[00:00:05] It’s time for Supply Chain Now Radio. Broadcasting live from the Supply chain capital of the country, Atlanta, Georgia. Supply Chain Now Radio spotlights the best in all things supply chain the people, the technologies, the best practices and the critical issues of the day. And now here are your hosts.

[00:00:29] Hey, good morning. Scott Luton here with you, Liveline Supply Chain Now Radio. Welcome back to the show. Today’s show is going to focus on the circular economy. One of the most talked about topics in the global supply chain elimination of waste, implementing more sustainable business practices and much, much more began have momentarily with a brilliant thought leader in this space. Like all of our series on Supply Chain Now Radio, you can find our replays on Berardi channels, Apple podcasts, SoundCloud, YouTube. All right. All the places you find your podcast today is always love to have you subscribe so you don’t miss anything. Let’s think all of our sponsors for allowing us to bring best practices and innovative ideas to you or audience spin management experts Verusen. The Effective syndicate, Vector Global Logistics and many, many more. Be sure to check out our sponsors on the show notes of this episode. Okay, so let’s welcome in our featured guest speaker today Miss Deborah Dull Principal Supply chain Product Management G.d GE Digital. How you doing, Debra? Fantastic. Aereo doing fantastic is well. Great to have you here in Atlanta. Thanks you for. Thank you for having me. Especially is as often as you travel. We’re going through on the on the warm up all the different stops you make.

[00:01:40] And I’ve never seen a busier schedule. How you do it. And it may be true. May not be true.

[00:01:46] Sullivan It must be. And we’re in DAB in some of your experiences on today’s podcast. But, you know, before which before we talk about some of the business topics, let’s get a I want to get a better sense of who you are and kind of paint a picture for our audience. So tell us more about your background.

[00:02:03] Sure thing. So I grew up actually in the middle of Washington state. One of those biggest small towns around communities. And for whatever reason, I am a city person. So I’m not sure how that developed. But that has led to a life of adventure and travel exploration. I like new items, new food, new cities, new sounds. And I stuck around for university up in Western Washington University right on the Canadian border. Highly recommend. And then has condemned conduce since then.

[00:02:38] So the city being a city person. Give us you know, with all your travels, were some of your favorite stops here in the last, say, year to try things.

[00:02:47] So I had the opportunity to live in London for a couple of years, and that will remain a top key highlight about the right city size.

[00:02:58] I’m finding about 10 million is my ideal size of the city bigger than that and gets a little bit more tough. Yeah, so New York falls in that as well. But I will give a shout out to my favorite country to visit. Is Slovenia okay? It’s like many Europe. It’s nice. It’s fun. And they actually have quite a few circular economy initiatives. Who would have thought in Slovenia? Slovenia.

[00:03:22] Really? Yeah. Now, what do you know where you flew into George FLINTER to get Sillett? Slovenia.

[00:03:27] You can go through a couple of major European cities, preferably go through London or Amsterdam. And you fly into the capital, Ljubljana, which has more confidence than you think it should.

[00:03:39] All right. And I might ask you to spell it. I know I would fail that spelling test. All right. So let’s talk about some of your early hobbies, especially some of your early hobbies that you think kind of factored into what you do now.

[00:03:53] Sure thing. Early, early hobbies. No relation to what I’m doing, of course. Well, that may not be true. I started playing the violin in elementary school and that led to a tendency towards clubs, music, et cetera, rather than sports. Yeah, my parent had a policy at the time that we could do one extra curricular. Just one. Yeah, focus and focus on school. So you start one and then that that becomes a focus. And so later on in high school I was in every type of club you can imagine math club, drama club, orchestra. And then I also joined Dukkha. OK. And that’s really where the business and supply chain focus was started.

[00:04:37] Well, could you would you argue that you can’t think of someone that plays the violin or really any musical instrument, the level of discipline to especially to do it well. Not necessary, master, but to do it well. And for me, discipline really certainly plays a strong role in business. Is that is that a natural connection that you see?

[00:04:56] Yeah, that’s a great point. The ability. To self-regulate as young, you know, eight or nine, 10 years old as you’re starting to set aside practice time, get over performance nerves and figure out how to work with others as you’re doing, you know, small music. It’s really interesting orchestration. All right, orchestration.

[00:05:17] That’s funny.

