Supply Chain Management Review

Frank Quinn

My Take on CSCMP
November 1, 2007

The annual CSCMP Conference held last week in Philadelphia left me with one overwhelming impression: This is still the best bang for your educational buck in the logistics/supply chain space.  Where else do you have access to over 120 workshops, keynote sessions, literature tables, learning exchanges, and coffee and snacks at the break for a mere $1,400 thereabouts registration fee?

Some long-time CSCMPers (my new resolution is not to call it CLM anymore) have grumbled about the conference sponsorships being sold now and the increasing commercialism of the annual event. To be honest, I was a little worried about that, too.  But to CSCMP's credit, the advertising was low key and--most important--did not seem to interfere with the core educational mission of the event. Hey, we're all facing business pressures that we never faced before, right?

As for the educational sessions themselves, it can be a hit or miss sort of thing.  You hope that the write-up promised in the brochure is actually delivered by the speakers.  Sometimes things don't always work out that way but this year I experienced far more hits than misses.

One aspect of this year's conference that I really appreciated is that most of the sessions (at least the ones I attended) has a real-world underpinning to them.  I listened to supply chain practitioners who described concrete strategies and tactics they took to implement a project or innovation. I heard academics and consultants discuss research findings based on the responses of practitioners in the field. And I sat in on some topical areas that intuitively you know are going to be extremely important going forward like the risk management and the greening of the supply chain.  

Overall, the blocking and tackling of supply chain management was well covered this year. The one element missing from the agenda from my standpoint was a lack of focus on emerging supply chain technology.  Granted, you don't want CSCMP to turn into a techie meeting.  But I always looked for to a session or two on advanced supply chain optimization techniques, decision-support systems, or some other envelope-pushing technology subject.  

In any event, Program Chairman John Caltagirone if you're listening, you did a terrific job this year!

Posted by Frank Quinn on November 1, 2007 | Comments (0)