenges that we are experiencing. And and of course, you know that the industrial talk platform is all about innovation and being able to apply that innovation, creativity to apply those solutions to industry to be able to be better, stronger, faster, the Steve Austin approach, and Balyo is no different. We're talking about autonomous vehicles. Now, before we get into that particular conversation, let's just have a just a recap of industrial talk to Dotto again, if I keep on preaching the necessity for education, it's out there, if I keep on preaching the necessity to collaborate, that the people are out on industrial talk, and they do want to collaborate, they do want to solve problems. And thirdly, if we're talking about innovation all the time, and how that innovation is applied to each industry and how they're using that in innovation to well make you better, provide greater customer service, everything in between. It makes sense. So Industrial Talk 2.0 is a focus on being able to make that process the education, the collaboration and the innovation process simpler, because we need to bring people together, we need to be able to have that conversation in a big way. And john Hayden and the wonderful team out of Balyo, they're just like right in the thick of it. And they've got solutions that are very, very important. Now, let's get on with the interview. So we're going to be talking a little bit about the over the period of times we're finding that that labor is a very tight commodity. And yet companies need to keep going. And companies need to keep their doors open. And company needs to continue to deliver good customer service and survive in this particular unique market that we find ourselves in. And of course, the conversation has to revolve around autonomous vehicles, what do we do within the warehouse? And how do we create a safer environment of course. So john and and team Balyo have a great solution. But we definitely talk about a lot of stuff that's associated with the market today. So with that said, Here's john. JOHN, welcome to the industrial talk, podcast absolute honor that you have joined and start to share your wisdom and insights with the listeners of industrial talk. How you doing?

John Hayes 03:35

Very well, thanks for having me on today. Thank you very, very cool,

Scott MacKenzie 03:38

man. I'm gonna enjoy this particular, you know, conversation, because it's really wrapped around and listeners, we're going to be talking a little bit about sort of that lack of labor that exists within today's market and sort of this push for autonomous or automatic vehicles. And then Fortunately for us, john with Balyo sort of understands that particular topic. But before we get going, give us a little background on who you are.

John Hayes 04:05

Well, thank you very much. I hope I have some knowledge and background I started in 1993. In the industry, yeah, I'm old. That's right. I'm getting gray.

Scott MacKenzie 04:19

Hair I don't.

John Hayes 04:22

I started way back then started building vehicles and then went on site to install. And then from there, I was lucky enough to be kind of adopted by this industry. It was a very, very small industry in 93. And most of those folks that I work with moved on to other companies and as did I and jumped back in finishing after I got back from a project in Japan, and sent a resume to a company that happened to have probably four or five people that I was in Japan with that was another AGV company. And it just grew from there moved into sales. Then from sales and applications, engineering into More of a strategic role. Vice President of Sales and Marketing, I think that marketing is a strong component of what we do as well. And then Director of Sales here at Balyo. So I've been, unfortunately, I've been around if you say they've been around for quite some time through the HGTV concept, and now into the EMR world, and you know, some differences, the concepts are still the same, there is still moving product from point A to point B, there's a lot of technology that we talk about, you know, this is different how this works, and those sorts of things. But in the end, I think that customers or users really only care, and can really only afford to care that things get from point A to point B efficiently. And they don't have to worry about it, why put a system in, that's going to be more problems than it's worth.

Scott MacKenzie 05:46

Yeah, for, for the listeners to define AGV.

John Hayes 05:50

And Mr. absolutely happy to do that. So he is he is kind of the catch all term that's been around for ages. And it stands for automatic guided vehicle. And you know, that goes back to the 50s. Really, a very early system, I believe Barrett was the first company that put one of those in on wires. And the fundamental principle of AGV is that path follows. So if you think about the earliest vehicle, it just ran, it had a sensor under the vehicle that looked for the wire in the floor, so the frequency frequency generator and for that frequency, but conceptually, they all do exactly that same thing today, even though most of them are virtual, using something called laser guidance using laser triangulation, they still do virtually the same thing. Now Amr is a new concept, which stands for automated or autonomous mobile robot. Really, it's a technology difference. And then it's highlighted by the way that it gets from point A to point B autonomous mobile robots path plan versus path follow. So that whole concept going back to the 50s with the wiring the floor, has been turned on this year. So use a similar technology, sensor base, much more sensor, which has a lot more sensors on the vehicle, but the vehicle itself maps its environment and then understands where it's at, and doesn't follow a defined path. It creates its own path now many companies constrain them but really that's the difference. One path plans a Mars path plan and agvs path follow. Now there are shades of grey and companies are starting to overlap AGV companies are being more Amr like but they in principle, that's really the what makes them different.

Scott MacKenzie 07:34

So why is this important? What why the why is this tech important with the industry?