[00:05:19] So we did an episode several months back with a supply chain leader that really talked about Supply chain orchestration. And it just makes so much sense when you switch, when you think about the different segments of an orchestra and everything that they’ve all the timing, the cadence and the the coordination. And the US Marcos’s were right at synchronicity. Right. Right. That has to go on to really do it well. So.

[00:05:48] Absolutely. And the conductor would be our control tower. Yeah. You know, that’s really the way I would think about it, because you have a plan. It’s a pretty specific plan, but it doesn’t doesn’t go to plan. So you have to have somebody there to help you correct it.

[00:06:01] Yeah, that’s what hopefully our audience is, too. But I’m I’m now picturing this or something. There’s so many more supply chain puns we could apply to it. That’s a good way of putting it, like a control tower. All right. So let’s talk about your career. We can talk more about what you’re doing now. GE Digital. But before we go there, let’s talk about what you did prior to that. There’s two main stops I wanted to cut. Deeper, deeper. So Microsoft, everyone is familiar with the global brand. What do you do there?

[00:06:29] Yeah, I started almost immediately after school. I took a year off after university, actually, and then I went to Microsoft, starting as a transportation analyst and really highly recommend starting as an analyst to folks commute to school. And then I worked on a team who really moves moves us around a lot. And so had the opportunity to have multiple different roles. All I’d say post manufacturing. So have you focus on inventory, supplier management, et cetera? Mentor, we can talk more about inventory. I love it. And most notably, I was on the team that launched Surface Be 1 and Microsoft Retail Stores, OK, which is really fun.

[00:07:11] So what version will now surface?

[00:07:13] You know, Lollie just announced a new foldable devices and they’re called, I think, Neo and duo. And I don’t really know what what they’re using X now. And I don’t know that’s at 10:00. Or is it just hipper and calling it a no? I’m not sure. Interesting. Several versions later.

[00:07:31] But you’re on the team that launched Surface V 1. And clearly I was a success. Successful product. Absolutely. Yeah. In transportation analyst is where you started. I bet that that really factored into give you a great root level understanding of Indian supply chain a bit that kind of factored out later in your career.

[00:07:54] Absolutely. It was a really interesting role for the first time. The team I was on had access to their end and shipping information all the way to the last mile. And there’s 120 data fields and I’d never done data analysis before, but it helped me understand the relationship of financials to supply chain. And you can almost be like a detective when you see, oh, this didn’t go well or it went higher or lower. Why? And then you end up finding out and not really has helped me through my career of the understanding of finance in Supply chain. And I’m finding to be a really, really important skill.

[00:08:33] Absolutely. Especially in 2019 and beyond. Okay. So at Microsoft, you own some big projects there, especially big problems that continue to this day in and different iterations. Let’s talk about the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. A couple different ways. Let’s talk about what you did there. And then I’d loved, if you’re willing to share it, kind of talk about when the relationships that kind of a random conversation, uncoordinated conversation has led to. Let’s talk about what you did there first.

[00:09:03] Sure thing. So the Gates Foundation, as many of you probably are, you know, have multiple different strategies to making the world a better place. And so a strategy for them might be HIV or malaria or U.S. education. And over time, they’ve found that supply chain challenges continue to constrain their success in the success of the countries that they’re helping. And so they started to lean into the supply chain space. So I joined a couple years back and had never worked in international development. Fascinating space, right? You’ve got these big donor organizations. And compared to all of them, the foundation is actually quite small when you compare them to country governments like the U.S. or the United Kingdom. And then you’ve got all the different partner organizations really trying to implement these strategies in the countries that were working in. Really, really interesting. The assumptions that I had been taught about supply chain that you would have a network, a developed market, that you would have some semblance of a demand signal that you might maybe know where your inventory is potentially. Those were not the window. And so really learning sort of re learning supply chain in a way and being a champion for supply chain concepts across the community was really, really fascinating.

[00:10:28] What a outstanding opportunity in that challenge. All of your current assumptions and kind of what you knew. And it seems like that experience really had you look at not just the Supply chain world, but maybe the global business world differently.

[00:10:45] Absolutely. Absolutely. One of the one of the most difficult concepts to think about was putting together a learning session for Bill and Melinda. And the premise of that was Bill asking, why is Supply chain so hard?

[00:11:01] Great question. Great question.

