Serving the youth a balanced diet: interview with Gregory R. Heim
Feeding tomorrow's talent pipeline is perhaps the most important job of the 21st century educator. Gregory Heim's role is to show students how the fusing of technology and operations management skills can be the recipe for success.
Mark Solomon joined DC VELOCITY as senior editor in August 2008, and was promoted to his current position on January 1, 2015. He has spent more than 30 years in the transportation, logistics and supply chain management fields as a journalist and public relations professional. From 1989 to 1994, he worked in Washington as a reporter for the Journal of Commerce, covering the aviation and trucking industries, the Department of Transportation, Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court. Prior to that, he worked for Traffic World for seven years in a similar role. From 1994 to 2008, Mr. Solomon ran Media-Based Solutions, a public relations firm based in Atlanta. He graduated in 1978 with a B.A. in journalism from The American University in Washington, D.C.
Gregory Heim of Texas A&M's Mays Business School is helping to train the next generation of supply chain professionals.
It is no secret the supply chain management field is short of talent,
and acutely short of talent in the areas that matter, such as high-tech and operations management. Schools like Texas A&M University are looked at to supply an ever-increasing flow of graduates into the field. But graduating with a degree is one thing. Graduating with the skills that fit the employment demand in 2017 and beyond is another.
That's where Gregory Heim comes in. Heim, associate professor in the department of information and operations management at Texas A&M's Mays Business School, brings decades of academic knowledge to the very real-world challenge of utilizing information technology to enable more efficient and productive DC operations. Because he works in a university setting, a large part of Heim's work involves nurturing supply chain management (SCM) talent and positioning students to prosper in a field that requires operations know-how and interpersonal skills along with IT knowledge.
Heim recently spoke with Mark B. Solomon, DCV's executive editor-news, about his mission, the opportunities that await young people and the obstacles that impede the academic-business pipeline, and why he calls himself an "IT curmudgeon."
Q: Can you describe the areas of research you are currently focusing on?
A: My research examines the impact of IT on manufacturing, service delivery, and supply chains. I studied e-retailers for my Ph.D. Later, I analyzed manufacturer ERP (enterprise resource planning) performance, collaboration IT for product development, RFID (radio-frequency identification), and retailer systems. After years of teaching my "IT for SCM" course, I realized that key topics were not being addressed. I wrote cases on CPFR (Collaborative Planning, Forecasting, and Replenishment), cloud services, "big data" analytics, warehouse management software, transportation management systems, electronic logging devices (ELDs) for trucks, and others.
Today, I am a department editor for technology management at the Journal of Operations Management. We encourage researchers to study manufacturing and logistics technologies such as 3-D printing, drones, driverless vehicles, and multimodal tracking.
Q: Technology's impact on supply chains has been profound. In some cases, the technology has sprinted ahead of the users' ability to fully utilize it. What are the main challenges for companies in getting their arms around technology?
A: An irony of technology management is that once managers resolve one set of process problems, an even more fine-grained level of precision and technological detail might need to be considered. I try to ensure that students recognize these issues are part of a non-ending cycle, so they will appreciate the difficulty of the task.
I hope students realize that technology choice and implementation activities are extremely challenging and human-impacting decisions. I cannot provide students with answers for all future IT project challenges. Yet if my students gain an appreciation of, and respect for, the many managerial challenges, they can be responsible managers who will reasonably address such challenges.
Q: What is the most important effect that e-commerce is having on facility design and operations management?
A: Modern e-commerce customer expectations and delivery requirements appear to enhance the pain of existing facility pain points. During my Ph.D. research in the late 1990s, I studied e-retailers in the food industry. The facilities we toured had simple layouts. The startup operations were not huge. E-commerce operations were designed to be separate from regular operations. Executives envisioned e-commerce division IPOs (initial public offerings). The scale of e-commerce often didn't match the rest of a firm's operations.
Early retailers that built well-integrated omnichannel systems have become difficult to catch up to. The e-commerce operations having troubles today suffered from design problems that have led to classic IT silo challenges. When touring traditional retailer DCs, I have seen such issues manifested as piles of packages hand-picked from the racks, waiting for carriers to pick them up for delivery to e-retail customers. The pile of e-commerce packages is a signal to me that the assumptions surrounding facility design and operations management should be reconsidered.
Q: There has been much discussion about the dearth of talent entering the warehouse/DC world for system design and maintenance. Has there been progress in increasing the supply of talent to meet the demand? If not, what needs to be done?