Scott MacKenzie 07:39

Well

John Hayes 07:42

agvs have historically been very custom. So most vendors would build a custom vehicle every single time for every single customer. And the integration was difficult installation and integration because it required that line in the floor, keeping in mind that it doesn't really exist that much anymore. But it meant a lot more time in the field. So they were expensive. At the root of it, they were expensive, is the shifting to a Amar began a few years back probably 10 or more years ago with respect to ACD vendors putting controls on that we haven't vehicles ever again, being vehicles being high street Ale, which is one of the companies we use lambda in Europe, those types of vehicles platforms and putting controls on them. And then the structure of going to a controls platform that didn't require infrastructure. So that wire in the floor or the targets or those sorts of things, that concept called slam and stands for simultaneous location and mapping, and almost masters of infrastructure for use that concept. What highlight said is the fact that it's inexpensive, because we don't need anything to Matt, I mean, we use the vehicle to map the facility, we don't need any infrastructure. And the systems become smarter and smarter. So as time went on, the systems become smarter and smarter, the tech gets better. But there's a trade off, as with anything, right? That new tech is still It has great promise. But it's not as stable. It's not as accurate, generally speaking, and it's not as fast as AGV technology. So it's almost like going to you take the car concept. You've got gas powered cars, right. And you could have a drag race gas powered car, you know, like the john Porsche concept of drag car. You can have an electric car. Obviously electric car is more technologically advanced. But right now there's no drag race, electric car, maybe in the future, right? So to draw an analogy, that's kind of where we're at You can, you can have a Cadillac of a system that, you know, you can trust with an AGP concept. We'll just do the job all day long, it's a little more expensive, maybe in some ways a little, you know, maybe has a little bit more maintenance because of the awkward equipment. But you know, it works. And then there's the other side. And then there's the far side is the tech of the situation, the the tech, the Amr, Amr tech in and of itself, with respect to some of the applications suitability is great, because it doesn't require high accuracy, and it doesn't require high speed. And when I say that application will make it more clear, picking applications where people walking along, or being what we call, picking those say, in an area in the vehicles will come to them. And they will place something in the bins, that doesn't require an awful lot of speed. It doesn't require an awful lot of accuracy. A lot of integration work. But you know, that's expected across the spectrum. But when you start to get into the middle ground, and then moving over to speed and efficiency, that's where the Tech has promised. But it's not totally there yet. So you know, you're just not quite yet. Okay, this

Scott MacKenzie 11:17

is all great. Well, what problems are we solving? What What is the problem that's demanding this?

John Hayes 11:24

Well, taking tech out of it, and let's just look at it as an industry. Historically, going back many years, the problem we were solving was one of our ally, it was one where you erred on the side of the company every single time, which was, I would theoretically talk to someone about, well, we could take a person off of a forklift, and that would save you X number of dollars a year. And in order to do this project, you will need to remove this many people. And you will get what you call her rate. Typical hurdle rates in the US are 18 months or two years. So it's always been at that point about ROI. And it's completely changed. So what are we solving today, I'm driving down the highway and you'll see manufacturing plants and distribution plants with banners hanging outside now hiring. And what we're solving is an inability for businesses to find people to move product. And it is a it's a real problem. And it's one that exists this move the needle for this type of equipment, it's it's wildly popular now used to be new people were looking at moving around autonomously and would back away like what in the world am I seeing here is becoming more adopted. The ability just to get Labor has eclipsed nearly any other reasons, purchases, equipment, safety is still a reasoning, certainly. But it's the ability just to find someone. And then when you do so we did a project a couple of years back for a large shipper. And everybody knows who the big two are, it was one of those. And they said that, you know, we're looking at this project because our turnover is over 100%

Scott MacKenzie 13:11

hold a turnover a people,

John Hayes 13:14

turnover of people over 100%. So what what they say, what they said they were seeing is that one of the larger companies put a put a warehouse distribution center and down the road, and people were getting paid a little bit more problem and went down the street. And you can't blame a forklift operator, he's making X number of dollars an hour, if he's going to get a nickel dime, quarter dollar an hour more, he's going to go down the street, that's what's going to happen. But you know, one of the things that I found funny is they would say, Well, you know, eventually they come back because we pay them to come back here, but didn't have you know, you have resources bouncing back and forth and those things. And when you think about trying to run a business, when your primary concern is moving product from either a manufacturing line or through a distribution center, your primary resource is the movement is that person or that equipment. So it's gotten to the point where when you have that risk, you have to find a way to mitigate it. And that's really what we're what it's coming down to. So that I think that's the problem that we're solving today. It's interesting.

Scott MacKenzie 14:24

Yeah, it's interesting, because I would imagine a lot of these distribution centers are not located where there's a big pool of skilled individuals. So that's also a problem, correct?

John Hayes 14:40

It's not, you know, it's funny. If you think about a forklift driver, we don't need a Harvard graduate to drive a forklift and god knows what the savvy ones are the ones that do look at the guy who just moved across the street, and take that Our our network over there. And and the ones that stay. And frankly, any forklift driver, when you look at the safety aspect, the number of injuries for forklift drivers is quite high. Simply because driving a forklift is not the most gentle thing on your body, you know, you're driving, in some cases, a 10,000 pound vehicle around, that's bouncing off of, you know, expansion joints and holes in the floor, or maybe running into things. So you have a lot of injury, you have a lot of those things, which obviously drives your costs up for, you know, insurance as well as workers comp and those things. So, you know, it's even though they may not be, you know, the Harvard grads of the world, they're getting hurt. And if you can find a way to not get hurt, then that's obviously a beneficial thing. And I think that my message has always been, you know, we don't want to put people out of work, what we want is a benefit, mutually beneficial position for these folks, I think, at least I think I would, I don't know that I wouldn't want a mindless job, or I was driving back and forth. Some of these distribution centers are 200 or 2 million square feet. Yeah, they're driving, you know, a half a mile. And by the end of this their day, they're, they're thinking about anything, but what's going on in the plant. So I think that having the ability to move folks into a position where they can do stuff with their mind versus just driving a vehicle over and over and over again, the same path, can you imagine, you know, eight hours a day, you drive the same path over and over and over again, we mean, people run into things because they just get tired mentally, they get tired, worn out at the end of the day, mentally more than physically.