[00:11:04] As we have to answer, tough to answer, lots of different answers. But, you know, as we’re talking about in the warm up conversation, it’s really important to be asking the questions that there’s not a perfect pre-formed answer to. Right. OK, so a picks and the ESM community are important to us here. I’ve been a longtime volunteer with the within this community. In fact, we interviewed a best Canarsie towards the beginning of the year. A wonderful, fascinating conversation is sit down and kind of hear him in his thought leadership and his vision and where the organization is going. However, what I learned in a pre-show is you had a very interesting conversation that has had some pretty big ripple effects. Tell us more about that.

[00:11:47] Sure thing. A couple of years ago, I I had the opportunity to pick a fun compensation concept at the foundation. They don’t have traditional compensation packages. And so for a job well done. I could pick a conference to go to. That was my choice. And of course, I picked at the time was still Apex in San Antonio. And my plan was to kind of blend in with the crowd and just nerd out on inventory, of course, and other other fun topics. But because my registration was sort of flagged and I found myself together with the U.N. in a room and sort of talking through some of these big challenges and global opportunities we have, I found myself pretty quickly together with Abe Ashkenazy, the CEO of now ASTM. And we realized that our vision was very, very align and that kicked off a series of exploratory conversations which now so happy to see an increased focus on frontier markets. So they’re heavily involved in different African countries together with their partner, their specs. We also have had the delight to get to over the years. Are you. Have you met Jenny? Froome? Absolutely. Jenny. And you are such a force in such a positive role model. And she’s one of my favorite people.

[00:13:13] Mine and yours. And we have that in common. We connect with Jenny and interviewed her and got her perspective on on a wide variety of supply chain topics and issues. And they’re doing such a great they’re doing such great work and important work. Oana in Africa and just a just as personable, you know, an angle make a vast generalization. But yeah, I’ve been supporting manufacturing in manufacturing in Supply chain in some capacity for about 15, 17 years and you come across all types of people. But there’s a lot of straight laced buttoned-down folks all about just the mission. Right. And you got to have that. It’s really important to have. And then, you know, occasionally or maybe it may Maureen the case or you’ll find people that just are that are Kovel personalities and just bring. So it’s like a breath of fresh air. All right. Clearly, they need people like that to a Jenny strikes me as one of those leaders that really is fun to work with and I work for. And they’re doing such critical work there, right? Absolutely. Okay. So what? So that the conversation when I heard there, the conversation that you had with Abe that was that was spontaneous has now blossomed into a strong partnership between ASTM and the Gates Foundation, right?

[00:14:29] Absolutely. They you know, Abe had these concepts in mind already. And so I can say that it was likely an accelerator to the plans they already had. They’ve just announced the launch of the ACM Foundation at conference a couple weeks ago. And I’m really leading incredible discussions across the African continent and just really, really excited to follow their work. And I’m so humbled to be able to have been at the beginning with them.

[00:14:58] Absolutely. Fascinating. OK, so switching gears here a little bit, you know, we want to dive into kind of why supply chain for you know, we’ve had so many conversations and, you know, we actually have to have a dedicated series where we explored, interview and spotlight all the wonderful women that lead different businesses and lead different, different parts of the global in in Supply chain. You know, it’s something we’ve got to work on better as an industry, providing opportunities not just to get into the industry, but also certainly to progress and get into the upper tiers of leadership. So whenever I always like to hear whoever we’re interviewing you kind of what supply chain. But in particular, female leaders, you know. So while supply chain for you, Deborah, great question.

[00:15:52] So I I’ll say tripped and fell into supply chain, I was pursuing a business administration degree r-virginia marketing major because I had the goal of moving out of the United States.

[00:16:04] And I didn’t know a lot about the global world, but I figured, hey, everybody buy something. So marketing must be translatable in as part of that. I took an operations management course on the first day, the course we had to write down our goals. What year in school was this?

[00:16:18] I started operations management back probably two thousand six graduate in 07. Okay. Found it very late. Now I meet for a very, very busy last year. But our professor asked us to write down a goal for the quarter. My goal was what is operations management? And that was my starting level. But he handed out the syllabus and then actually did a lecture. And it was about planning a very fancy, robust Thanksgiving meal. OK. And then he said, cool, yeah. We can have lobster. We can have whatever you want. But now here’s the deal. You’ve got one oven and you’ve got one.

[00:16:57] Would you call me? Put the pots on it. Stove burner, a burner button, one single burner. Okay. Got.