A: Universities have seen a huge increase in student interest in supply chain management jobs of all sorts. A decade ago, our program had 15 students. After the Great Recession, industry wanted more SCM hires. Students started to check out the field. Now, we have 350 to 400 students. Probably half take jobs in SCM system design and maintenance. The SCM major has the second-highest average salary at our school. We joke that it happened because we are great professors. However, this phenomenon has occurred at many universities.
Despite all that, we still face challenges with regard to staffing warehouse and DC managerial positions. Federal rules limit our ability to share student names and data with hiring managers. Companies hiring for DC positions offer below-market salaries, don't provide much training or a career development path, want guarantees that students will stay a long time, and want hires to immediately manage huge numbers of forklift drivers or pickers/packers.
Q: What is the blowback, and how can it be prevented?
A: Employers scare away potential hires. New hires are overwhelmed by lack of training or mismatched expectations about job responsibilities. It is a very competitive marketplace for warehouse/DC and SCM talent, even with larger talent pools. Students today spread word quickly via social media about what a company offers (salary and training). If it is below par, they move on en masse to other opportunities.
To address the situation, firms might create long-term relationships with targeted university programs. Many SCM professors love to create such relationships because it means career opportunities for students. Yet hiring managers show up irregularly, or they terminate a relationship if they have an instance where a new hire leaves. Doing so impedes the conversations regarding students who are truly appropriate for a DC position.
Firms might also develop training programs specifically for warehouse/DC system design and maintenance. Really, such positions are exciting internal consulting roles. Students recognize the value of learning that takes place during such a project. Hiring managers could communicate that value to students in an enticing way.
Q: Those entering the field today have grown up around all things digital, including commerce. Will that play a role in their ability to master the fulfillment work that relies so heavily on technology?
A: Today's generation has a very different IT experience due to its immersion in consumer technology. Students are more open to and familiar with emerging technologies and digital services. For the most part, they are technology optimists and pragmatic users. I expect these perspectives will lead to very different ways to buy, build, and adapt to workplace IT systems. It will also be a key factor in how they approach the management of fulfillment systems.
It's impressive how many of today's students, when asked to brainstorm solutions to an SCM problem, divine very creative potential solutions. While they are perhaps a little naïve about how easy it is to get new IT systems to work in a diverse corporate environment, their innate comfort with technology shifts, social IT, mobile IT, and instant messaging sets them up well for flexibly adapting SCM systems to ongoing structural changes in world economies.
Q: Do you see 2017 as the year when "disruptive technologies" move beyond the discussion board and into implementation? If so, what are one or two technologies that will change the game this year?
A: I'm an IT curmudgeon. I'm old enough to have experienced many waves of claims about "disruptive technology." Some of the IT has been "emerging" and "disruptive" since the 1990s. Many so-called disruptive technologies seem to be VC (venture capital)-funded nonsense, searching for a use case and hoping for an IPO. Academic researchers define "disruptive" in a scientific manner and only truly know what was disruptive after the fact. So I'd be pandering if I made predictions.
Q: What technology is overhyped?
A: All technology is overhyped to some extent. One principle I try to convey to students is to maintain a healthy skepticism about vendor and consultant promises. Many sell IT simply to book business. They focus on hype rather than on genuine process improvement.
As overhyped, I'd suggest "The Cloud" and "Big Data." Salespeople seem to promote every online service as "The Cloud." Universities promote "Big Data" analytics, when what sometimes is delivered is basic statistics. The principle of caveat emptor (let the buyer beware) applies here. I smirk when I hear consultants say, "We help our clients move their Big Data into The Cloud, and The Cloud then generates..." Few firms have such data. As a researcher, I know how challenging it is to create insights via data analysis. "The Cloud" does not magically do this stuff. Fundamentally, we are talking about human tasks, human research, and human process changes.
States across the Southeast woke up today to find that the immediate weather impacts from Hurricane Helene are done, but the impacts to people, businesses, and the supply chain continue to be a major headache, according to Everstream Analytics.
The primary problem is the collection of massive power outages caused by the storm’s punishing winds and rainfall, now affecting some 2 million customers across the Southeast region of the U.S.
One organization working to rush help to affected regions since the storm hit Florida’s western coast on Thursday night is the American Logistics Aid Network (ALAN). As it does after most serious storms, the group continues to marshal donated resources from supply chain service providers in order to store, stage, and deliver help where it’s needed.