Scott MacKenzie 16:50

And I would imagine the same thing exists, there's a greater demand concept.

Scott MacKenzie 16:55

It's there's an increased demand to I I see it out there, that there's just more movement of products. And this, this, this logistics backbone is becoming more and more important, and creating more and more demand on that. That professional that is just driving that, that forklift around. And I like the point that you talk about safety, you're absolutely spot on. I think that there's business continuity.

John Hayes 17:25

Huge.

Scott MacKenzie 17:27

And and, and you're sure you're hitting on some great, great points. With With that said,

John Hayes 17:33

What, what's,

Scott MacKenzie 17:35

what's the biggest pushback here? I mean, it makes sense.

John Hayes 17:40

Well, it's still a bit of black magic, and it is still a bit expensive, um, the pushback has been reduced greatly, mostly because of what's been termed the, you know, the Amazon effect. And I am part of it, and I bet you're a part of it as well. We had a conversation the other day, and you say, go get these headphones, because they're, you know, they're gonna work very well. But guess where I'm from? I'm from Amazon. There's an Amazon distribution center, I'm outside with Virginia, it's more than 50 miles from here. And with the truck stuff that we talked about a few minutes ago, the over the road, trucking that they can only do eight hours a day. Well, they pop distribution centers up around larger cities. So you're right, that the regular desire and need for automation means more people, more people harder to get. So by proxy, the automated equipment becomes more and more in demand and favorable. I think that it's it's not black magic any longer. The costs have come down. But even so, if you look at the paradigm, us versus Europe, the hurdle rate, or the internal rate of return for Europe, in many cases is five years or more. In the US early on, in conversations about this equipment, we're looking at 18 months to two years, which means that really we're looking at two or three shift operations and sometimes for it's a no brainer for three or four shift operations just makes because we're providing the vehicles that operate on all four shifts with no people if you thought about that very same operation, you have four times the number of people so the numbers start to make make a lot of sense. I think that we're personally I think this will start to make a lot of more beneficial use. We talked about this internally Balyo the other day, you know how do we kind of work towards being a more we're all responsible company I guess is the best way to say it. My view is when we can take this equipment and mom and pop companies can have Third, to take a piece of automated equipment and grow their business, then they can compete with and I don't want to, say, the Amazons of the world, but I think you kind of see where I'm going with it, they can grow their business without having to add the expense of, you know, multi shift operations they can grow and, you know, moving people again into this more mutually beneficial roles, you know, running a machine or working on things, or there's things that use your mind when when we can take this concept and it becomes less the purview of Fortune 100 companies, and becomes more available to mom and pop. I think that everybody's going to be a lot happier with what with what we can do in this world. But you know, it's still expensive equipment, expensive, the sensor basis, something else,

Scott MacKenzie 20:48

but you're getting there. I mean, yeah, continue.

John Hayes 20:55

Yeah, the tech, when we talked about Amr, originally, you talked about the Gulf of differences, you know, the cost for EMRs are less expensive than average. And almost all cases, and the costs are coming down. Now, one of the things that we're seeing is, the average used to be kind of built jack of all trades. And that was the expectation that I could buy an ATV and it would do just anything, you know, where it could pick from the floor and put something in a rack 30 feet tall. But if you reset your expectations of what automation can do, and you're smart, start small. This stuff can be inexpensive. So you know, you pick something very simple to automate, you don't have to start. And frankly, I recommend that you don't start with a 3030 vehicle system that's super complex, the rapid pace of change within your organization would be head snap, and you would you you entire organization would be turned upside down quickly. The thing that the new tech is allowing us to do is do things like proof of concepts and those things where we can come in and put a single vehicle system in and show you in your organization, how that works, what the process changes might need to be and how to get used to them before rolling out more and more vehicles. So most all of our aging VA Mr. Brother, brother in reports to the MH I used to be called MH I think it's called MH II now material handling industry of America. And so the numbers used to be represent we would all report our numbers. In on average, the average AGV system was about five to seven vehicles. And the reason for that was just the three line items outside of the hardware, which was engineering, installation and integration. That was the time on site really. And you had to amortize that over the vehicle cost and five to seven just happened to be the sweet spot where it started to make return on investment sense, right? The new tech allows us to put vehicles in for a much lower number so people can now afford to put a single vehicle system in and learn from it. So the tech is pushing all of us forward. It really is.