[00:17:02] Great. And so it was brilliant because in the moment he taught us work back schedule and he taught us resource constraint and understanding. Theory of constraints has been such a core part of the different roles I’ve had in fact, is the basis of a frontier markets maturity model that I built for Bill and Linda together with the team there. And so this idea of constraints, I think has caught a supply chain because a good supply chain professional can truly understand the constraints. So don’t take them as assumptions, but push hard on things. Is that a real constraint or an artificial constraint and then be super clever within those constraints? And I think that separates supply chain professionals out of many other professions.

[00:17:44] Well, we’ll put a love the Thanksgiving dinner, that professor’s name, if not whopped.

[00:17:50] Yeah, look, it is a jerai horn. He’s now retired again. I think he’s tried to retire several times. It was an incredibly in impactful force in my life. He he convinced me to join the field, even though I said I don’t really think I want to do that. And then he also convinced me to go to my Microsoft interview. And at the time, I was just doing a sales job. And I said, really, I would have to get rid of a holding commission.

[00:18:15] You want me to go where he said, you get off your bum. Come up here and interview from Microsoft.

[00:18:20] And so you saw that a big force in my life.

[00:18:23] You know, that’s that’s awesome to hear. It seems like the more more we interview folks, it’s these pivotal role models that that push us to do things that on its face maybe were very wounded. It’s not. But these are like these are critical moments in our journeys. And it sounds like Professor Jerry Hahn was was one of those for you. Absolutely. And we’re gonna steal his Thanksgiving exercise.

[00:18:47] Is that is it so clever? Yeah, so clever. So what did the mail turn out? Okay. You know, we, uh, I’m not entirely sure we actually fixed it because we were making multiple different courses. I think we had to start, you know, five days before or something like that.

[00:19:01] Gotcha. Okay. So let’s talk before it dobbyn the circular economy and post some tough questions to you and get some your your perspective. Let’s talk more about what everyone has heard of GS, a global brand. Global, OK, iconic brand. GE Digital may be new for some folks. Let’s talk about your role and of course, what GE Digital does as well.

[00:19:24] Absolutely. This has been a really fun role for me. And as I mentioned the beginning. I really enjoy new experiences. And so moving from, you know, Microsoft into the foundation and now a brand new industry for me, which is, you know, industry, fascinating space. And so how GE Digital started was a couple of years ago, as you know, Industry 4.0 was really starting to take off and the realization that sensors and data science can actually predict how large industrial equipment functions and. I using those techniques, you can keep the world running. So instead of having, you know, an airplane sitting on a tarmac and none of all of us inside and we’re angry or, you know, having an elevator breakdown or, oh, I don’t know, in a number of of just the way the world works and spins, you know, you go over and want to flip on the light and nothing happens.

[00:20:21] We live our lives here. We do love life.

[00:20:25] And all of that is because of the Industrial world. And so the concept started because many of g.e.’s customers went to g.E. And said, hey, we’re trying to solve this big problem. How do you do it? And the realization that the internal solutions that had been created could actually be shared with our customers. And so they started this digital solutions division. And now we really focus on applications for the Industrial world. So again, imagine shopfloor is now are more and more digitized. So we need ways to just run those execution systems. There’s automation systems understanding that a confluence of sensors and again, using that back into data science. So it’s been really, really interesting to watch.

[00:21:05] So, Deborah, as you came here to our our studio here, Vector Global Logistics, which the team is, is busy at work, closing deals, making it happen. But we’re here at King Plow is where the studio and the offices are. And as you come through, you walk past a huge press that dates back to when they were making plans here at the manufacturing site. And so today’s manufacturing data, that episode won’t publish for, you know, a couple weeks. But today is manufacturing day. And I can’t well, ever time what passes this this. Press, you think about how tough manufacturing can be and how many smart, hardworking people that it takes to make all these things that we, I’m sure would take many of us take for granted. But it also reminds me just how all the opportunities that the the digitization of the space is is providing for people as well, especially folks are willing to learn new things and step through doors and raise your hand to volunteer and willing to plow all those things they learn. But what I also love that that I think I heard you say is, is as as things become more digital, we can get out in front of problems proactively. Exactly right. And and this is where we get into saving lives and people keeping the economy happen and numerous other noble missions that Supply chain can address, right?

[00:22:23] That’s exactly right. The. The back end of the world, I would call it, you know, where we normally walking on consumers, we don’t think about it again. You flip a light switch, you get on an escalator, you get an airplane, you get on a train and you just expect these these to work similar to how we run in ah ah, our normal individual lives. Or you go to the grocery store, you expect something’s on a shelf. Trident, you don’t really think about the way it gets there. And maybe it’s different for us. Supply chain folks, we think about how gets there, but I find the same as is applicable to the Industrial world and it’s hugely complicated, really, really interesting and really is the big contributor when we start talking about circular economy in a couple of minutes.

