After 32 years in private industry, J. Paul Dittmann made the leap to academia. Now the former supply chain executive is working to strengthen the bonds between the two worlds.
Mitch Mac Donald has more than 30 years of experience in both the newspaper and magazine businesses. He has covered the logistics and supply chain fields since 1988. Twice named one of the Top 10 Business Journalists in the U.S., he has served in a multitude of editorial and publishing roles. The leading force behind the launch of Supply Chain Management Review, he was that brand's founding publisher and editorial director from 1997 to 2000. Additionally, he has served as news editor, chief editor, publisher and editorial director of Logistics Management, as well as publisher of Modern Materials Handling. Mitch is also the president and CEO of Agile Business Media, LLC, the parent company of DC VELOCITY and CSCMP's Supply Chain Quarterly.
Although he's now ensconced in academia, J. Paul Dittmann has no interest in ivory towers. Instead, the former Whirlpool Corp. supply chain VP prefers to stay grounded in the business arena, even as he becomes more involved in academic programs.
Dittmann's real-world experience makes him ideally suited for his responsibilities in the Department of Marketing and Logistics at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. As director of corporate partnerships, he oversees town-gown collaborations with businesses that want to improve their performance by conducting supply chain assessments. And as managing director of the department's Integrated Value Chain Forums, he directs semiannual "think tank" events involving more than 50 companies. But Dittmann isn't all about business; he also lectures on logistics and supply chain topics to undergraduate and grad students as well as to attendees of UT's executive education programs.
Dittmann only recently entered into this marriage of mortarboard and business suit. For 32 years, he worked for Whirlpool Corp., where his career path touched on most aspects of supply chain management. Among the titles he held at the appliance maker were vice president, supply chain strategy and systems; vice president, global supply chain systems; vice president, logistics; director, manufacturing technology; corporate director, manufacturing planning; corporate director, strategic planning; director, logistics; and director, marketing services. With credentials like that, it's easy to see why companies of all stripes have benefited from Dittmann's involvement in supply chain audits and educational programs at UT.
In Dittmann's view, supply chain education should be a two-way street. In today's fast-changing global business environment, he believes, academics and practitioners must keep each other current by matching real-world needs with cutting-edge research.
DC VELOCITY Group Editorial Director Mitch Mac Donald recently spoke to Dittmann about the interplay of business and academia, and why it's important to those both on and off campus.
Q: You had a successful three-decade career in the private sector. Could you tell us a little bit about that and how you found yourself migrating to an academic role?
A: Basically, I spent 32 years in industry. All of that was with the Whirlpool Corp., running logistics, supply chain, and manufacturing operations. It was a long career with one company, but there was an unbelievably wide range of interaction there.
After 32 years, I wanted to do something different. I was in a position where I could do whatever I wanted to do, and I decided that it was time to try something new. I am loving every day of it.
But I wanted to stay involved in business organizations because it had been so rewarding. Some people talk about giving back, and I think there's something to that. Those of us who spent a lot of time in the business world have something to say to students.
Q: Could you describe for us what you do at the University of Tennessee?
A: I manage two business forums: the Supply Chain Strategy and Management Forum and the Sales Forecasting Management Forum. The supply chain forum has 35 sponsoring companies that meet on campus for a couple of days twice a year—generally in April and November—to really talk about the leading issues of supply chain and integrative management. The other program, the sales forecasting forum, really gets into the heart of supply and demand integration. We have 20 or so sponsoring companies for that program.
My role as director of corporate partnerships comes into play when companies come to UT to take advantage of a highly ranked logistics program. Oftentimes, companies come to us with questions with respect to the partnerships they want to establish. Sometimes it evolves into supply chain consulting.
When it does, I am at their disposal as well. We have done supply chain assessments in a wide range of companies. And I also do some teaching.
Q: How has your experience as a supply chain executive influenced the approach you take in directing those programs?
A: Having been in the same seat as industry people, facing the pressures they deal with every day, I understand that they don't have tolerance for anything that doesn't add value. When they pay the sponsor fee, they don't look at it as a contribution—they're looking for a return on their investment.
Knowing what challenges business people are facing helps you design a program with a value proposition that responds best to what their needs are. And there is mutual benefit. We help them, of course, but they help us as well. Just from their being here we have a better understanding of what their needs are.
Q: Are there particular concerns that companies want you to address in these forums?
A: In our Sales Forecasting Management Forum, a huge issue is how best to implement sales and operations planning, or S&OP. It's cross-functional, and companies find it difficult. At nearly every company where we do [supply chain] audits, we find the functional silo problem. That is a fundamental problem in business: How do we manage that horizontal process when we're all organized vertically? Certainly, forecasting approaches, accuracy, metrics, and all those things are still on the agenda, but it's morphing into "How is the forecast going to be used?"
In the Supply Chain Strategy and Management Forum, there's concern about the cost of transportation. We are finding some companies now are reassessing their networks—for warehouses, in particular—because of the tremendous increase in the price of transportation. Companies are asking: Do we have our warehouses in the right place? Are they sized right? Are they in the right relationship to our source of supply and to our customers? [People are saying,] if we can't cut rates anymore, maybe we ought to skin this cat another way.