Scott MacKenzie 23:04

I like it and the what stands out would be that incremental approach, even proof of concept it I think that's great. It doesn't have to be big bang, you don't have to dig a trench of some sort. It's it doesn't have to be that complex. Now we're gonna have to wrap this conversation up. JOHN, how does somebody get a hold of you?

Scott MacKenzie 23:26

I think the best case scenario would be to reach out via the internet. That's Balyo comm www.meliar.com. And you'll be able to reach out to us as a company there. My personal email address is certainly available. That's john dot Hayes ha ye s Balyo COMM And I'd be more than happy to help. I tend to take a more consultative approach to everything that I do so pretty little to salesy with me. So I'm more than happy to just chat with people if it's something they'd like to talk about.

Scott MacKenzie 23:53

And if you type in john Hayes, if this just blows me away on on LinkedIn, you've got john Hayes. I was looking at him going, and I saw john Hayes 7953 blah, blah. No, that's impressive.

John Hayes 24:17

Right.

Scott MacKenzie 24:18

All right, a couple of things that I want to put before you listeners, once again, I love the concept, and we've got the problem of up labor, we've got to be able to look at it from that. From the technology perspective, I think Valley has got an interesting value proposition. I like the fact that we're talking a little bit about the incremental approach. I think the future's bright when it comes to this and and I think if you're driving down the costs, and and trying to have that mom and pop mindset, I think you've got a great value proposition. I like it.

John Hayes 24:54

Thank you very much. All right, we're gonna wrap it up. I really appreciate you. Yeah, we're

Scott MacKenzie 24:58

gonna wrap it up on the other side. You're not go away. We will be right back. You're listening to the industrial talk Podcast Network. All right, that is john Hayes i t y e s and you definitely can go out to john hay. His Lincoln stack card is all out there and you know what? It is truly john Hayes h A y e. s. Balyo is the company go to be a lyo.com find out more about how those that solution and what they're doing. Balyo can definitely help you and your manufacturing process as well as your warehousing stuff. It's everything that's john right there, man. I'm looking at it as that card right there. JOHN, good looking guy with the beard can't miss. Alright, once again, we are talking about industrial talk to Dotto. This is where you're going to go this is where you're going to go. You're going to go to educate, you're going to go to collaborate and you're going to glue to innovate. We are all bound together without a doubt. We have ties, every industry whatever it is, let me Valley Oh man, that's important stuff and they have ties to the warehousing and and the manufacturing world. important stuff. Reach out to him. All right. Thank you very much. Be bold, be brave, dare greatly you change the world. Thank you very much for joining the industrial talk podcast. We will be right back

The post Mr. John Hayes with Balyo Talks About the Power behind Automated Transportation Solutions appeared first on Industrial Talk.

In this week's Industrial Talk Podcast we're talking to David Cahn, Product Marketing Manager with BlueRidge Global about “The Need for Supply Chain to Invest in Resiliency”. Get the answers to your “Supply Chain Resiliency” questions along with David's unique insight on the “How” on this Industrial Talk interview!

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PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

supply chain, demand, pandemic, optimize, people, inventory, blue ridge, systems, problems, industrial, industry, supply, drive, managing, david, collaborate, talk, planning, technology, selling

00:04

Welcome to the industrial talk podcast with Scott MacKenzie. Scott is a passionate industry professional dedicated to transferring cutting edge industry focused innovations and trends while highlighting the men and women who keep the world moving. So put on your hard hat, grab your work boots, and let's go. All right, again, welcome to the industrial talk podcast. That's right. It's about you, you industry here on if you're out there on video, I'm pointing right at your face right now. This platform celebrates you, you are bold, you are brave, you dare greatly. you innovate. You're changing lives and you're changing the world each and every day. And if you're not, you know, think, come talk to me because you are. Thank you very much for joining. Thank you for joining this particular celebration. All right. in the hot seat, we have a gentleman by the name of David Kahn, that ca h n. Blue Ridge global is the company and this is a timely topic because of this squiffy, whatever this market we call post pandemic, pandemic, whatever it is. Supply Chain must invest in resiliency. How about that one? Yeah, let's get cracking.

01:16

Come on. That's a cool topic.

01:19

I mean, I've had a number of conversations about supply chain and why it's important and it is important, don't get me wrong, it is important. But I think one thing that this particular COVID world we live in, we need some level of resiliency within that supply chain, because I think it caught us off guard. But you know what people like David, Blue Ridge, and others, they have answers because you know what we're all about here on the industrial talk podcast, right? You know, we're all about educating. But we want to educate in a entertaining way. That's right. And we want to be collaborating, and we don't just want to collaborate and chirping each other. We want to collaborate to come up and solve problems, because industry, you solve problems. And we have to collaborate to do that. We don't have all the answers. But when we get together in a collaborative way,

