Sean Murphy

Notes from the Road

I was going to call this post "On the Road," but since I couldn't figure out how to write about supply chain management and still sound like a beat poet I abandoned the idea. Insetad, I'll just sum up where I've been the past two weeks and what I found relevant.

As I indicated last week (or two weeks ago if you're reading this on Monday), I attended the SCOPE East event in Philadelphia, held at the posh art-deco Loew's hotel, which used to be a bank lo so many years ago. The place still bears trappings of the good old days, right down to a large vault door mounted on the wall of the lobby. Interesting place.

The event was useful, too. There was an overall theme of green technology, with plenty of detailed presentations, many with real practical value. Of note was the presentation on the current energy climate in the U.S. from Kathryn Sachs, executive director of E4energy, a nonprofit group. It's a bit unusual to see any ".org"s represented at these events, but Sachs' presentation was interesting and fairly well attended.

I also enjoyed Jack Ampuja's presentation on packaging. Yes, Jack is a member of Supply Chain Management Review's advisory board, but he's also a respected professor at Niagara University and went into lots of detail on how proper packaging -- or lack thereof -- can really hurt your bottom line, not to mention the environment.

Overall, a really good event from a group that is new to producing shows in the U.S. 

Next, I was off to America's Playground, a.k.a. Las Vegas, for Logicon 2008, presented by Worldwide Business Research. It was nice to see the folks from WBR again (I just attended their Interlog Winter 2008 event in January in Orlando, Fla.). 

I had the pleasure of having dinner the first night there with David Sievers, a principal at Archstone Consulting. The firm was the co-author of a piece we ran in January on low-cost country sourcing, so it was neat to pick David's brain on current sourcing trends which he says are leading the world closer to our doorstep. The declining U.S. dollar is just the latest in a series of events that is drawing foreign companies to Mexico and now America for investment. Should be an interesting trend that bears watching.

At the event, speakers represented corporations ranging from Nike to Wal-Mart to Best Buy to Bausch and Lomb.

Matt Kistler, senior vice president of sustainability for Wal-Mart, talked about the retail giant's efforts at going green, initiatives that our magazine covered extensively in an article that ran last summer. 

Karen Alber, chief information officer and vice president at Heinz, gave what was probably the livliest and most engaging presentation, in which she discussed long-term strategies and how those developed at her company (full disclosure: Alber is also on our editorial advisory board. She still gave the most engaging presentation.)

Road trips are fun, but it's good to be back in Waltham, grateful that the airlines didn't lose my luggage and that I didn't lose my shirt at the blackjack tables. In the midst of all this, we managed to put out our April issue as well. Look for it in print and on our Web site soon!

Posted by Sean Murphy on March 28, 2008 | Comments (0)