[00:23:06] So it really is. I mean if folks are listening to this, I’m sure they are. You’re right. We do take they all of us take it for granted. Right. Whether it’s the smartphones we use, whether it’s the light switch, especially here in the U.S. where electricity just happens. Right. That and if it doesn’t happen, this light air thing stops in other parts of world, you know, brownouts and some in some cases, blackouts is part of the standard. So on a big high five to all the folks that are in manufacturing have been in manufacturing to get us where we are. And that message was really exciting to hear what GE Digital, how it’s enabling a lot of the the the digitization of the industry. I mean, it’s been here it is. Here’s where the future is. But what we liked him to pound the bang the drum on is it doesn’t mean there’s no opportunities for humans. Again, it’s it’s folks that want to learn new things. And I love this notion of caillebotte’s, right. Working alongside leveraging all of this technology to do new, bigger things.

[00:24:17] Right. Absolutely. And 4.0 is a job generator. So there’s been quite a few studies and articles on this. And it’s really interesting to watch where the world is shifting and the supply chain communities specifically will become what I’ll quote unquote smarter as in more use of technology. Grads today are at an advantage when they double up with them asked or data analytics. And they’re comfortable with the the forward facing technologies that, you know, five years from now will become very, very common.

[00:24:48] Right. All right. So let’s it’s fascinating. A week we could spend several hours on some of the projects your own and some of the conversations I’m sure you’re having. But let’s talk about the circular economy, partially because very selfishly I want learn more and hear it from from someone that is in it every day and looking to make it better and make it make it more of a reality, maybe. But let’s let’s let’s kind of set the table first. So in your words, how would you define this notion, this phrase circular economy?

[00:25:22] Sure. So if we think about today how. And I’d say for the last hundred and fifty years or so, how we produce items or give services. It’s it’s a line. It goes linearly. So it’s called the linear economy. We take it raw materials typically, which starts from a mine, goes through a series of manufacturing steps, as we all know, ends up being used either as a consumer product or an industrial process. And then is disposed. So it’s this take make waste line and we all end supply chain. No, it’s not really a truly as you know, a straight line. Right. If part of a network. Right. But the idea is that these resources in materials have value and a lot of times are being thrown away. And sometimes it’s you know, we look at the metals that are inside of a cell phone, for example, and it’s not always financially possible to get every last bit of that before the rest of it. Is this disposed of? Both the circular economy says is, look, this materially has value and designed properly can be circulated in materials or Splenda. Two sections, one they call renewable. So something like heat or water or, you know, composting. So something that would go back into the biosphere. Well, we know it needs to be done responsibly. We know that just randomly putting things out in the world has negative consequences.

[00:26:47] And then the other type is Technical materials like plastics, material, metals. And the promise of this global economy is when the item has finished its useful life. You want to keep it as itself as long as possible. So they want a used car. You know, we want to keep it as a car and have somebody else use it. And then if that’s not going to work, Lu, we want to shift it just a little bit. So maybe it’s, you know, these vans we see that are now becoming small, tiny homes. And then you will actually end up recycling the materials, which is actually sort of our our less. You wouldn’t even start there. You want to reuse the material. Keep it as itself as long as possible. And with this, we’re finding that economic impact is pretty significant. So we don’t have to start all over again with raw materials. So it’s actually faster. It’s cheaper. Done well. And of course, the challenge here is we’re right at the beginning of this journey. And 10 years from now, it’ll be much more commonplace, these global marketplace’s materials exchanges. These are all be running at scale. And so we’re seeing some new concepts. But so far, you know, we’re not quite at the global circular economy, but that’s where we all think it’s going.

[00:28:03] Would you agree? It seems like when I think about when I came into the workforce and and where we are now from a recycling, from a need, from an important is than a priority, it seems like the needle has shifted dramatically in the last five or 10 years, at least, at least in this country. Do you see that same thing and do you see the same thing globally in your travels?