02:12

answers happen. I love it, you're solving problems. And then of course, we got to really think about innovation, we do. And they're not gonna happen if you're not educated. And if you're not collaborating, and you know, innovation is a result of that type of stuff. You got to dream, you got to think big, you got to work with people. The industrial talk podcast, the industrial talk platform, is a network of networks, where we're doing an industry talk, industrial talk. 2.0, how about that, because we want to be able to take you, industry professional, you, whoever you are, you know who it doesn't really matter, and be able to highlight your skills because you solve problems. Industrial talk.com is where it's at. Be on the lookout because it's pretty duck gun. Cool. I'd telling you right now, um, for me, I get, you know, I'm always excited. I am I do, I'm pointing at myself, right now, Scott does get pretty amped up about things. But this one I was I'm really amped up about because you could go out to industrial talk, you can then go to industry heroes, we're going down that road, you go to that industry heroes, right? And then you're gonna say, Well, I want to know somebody that's in, let's say, oil and gas. I want to know somebody that's in a, you know, IoT industry for data, whatever might be, and you can filter and find those individuals and their companies and reach out, and then find out everything that is damn cool about every single one. And then you're gonna say, I want to educate some more. I want to collaborate with them, because I want to innovate. How about that? I'm all tingling now. That's pretty doggone Cool. All right. Let's get cracking. Again, I gotta tell you, man, this was a pretty cool doggone interview. I really enjoyed it. David, just, he's got a lot of energy too. You'll notice if you go out there and a video if you go to YouTube channel, my youtube channel industrial talk, and you find this particular video, or you can just go to industrial talk and then find his where his podcast is located. You'll see the video there too.

04:24

He's, he's, he is infectious when it comes to this supply chain stuff. I'm telling you right now. It makes it fun. And I mean, it is entertaining. I'm new without a doubt. I'm thinking about changing my career to be more simple. No, I'm not. I'm sorry. That's, that's just me just putting myself way out there jumping the Shark Tank right now. But anyway, we're gonna be talking a lot about supply chain resiliency, and we do need it and what do we do? What are the strategies? David is out there.

04:56

He's got a badass stat card on LinkedIn.

05:00

Yeah, but you could find it on industrial talk and you're saying, Scott, Okay, I'm gonna do that. Yeah. David Kahn, he's bringing the lumber. Enjoy the interview. David, welcome to the industrial talk podcast. I'm excited about this conversation. How are you doing? I'm doing mighty fine. You know, living the dream, living the dream. And that dream is what?

05:22

solving problems on this solving, you know, the problems on industrial talk today. Yeah, that's exactly right. And I hear you, because that is important. And that's what people want to hear. problem solving. With a with a sparkly attitude.

05:39

All right, let's give the listeners a little background, a little 411 on who David Kahn is and Blue Ridge global and then we're going to venture into I like this resiliency in your supply chain and why we need to do that. Give us a little background. So David Kahn, been around the AARP supply chain CRM space for too long.

06:03

You know, Ben worked in manufacturing b2b distribution retail had my own e commerce companies for a while, built them grow them sold them

06:15

and, and driving really driving product marketing activities and content for Blue Ridge and and Blue Ridge. Global is isn't actually a supply chain planning provider. They're kind of a leading space in the

06:29

wine and spirits in the food service. Oh, really? distributing

06:35

automotive aftermarket? Yeah, I was you had me on line and spirits? Yeah, yes, they do.

06:44

Dramatically these days. So yeah. So they're doing very well. And they do pricing and planning and price optimization and planning optimization.

06:54

Well, the industry see it like that. And I mean, it was funny because the pre pandemic, right? If you can remember back then, because I certainly can't apparently, that was such a long time ago. But but apparently they were saying, but anyway, pre pandemic, we didn't realize how important the supply chain was right? Just like it you just took it for granted. You know, that product was on the shelf. Yeah, there it is. It's right there. It's ready to go. And then the pandemic hits, and then all of a sudden, Where the hell is that product? It's not on this. Then everybody all of a sudden said, Doggone it, where is it? And then they realize supply chains. pretty important. Yeah. As we go scramble for, you know, sanitary clothing and toilet paper and hand sanitizers and can't find them and empty shelves. And yeah, pretty cool stuff all sudden, it was but then that segues into what we're going to be talking about, I realized how

07:48

how, to a certain extent, how fragile that supply chain was, we just sort of took it for granted. And it was like, doing its thing. And then all of a sudden, there's a burp in the old thing. And then all of a sudden, boom, everybody's all pissed off. Tell us a little bit about investing in the resiliency. What does that mean? I don't know what that means. What are we really talking about here is that the pandemic and there's gonna be other crisis's, you know, that occur every, you know, every day, every year, you know, and that caused basically the supply chain disruptions that you talked about. And they're requiring really better visibility to supply and demand fluctuations. And that's really what, what we're talking about resiliency, and then how can I respond quicker. So you see, like, for example, unforeseen weather events, and seasonality. You know, we have spoilage on fresh fruits and vegetables, we have people hoarding items, we have demand for other items, you know, that comes to come almost to a complete standstill, you know, you got all these different changing business models, you know, you have foodservice distributors that were selling a lot to restaurants and that kind of distribution channel and now selling to grocery stores. And so whole different shifts and models are occurring. You know, same is true with, you know, the wine and spirits in a manufacturer starting to ship their business models and making hand sanitizers, you know, and selling that to totally different markets. And at the same time, you know, how do I get these products to the market, because of this, you know, there's labor shortages on drivers. And so, you know, so not only even if I was able to react, I got delivery and fulfillment issues. And as people come in, you know, people want to get this stuff faster, better, quicker, you know, they want to get used to ordering today and getting it tomorrow and getting into an hour. And so that puts unbelievable demand pressures on how I support and how I can respond to changes in demand a lot faster.