Support for recovery efforts is coming from a massive injection of federal aid, since the White House declared states of emergency last week for Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Affected states are also supporting the rush of materials to needed zones by suspending transportation requirement such as certain licensing agreements, fuel taxes, weight restrictions, and hours of service caps, ALAN said.
E-commerce activity remains robust, but a growing number of consumers are reintegrating physical stores into their shopping journeys in 2024, emphasizing the need for retailers to focus on omnichannel business strategies. That’s according to an e-commerce study from Ryder System, Inc., released this week.
Ryder surveyed more than 1,300 consumers for its 2024 E-Commerce Consumer Study and found that 61% of consumers shop in-store “because they enjoy the experience,” a 21% increase compared to results from Ryder’s 2023 survey on the same subject. The current survey also found that 35% shop in-store because they don’t want to wait for online orders in the mail (up 4% from last year), and 15% say they shop in-store to avoid package theft (up 8% from last year).
“Retail and e-commerce continue to evolve,” Jeff Wolpov, Ryder’s senior vice president of e-commerce, said in a statement announcing the survey’s findings. “The emergence of e-commerce and growth of omnichannel fulfillment, particularly over the past four years, has altered consumer expectations and behavior dramatically and will continue to do so as time and technology allow.
“This latest study demonstrates that, while consumers maintain a robust
appetite for e-commerce, they are simultaneously embracing in-person shopping, presenting an impetus for merchants to refine their omnichannel strategies.”
Other findings include:
• Apparel and cosmetics shoppers show growing attraction to buying in-store. When purchasing apparel and cosmetics, shoppers are more inclined to make purchases in a physical location than they were last year, according to Ryder. Forty-one percent of shoppers who buy cosmetics said they prefer to do so either in a brand’s physical retail location or a department/convenience store (+9%). As for apparel shoppers, 54% said they prefer to buy clothing in those same brick-and-mortar locations (+9%).
• More customers prefer returning online purchases in physical stores. Fifty-five percent of shoppers (+15%) now say they would rather return online purchases in-store–the first time since early 2020 the preference to Buy Online Return In-Store (BORIS) has outweighed returning via mail, according to the survey. Forty percent of shoppers said they often make additional purchases when picking up or returning online purchases in-store (+2%).
• Consumers are extremely reliant on mobile devices when shopping in-store. This year’s survey reveals that 77% of consumers search for items on their mobile devices while in a store, Ryder said. Sixty-nine percent said they compare prices with items in nearby stores, 58% check availability at other stores, 31% want to learn more about a product, and 17% want to see other items frequently purchased with a product they’re considering.
Ryder said the findings also underscore the importance of investing in technology solutions that allow companies to provide customers with flexible purchasing options.
“Omnichannel strength is not a fad; it is a strategic necessity for e-commerce and retail businesses to stay competitive and achieve sustainable success in 2024 and beyond,” Wolpov also said. “The findings from this year’s study underscore what we know our customers are experiencing, which is the positive impact of integrating supply chain technology solutions across their sales channels, enabling them to provide their customers with flexible, convenient options to personalize their experience and heighten customer satisfaction.”
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.
National nonprofit Wreaths Across America (WAA) kicked off its 2024 season this week with a call for volunteers. The group, which honors U.S. military veterans through a range of civic outreach programs, is seeking trucking companies and professional drivers to help deliver wreaths to cemeteries across the country for its annual wreath-laying ceremony, December 14.
“Wreaths Across America relies on the transportation industry to move the mission. The Honor Fleet, composed of dedicated carriers, professional drivers, and other transportation partners, guarantees the delivery of millions of sponsored veterans’ wreaths to their destination each year,” Courtney George, WAA’s director of trucking and industry relations, said in a statement Tuesday. “Transportation partners benefit from driver retention and recruitment, employee engagement, positive brand exposure, and the opportunity to give back to their community’s veterans and military families.”
WAA delivers wreaths to more than 4,500 locations nationwide, and as of this week had added more than 20 loads to be delivered this season. The wreaths are donated by sponsors from across the country, delivered by truckers, and laid at the graves of veterans by WAA volunteers.
Wreaths Across America
Transportation companies interested in joining the Honor Fleet can visit the WAA website to find an open lane or contact the WAA transportation team at trucking@wreathsacrossamerica.org for more information.