[00:28:26] Sure. I I’m encouraged by is somewhat of a shift. So yassuo embracing recycling more. And we’re seeing more of a shift of re-use for us. Yeah. And as I spent time living and working in Europe, for example, you’ll see, you know, bottles, glass or plastic that are built durably and they wash those and reuse it. So they’re there. You don’t recycle first because it takes a lot of energy. It’s really expensive. It’s actually cheaper to just wash the bottle and use it again. And so as this theart type of re-use wave starts to introduce itself into American markets, this is where we’re going to start seeing reusable containers for consumers. Reusable pallets, reasonable shipping containers.

[00:29:09] And we’ll start to see more of the showcases here, you know, applying or use and repurposing to a bigger scaling. Here at King Plow, I love the fact that they protected this this architectural such character. Right. Rather than raise it and then put a concrete cinder block. We see everywhere else it just just repurposing or using this material that Ponce City market. And I’m not sure if you ever visit that in your travels here was an old long forgotten. I want to say how old Sears Department Store could be getting it wrong. I’m sure Malcolm me if I if I do have wrongbut that now they’ve repurposed it and rebuilt it into one of the most vibrant multi store multipurpose facilities in the city. It’s great and it and it it pulls people do the again, protecting that character and protect all those resources that went into it as well. So I’d love to see that rather than, you know, the alternative.

[00:30:10] And I think the construction industry has done a tremendous job of reclaiming and it’s become really hip, you know, like, wow, this table is made from reclaimed whatever. Cool old railroad ties used in this other way. It’s now a chandelier. And so being really creative, you know, building materials coming from. From an expected places has become really, really hip. And so I’m hoping that that same shift can apply to other industries as well.

[00:30:39] Absolutely. So let’s let’s talk about Supply chain as it relates to the circular economy. You touched on something that some of this a little bit as you were defining it. But how do you see Supply chain as supply chain leaders and supply chain organizations using the circular economy as a strategy?

[00:30:57] Absolutely. For me, when I think about the circular economy, the key the key focus for Supply chain leaders is not to pursue circular because it’s the flavor of the day. Rather, investigate how circular can actually be a strategy to achieving the business goals you already have. And in Supply chain we typically balance of course, time, cost, quality, normally a service level. And I’m finding that circular business practices can really help you get there. So I was just doing a brainstorm for a panel. I’ll be on on a couple weeks at Field Services Connect in in Texas and speaking with a professor who’ll be co presenting with. And he really is exploring circular as a speed strategy. So if we think about something like the aftermarket spare parts, we’ve already been, you know, refurbishing spare parts for long time in the industry. But consider that almost to the next level where I predict in the future spare parts could be sort of in-network and out-of-network. So you have your spare parts, but maybe with the location you’re going to to provide service, your spare parts are there the wrong way, but somebody else has spare parts that you could go. Then they’ve been refurbished and you could use them and you can actually get there faster. And then, of course, it’s much less expensive if you can refurb or reuse or somehow just tweak it a little bit. And rather than starting from scratch, some of these spare parts, you know, take over a year to produce. And so it’s great. Any way we can make that faster. And so investigating these types of practices, I think can really benefit business processes.

[00:32:30] So we had Rod Sherkin on the podcast, which is publishes as episode. And he offered up an eight point plan for how you can really optimize your manufacturing plant, too, especially if you’re evaluating suppliers. One of the neat things he mentioned that ties him with what you just said there is that for customers that ask our suppliers, how can we be a better customer? And, you know, sometimes tolerances can be can be too tight.

[00:33:01] Right. Maybe it made sense when when you’re designing the part or the said the other. But then once it hits production, maybe it’s just it’s a challenge because it’s always been there. What I heard you say, how can we question those assumptions? And if we do and produce successfully, we can find new ways of eliminating waste, eliminating scrap, you know, refurb or use, just producing smarter, right?

[00:33:25] Absolutely. This is where I am really excited that the circular economy discussion is happening in overlap with industry 4.0. I find that have a working hypothesis that circular cannot happen at scale until 4.0 matures. I’m going to say intel about 80 percent. I hypothesize that the fifth industrial revolution will actually overlap with a fourth. And I think it’ll be something like a green revolution. So how do we actually exist longer on our planet? And we see a lot of the student protests really changing the dialogue globally on that topic. But when I think about what’s actually needed to learn more about where waste is produced in your process, for example, I think technology can help us. You know, we can take the traditional approaches of Lean Kids and Six Sigma of going to gumba seeing with our eyes. But, you know, these processes are pretty complicated these days. There’s a lot happening inside of a machine that we just can’t see as humans. But the machine can. And so this concept of a COBOL may be applied to going and finding finding ways and finding problems. And I’ll actually be doing a webinar next week, Wednesday, OK, produced through GE Digital Web site, I be the link for the lazy news. And in there I explore, you know, lean management to the circular economy.