09:55

I'll tell you it

09:58

it highlighted just

10:00

That complexity that exists today in the supply chain and how, you know, that chain itself, there's some weak spots within those links. And, and once that one, one link begins to falter a little bit, then everything else starts to there's a rippling effect. And so, so the question I have to you recognizing that if you haven't taken this whole pandemic thing seriously, and made some adjustments, and making your supply chain more resilient, what do we need to do today to, to, to achieve that?

10:33

So it is a couple things. One is really, we have to fine tune how we drive our planning, and pricing, you know, and, and the amount of data that we're that we're coming into the supply chain, and how do I absorb that. So for example, Blue Ridge is using a lot of artificial intelligence and machine learning, based on that data that's coming in, I mean, this phenomenal amount of data is coming into the supply chain. And so at the same time, they you have to maximize or optimize the 1000s and 1000s of stock keeping units that you're delivering to the market, and through different channels. So you may have a, what they call a multi Echelon network where you're selling food, distributors, you're selling those distributors and selling to wholesalers. And then you're you're selling

11:24

to retailers. And so managing the inventory and the price point and the geography by category by assortment, you know, how do I effectively do that without using some level of machine learning or artificial intelligence to help me drive that analytics, you know, much more effectively, and optimize my levels of assortment inventory, optimize my revenue, you know, slashed my inventory, carrying costs, but really one of the unique things about

11:57

it, it all comes back to our, you know, knowledge of supply and demand, you know, traditionally managing that supply and demand. And one of the unique things is we started out historically with supply, you know, supply chain planning. And that was really managing the supply side.

12:16

And then we started to wake up one day, and we said, you know, we need to start managing our demand better, we need to get better visibility to the math. And so up came this house sales and operations planning, and we were marrying demand management systems with supply chain with supply chain planning systems. And so the next evolution really came with integrated business planning.

12:41

And really what we're talking about there is integrating some financial modeling into the system. So I can find to my revenue streams, fine tune my margins, optimize and even tune that demand that selling the products that I want to sell versus reacting. And that's really where the pricing optimization comes into the equation. So yeah.

13:03

David, it's interesting, you're, you're talking talk, you're walking the walk, you're doing all this stuff, that's really pretty cool. I just think that people because of the pandemic got caught off guard, I think what you're talking about is a very sophisticated level of thinking associated with their supply chain that supply side demand side, using AI analytics data, pulling it in and, and and being able to identify those nuggets of insights to make better decisions. I think, because of the pandemic, everybody's like, Oh, my God.

13:37

It's out there. But I mean, you're, you're a sophisticated type of guy. So think about it, you know, simplistically, let's kind of take it back level. So simplistically, no one wants to hold the inventory. Nobody want it

13:53

doesn't want it, the distributors don't want it and the retailers want to keep their inventory, you know, as fast moving as possible. Everybody wants that inventory to move as fast as possible. So we implemented all of these different tools to manage that inventory, as fast as good as well as we can. And so we want to know, as fast as possible, from the demand of when we buy it, how to replenish it, we want to we want to react really fast. We want to know which stock keeping units are moving faster. How do I want, I want to optimize the fast flowing, I want to do something with the slow moving, but at the same time, how do I balance that? And since no one wants the inventory, you know, everyone's running lean, so you get a disruption or get a spike in demand. And the supply chain is not ready for that. We no longer have that luxury of huge buffer stocks and huge safety stocks.

14:56

You know, everyone is, you know, we're delivering right today.

15:00

The consumer, we're deliberately cutting out the middleman in a lot of industries, no one wants the inventory. Everyone wants to accelerate that whole supply and fulfillment equation. And what's funny is, I've been at a lot of industrial sites, and they have this hush hush conversation about their bone yard. And it's, it's a special locations where nobody wants to carry inventory, but they have a bone yard. So when that whole problem happens, they have a bone yard, that they have this buffer stock.

15:36

And so the buffer stocks, you know, is really what they call safety stocks. And it is, you know, how do I optimize that safety stock, because I really don't want it if I can, if, I mean, the safety stock is like your insurance policy, it is. And so, if but if I had better forecasting, and better demand visibility, and I was much more integrated throughout the supply chain, that bought the stock was safety stock could be lower, and lower and lower, and it would reduce everyone's carrying costs here, here's my, here's my question is, is I get it, I see what you're doing. That's fantastic stuff, great thinking, great innovation in that mindset. But what if the, if I'm a, a vendor, and I'm just, I'm old school guy, right? I do it this way, I've been doing it this way forever. I'm gonna have my I'm gonna have a disconnect between my innovative thinking like what you're doing, and having that conversation with old school guy, and and see how I can optimize it. How do you deal with that sort of disconnect?