Q: What's the value of participating in the forums and the corporate partnership programs?
A: We aim to put on very relevant programs. Before each forum, we let sponsors set the agenda. Once we determine what the hot topics are, we recruit the best speakers from academia and business. That's what keeps the relationship so tight: We're designing forums to respond to specific needs that have been expressed. We look at sponsors as our customers, and they come away with ideas they can implement and that will help them save money.
Other benefits are that they have closer associations with the faculty, including access to research before it is published. That helps them stay current. Another big reason to participate is that when they're on campus, they have plenty of opportunities to interface with undergrads and MBAs. Many are competing for the very best logistics graduates, and I think it assists in their recruiting. Nothing is more important than building a talent base for the future.
Q: Is there enough new talent coming into the system to support the logistics and supply chain management needs of business?
A: Probably not, given the tremendous needs of business. Having said that, though, I think the opportunity to hire young, qualified people for their first positions in supply chain management is better than ever. As a matter of fact, when we work with many companies, we find that most people in logistics and supply chain have never had any real academic training in those areas. It is because programs are still relatively new. We graduate hundreds of students every year now who have a very firm, solid education in supply chain, and that is obviously going to help them. The bottom line is it's getting dramatically better, but there still is a shortage.
Q: Some academics have voiced concern about a gulf between academia and practitioners in the supply chain field. Can programs like the ones you run at UT help to bridge that gap?
A: I think there is the potential for that divide to exist between the business and the academic worlds, or for that matter, any part of society. We're all driven by performance measures, but academics have different types of performance measures than you find in business.
I've been extremely pleased at UT with the way the professors in this department look at the business community as their laboratory. As fast as the world is moving, unless you are out there interfacing with companies all the time, you will get out of date quickly. You'll also do a disservice to teaching and to your students if you don't keep up.
The mindset here is that the only way I can stay current within teaching and research is to keep up with what is happening in business. With that mindset, we can begin to bridge the gulf that might inherently exist out there. Still, we may not be typical of all universities. It takes a certain mindset from the administration and the leadership to realize that the university needs the business community for more than just money. We need them to help us make teaching and research relevant.
Q: How did you first get involved with UT's forums?
A: When I was at Whirlpool, I used to have a nagging concern that something we didn't know about was happening out there that would put us at a disadvantage. So I joined the supply chain forum—that's how I ended up where I am now. I wanted to make sure we weren't missing something or any new ideas that were emerging at other companies. By doing that, I'd always bring home two or three or four things. Some were small, but some were pretty big and helped us save lots of money.
Because of that experience, I do see it from the industry side. People are moving at such a fast pace! When do you ever have time to stop and get off the treadmill? There's no time to sharpen your ax, so to speak. But you have to at least do some executive education, go off to CSCMP's annual conference, or spend a couple of days on campus in a program like ours. You have to do that a couple of times a year, or the world will leave you behind pretty fast.
Q: Any closing thoughts?
A: I think one thing would be to urge people to take advantage of the professional development and educational opportunities available to them. That might seem obvious, but when we do supply chain assessments, I'm always amazed that so many companies do not have professional development programs in place. There ought to be a professional development plan for every person, and they ought to be held accountable for meeting those objectives. There are many opportunities for getting that education, and people need to take advantage of them.
When I think back to when I started in the industry over 30 years ago, there are so many things that were totally different from today. Unless you follow, the world leaves you behind very, very quickly. I've seen business executives retire, and within a couple of years, you could tell just by the way they talked that they never kept up.
A lifelong program of professional development and education is most important. In fact, I tell the students I teach that their career should be a lifelong learning exercise.
The number of container ships waiting outside U.S. East and Gulf Coast ports has swelled from just three vessels on Sunday to 54 on Thursday as a dockworker strike has swiftly halted bustling container traffic at some of the nation’s business facilities, according to analysis by Everstream Analytics.
As of Thursday morning, the two ports with the biggest traffic jams are Savannah (15 ships) and New York (14), followed by single-digit numbers at Mobile, Charleston, Houston, Philadelphia, Norfolk, Baltimore, and Miami, Everstream said.
The impact of that clogged flow of goods will depend on how long the strike lasts, analysts with Moody’s said. The firm’s Moody’s Analytics division estimates the strike will cause a daily hit to the U.S. economy of at least $500 million in the coming days. But that impact will jump to $2 billion per day if the strike persists for several weeks.
The immediate cost of the strike can be seen in rising surcharges and rerouting delays, which can be absorbed by most enterprise-scale companies but hit small and medium-sized businesses particularly hard, a report from Container xChange says.
“The timing of this strike is especially challenging as we are in our traditional peak season. While many pulled forward shipments earlier this year to mitigate risks, stockpiled inventories will only cushion businesses for so long. If the strike continues for an extended period, we could see significant strain on container availability and shipping schedules,” Christian Roeloffs, cofounder and CEO of Container xChange, said in a release.