16:41

lexicon disconnect, I don't know. So I think really, you know, the, the problem is,

16:48

is that that person that was doing it manually, or spreadsheet wise,

16:53

can't do it that way anymore. He just can't. The reason is, is that we are now delivering, and fulfilling our customer customer demands, in so many different ways you can order on one place and have it shipped to another, you can order online and pick it up in the store, you can, you know, managing all of those echelons of quality of inventory, where do I put the inventory to optimize my demand signals? Where should I have? How much should I have? What? which items? Should I have that in it? You know, how do I how do I price those items more both effectively to drive revenues, wherever is the ones that have the least carry. And at the same time, people are driving more customized, personalized type of products. So the number of stock keeping units is going is growing phenomenally. You know, it typically in a high tech market, the average product life cycle is about 14 months. So there's new products coming out every day. So you know,

18:01

how do you

18:03

use and you should aspects without a system? I i what i hear you saying, David is that you if you're listening to this podcast, and you do it on a spreadsheet, I highly recommend that you sort of get into the 21st century, and begin to invest in some innovation, to manage that demand and supply all of the stuff or somebody who's just gonna go ride around you and satisfy their need to be able to not hold stock but have greater real time capabilities. So don't don't be left out in the cold. Right. Yeah, exactly. It's just not that. Come on. It's not that difficult. It seems to me it would be far more difficult to manage these doggone spreadsheets, then

18:56

not to allow the technology the innovation to do it for you. Right. It just seems I mean, we're there now. I mean, is so, you know, we've always kind of managed the supply side, and that, you know, we're getting better handle on the demand side. But what are the things that really can shape the demand and drive ultimate clean a forecast is that pricing optimization tool? So you're really bringing in financial metrics for the company that, you know, what is the target margins that they want to achieve? What is it? What is the high selling products that they want to move forward? How do they remove How do they move the slow moving items, or end of life items that we just talked about? How do I how do I optimize what I have and drive the revenue and shape my demand instead of being reactive? I want to be proactive. And if I can be proactive in shaping the demand that I want to sell at the price points I want to sell then I can supply that

20:00

more effectively and more efficiently. And I can lower my inventory, optimize my carrying costs, optimize my inventory delivery systems, optimize my fulfillment, for what the truck loads, and I need to deliver out to out to the channels. And

20:15

can I incrementally approach this problem? Because you know, as well as I do, everybody gets into that business mode, we're just doing this, we're just grinding it out. And, and and

20:26

we're not optimized by any stretch of the imagination, I'm just sort of to, in general, is your way of being able to sort of incrementally proceed down this road to do that?

20:37

So yeah, there is I mean, you know, you're going to start using a lot of start using, you know, before you start planning, you're going to start executing, you know, I got a react, I got a new customer, he wants this, and he wants this product, and I need to get it to that person. So you're going to react, you're going to use what we would call supply chain execution, you're going to optimize your transactions to fulfill that order, prioritize that order, get it on some truck and deliver it, you know, and so you're going to use different warehousing systems, different transportation management systems, that really drive execution of, of your supply chain, where you start getting the next level up is loud, let me stop that and do better planning of that. Ah, yes, let me plan better. You know, let me get a forecast that's more accurate. And traditionally, you know, your forecast

21:31

is going to gonna be off, you know, I didn't rock it, it was it was so mature over here, I could forecast I could sort of deal with it over here pre pandemic, but now the pandemic is good. I'm having a hell of a time trying to forecast this, like, because I have no idea what that that demand side equation looks like, because I so squiffy out there. How do I deal with that? So there's a lot of different technologies, a lot of different methods in which you can start getting real time signals of the demand, you know, think of integration from a retail or, you know, the point of sale system, you know, if I can react, you know, there was one example of a leading

22:14

perfume manufacturer, okay. And they, you know, they put out something like 1500 new products a year. And some of them, some of them are successful, and some of them aren't. Okay, but they gotta be react real fast to the ones that are successful in the ones at the same time, which ones aren't? Yeah, so there was a story where there were

22:37

a leading actress was on Good Morning, America. And she talked about this new mascara that she was using, right? And immediately, within like an hour, it's like that demand. And so that that manufacturer, and those resellers and wholesalers had to, you know, jump up their replenishment. So those demand signals are real time. Yeah. So getting closer to the demand signal, yeah, allows me to be punished better. Yeah, you need to integrate, you need to be able to, you need to connect, it's an integrated, it's a data thing, and you can pull it all in. But this is all great conversation. It's all wonderful. And I got my help. I'm shaking my head, you had me at Wine and Spirits at the very beginning. I was like, super homed in on this conversation. What are the roadblocks so

23:34

just like any other technology, it's, you know, people process and technology. So, you know, I have, you know, the ability, how effective Can I do change management, you know, and another thing is, hey, I've got all these other conflicting projects going on, at the same time, I don't have time for you need help. And, you know, I'm too busy putting out fires, fires, then, you know, try to get things you know, predictive. Yeah. So, I think, you know, moving from putting out emergencies and fires during the pandemic, to actually moving towards something that's more proactive, and planning in the new weld is, is gonna really help it. But you know, you you know, right now people are trying to get back to work, you know, are they trying to survive and trying to figure out how to rebuild and what do I how do I prosper going forward? Or is this just, like, digging a ditch and and filling it back in and there's no real progress being made. But But to your point, and, and for your listeners out there, it's always a human element and the technologies the technology, and you're gonna have great people talk about their innovation and, and how they're constantly adding to it. But unless you get people to really embrace it and recognize that this is important, and be able to prioritize their, their workload, for lack of a better term, it's it's always going to be something of

25:00

Have a challenge. It's always a human element. It's always that culture that keeps succeed or fails it is. So it's like, and boy, especially today, I find, David that the pandemic itself has created

25:17

a greater focus on things that are important right? Before it before pandemic, it was like, yeah, there's a lot of fluff a lot of crap out there. But now, people don't have that luxury of just sort of,

25:32

I want to focus on what is important, and executing it as fast as I possibly can, and adjusting and so on and so forth. Do you get that same sense? Yeah, you know, I, yes, I'm gonna say yes. And the way that I see people responding to that is,

25:49

tell me what I need to work on, you know, managed by exceptions. I know, you know, if, if I if I got all these different, you know, orders out there, you know, I tell me, the ones that I'm in danger of Tell me was the ones that are going to be late? Don't I don't, you know, I don't care about the 95 of them that are on time. Right now, I just let me deal with the five exceptions, you know, and so how do I, how do I get that material? To me faster? How do I fulfill that order quicker? You know, it's, it's management by exceptions, you know, but yeah, we're gonna let the data and the decisions to help drive those decisions on how I'll correct that action, or correct that exception, I'm going to leverage technology to do that I can use machine learning, I can use artificial intelligence to say, how did that I had a similar problem to like that, you know, two months ago, or a year ago, you know, how did we handle it, then, and let the system make recommendations, not only be kind of predictive, but let it be prescriptive. And so a lot of analytics are really much, hey, here's a dashboard of your problems. Some of them will recommend, you know,

27:03

you know, be you know, based on based on past performance, this is going to be late. But if if you can actually start saying I'm going to be prescriptive, and here's how you resolve that issue, then you've got, you know, some true value and with the, you know, with, with the newer generation of people coming on board into supply chain, let them leverage that experience, you know, and knowledge workers kind of technology, you know, brain trust that existed in the company, to how they solved that problems in the past and let them let the machine Help Help the new generation. See, it's cool. I like I like what you're talking about, right? Because I think that

27:48

right off the bat that the genies out of the bottle, if you think you're gonna be doing business the same old way. I mean, a, you just got another thing coming in, um, and, and you can't, you can't expect to survive or have some sort of legacy, if you're thinking that you're not going to have to innovate your business and leverage technology like yours. He just, it's just, I mean, either way, I'll put it. Yeah. And you know, and, you know, a lot of a lot of folks will say, Hey, you know, I have systems that do that already. You know, I already have an ER p system, and it does some supply chain stuff. And I already have that stuff. Yeah. And in reality, that's, that's like you said earlier, like, Where do I begin? So some of those supply chain systems within, you know, most of the MRP systems, they're really not focused on sophisticated pricing, they're not supposed to, they're really an execution system, or, you know, with for the enterprise. And what we're really talking about here is outside the four walls. Yeah, you know, we're talking the supply chain. It's not, you know, most of the EMP systems are going to hit you, you know, throw the production over the finished goods into the warehouse, and you may, you know, support the at an aggregate level, but it's not going to kind of fine tune, how much inventory do you need this distribution center, versus this wholesaler versus this e commerce warehouse?

29:16

That's not what it was designed for? No, not at all. So we complement so bluebridge complements the GRP systems that people are using today. Let let it be the transactional backbone that's running your manufacturing facility and let fluids be kind of the era of your supply chain. There you go. Dead sexy, my friend. All right. David Kahn has his name Blue Ridge, global is the company supply chain and how you create some sort of resiliency was the topic. I enjoyed this conversation and it's a we got to wrap it up. I'm sorry to hear that. Thank you very much for joining the industrial talk cop podcast, David Kahn. Thank you very much. All right.

29:58

Well, yeah, hello.

30:00

Hell yeah. All right listeners. We're gonna wrap it up on the other side all the contact information by the way, are you active out there on LinkedIn? How do people get ahold of you? So I am active on LinkedIn.

30:12

I'm on you just spell my name David cod ch n. Help. Yeah. Bingo. Easy peasy. All of his links will be out there. And do not go away. We will be right back.

30:26

You're listening to the industrial talk Podcast Network.

30:35

All right, what did I tell you, man, he is passionate about supply chain and being frickin Bob problems. That's what he's all about. You needed to reach out to this jet. Blue Ridge global David Kahn, you will not be disappointed one day, not one bet. If you're looking out in the video, I'm holding up one, not one bit. All right, we're gonna wrap it up pretty quick on this one, we don't really have time to waste. Remember, industrial talk. 2.0 is coming your way. This is a place where you you need to get a get on a podcast, you need to start developing that content about you, your company, and then be able to collaborate because we're building a market. And we're really a network of networks. Because we need for you to constantly educate. Constantly collaborate, to innovate, because we need you for the future. Industry.

31:28

I'm a big fan as you can tell. All right. Be bold, be brave. Dare greatly hang out with people who are bold and brave and dare grant me change the world. That's what we're talking about. Thank you very much. We're gonna have a great interview right around the corner.

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