“For small and medium-sized container traders, this could result in skyrocketing logistics costs and delays, making it harder to secure containers. The longer the disruption lasts, the more difficult it will be for these businesses to keep pace with market demands,” Roeloffs said.
The British logistics robot vendor Dexory this week said it has raised $80 million in venture funding to support an expansion of its artificial intelligence (AI) powered features, grow its global team, and accelerate the deployment of its autonomous robots.
A “significant focus” continues to be on expanding across the U.S. market, where Dexory is live with customers in seven states and last month opened a U.S. headquarters in Nashville. The Series B will also enhance development and production facilities at its UK headquarters, the firm said.
The “series B” funding round was led by DTCP, with participation from Latitude Ventures, Wave-X and Bootstrap Europe, along with existing investors Atomico, Lakestar, Capnamic, and several angels from the logistics industry. With the close of the round, Dexory has now raised $120 million over the past three years.
Dexory says its product, DexoryView, provides real-time visibility across warehouses of any size through its autonomous mobile robots and AI. The rolling bots use sensor and image data and continuous data collection to perform rapid warehouse scans and create digital twins of warehouse spaces, allowing for optimized performance and future scenario simulations.
Originally announced in September, the move will allow Deutsche Bahn to “fully focus on restructuring the rail infrastructure in Germany and providing climate-friendly passenger and freight transport operations in Germany and Europe,” Werner Gatzer, Chairman of the DB Supervisory Board, said in a release.
For its purchase price, DSV gains an organization with around 72,700 employees at over 1,850 locations. The new owner says it plans to investment around one billion euros in coming years to promote additional growth in German operations. Together, DSV and Schenker will have a combined workforce of approximately 147,000 employees in more than 90 countries, earning pro forma revenue of approximately $43.3 billion (based on 2023 numbers), DSV said.
After removing that unit, Deutsche Bahn retains its core business called the “Systemverbund Bahn,” which includes passenger transport activities in Germany, rail freight activities, operational service units, and railroad infrastructure companies. The DB Group, headquartered in Berlin, employs around 340,000 people.
“We have set clear goals to structurally modernize Deutsche Bahn in the areas of infrastructure, operations and profitability and focus on the core business. The proceeds from the sale will significantly reduce DB’s debt and thus make an important contribution to the financial stability of the DB Group. At the same time, DB Schenker will gain a strong strategic owner in DSV,” Deutsche Bahn CEO Richard Lutz said in a release.
Transportation industry veteran Anne Reinke will become president & CEO of trade group the Intermodal Association of North America (IANA) at the end of the year, stepping into the position from her previous post leading third party logistics (3PL) trade group the Transportation Intermediaries Association (TIA), both organizations said today.
Meanwhile, TIA today announced that insider Christopher Burroughs would fill Reinke’s shoes as president & CEO. Burroughs has been with TIA for 13 years, most recently as its vice president of Government Affairs for the past six years, during which time he oversaw all legislative and regulatory efforts before Congress and the federal agencies.
Before her four years leading TIA, Reinke spent two years as Deputy Assistant Secretary with the U.S. Department of Transportation and 16 years with CSX Corporation.
As the hours tick down toward a “seemingly imminent” strike by East Coast and Gulf Coast dockworkers, experts are warning that the impacts of that move would mushroom well-beyond the actual strike locations, causing prevalent shipping delays, container ship congestion, port congestion on West coast ports, and stranded freight.
However, a strike now seems “nearly unavoidable,” as no bargaining sessions are scheduled prior to the September 30 contract expiration between the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) and the U.S. Maritime Alliance (USMX) in their negotiations over wages and automation, according to the transportation law firm Scopelitis, Garvin, Light, Hanson & Feary.
The facilities affected would include some 45,000 port workers at 36 locations, including high-volume U.S. ports from Boston, New York / New Jersey, and Norfolk, to Savannah and Charleston, and down to New Orleans and Houston. With such widespread geography, a strike would likely lead to congestion from diverted traffic, as well as knock-on effects include the potential risk of increased freight rates and costly charges such as demurrage, detention, per diem, and dwell time fees on containers that may be slowed due to the congestion, according to an analysis by another transportation and logistics sector law firm, Benesch.
The weight of those combined blows means that many companies are already planning ways to minimize damage and recover quickly from the event. According to Scopelitis’ advice, mitigation measures could include: preparing for congestion on West coast ports, taking advantage of intermodal ground transportation where possible, looking for alternatives including air transport when necessary for urgent delivery, delaying shipping from East and Gulf coast ports until after the strike, and budgeting for increased freight and container fees.
Additional advice on softening the blow of a potential coastwide strike came from John Donigian, senior director of supply chain strategy at Moody’s. In a statement, he named six supply chain strategies for companies to consider: expedite certain shipments, reallocate existing inventory strategically, lock in alternative capacity with trucking and rail providers , communicate transparently with stakeholders to set realistic expectations for delivery timelines, shift sourcing to regional suppliers if possible, and utilize drop shipping to maintain sales.