[00:34:44] Start with finding waste, reduce it as much as you can, but there will always be materials in our processes. And so how do we circulate those to have monetary benefit to both us, our suppliers and our customers?

[00:34:56] The neat thing here. Because the flavor of the month is such a dead. It’s such a dangerous notion, right? Hey. And it’s always been there. You know, folks, leaders will gravitate to something, do it a month or until they. It gets harder than what they think. And then they go that goes way and the teams get tired of that. Right. The neat thing about the circular economy, though, is, is one of the core principles is the elimination of waste, which of course, has been around, especially in supply chain manufacturing for decades. Right. And so some of the most successful companies have such a strong culture around, constantly asking the question constantly, how can we get better? How can we improve? How can we eliminate this waste? So I am encouraged that that is one of the reasons that we’ll make circular the circular economy thinking and perspective more prevalent and will grow and take root. Absolutely. OK, so let’s talk about in the circular economy. Question for you. Does everything become inventory as we’ve all established?

[00:36:01] Inventory, my most favorite topic. Yes, it is. You know, I think about this a lot. And there’s those two categories of materials, like I mentioned, renewables, which I don’t think this apply to. But if I think about Technical materials, we’re seeing more discussion about tracking a material life over life, over life. And of course, the technology parts all exist separately today. They’re not necessarily. They may be cost prohibitive. Still at the scale may be a challenge how all those different parts work together. We’re not there yet, but technically speaking, we could. You know, this microphone I’m speaking into. Each of the components should be seen as a separate part. Right? Because let’s let’s fast fast-forward 15, 20 years from now, even 10 years from now, some of the major metals in the earth will just not be there anymore. So we’re gonna run out of gold actually pretty quickly. And so instead of our our sourcing managers going out, looking at commodities markets, for example, they need another way to find materials that can then be repurposed and make into, you know, maybe this Microsoft microphone becomes a shoe or something like that afterwards. You never know. We never know.

[00:37:12] And so how do we go through and truly understand where materials are today that can then feed into our manufacturing processes, similar to how we already need to understand where our raw materials are going to come from today? Just the source of those materials are going to fundamentally shift in the coming decade.

[00:37:32] Have you seen the new Nike facility called the court?

[00:37:38] Have you heard about this? I have heard about it. I have not seen it myself.

[00:37:41] Okay. Well, on your travels to Europe next or each week, check out the court. Kate, the exact locate a harm.

[00:37:51] Malcolm Well, she just nobleness, I’m sure. Anyway, they this is one of I think it’s to be their most sustainable facility. It’s going to help them serve African European customers. And they have put so much practical design into how they design to really make it very, very sustainable, including some simple notions. But it can be hard to accomplish. You’re putting the site next to the effectively next to the canal system so that they can eliminate truckload deliveries. I think 14000 truckload deliveries per year are eliminated because they’re gonna be utilizing the water waterways more effectively. You know, recycling all of the waste their own site. It’s just amazing what they have put into. But this really represents kind of where we’re headed, right. That level of design, because it is tough to take a facility that where that design has not been baked into the thinking and then try to apply system retrofit. Right. Retrofit. Yes.

[00:38:51] And Nike’s been such a tremendous leader in the circular economy space. Anyway, just this April, I attended an accelerated workshop with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and they’ve been really the major force behind circular economy. And Nike hosted us just outside of Portland at their headquarters and shared some other product design. And as we think about the circular economy, two major groups have been engaged so far. Designers not surprising. And and scientists all say chemists, because we need to change the way that we do chemistry. John Warner is a great one to Google if you’re interested in this. John Warner. John Warner. I’ll grant you that. The link again for the nurse. I’m father of green chemistry. He’s saying, look, we need to change the way that we do science. And then we can we can survive longer. We can make better use of materials. Really interesting perspectives. But I’m excited to hear about this Nike facility because traditionally where we’re applying design to products, but we really need to start designing. Processes in a totally different way. And when we start talking about, you know, Industrial processes. That’s what’s get that that gets me really excited because industry really is going to be impacting what happens in the world as we go forward.

[00:40:11] So check this out. Deborah, it’s so nice. So Hahm, Belgium, Belgium, belgiums, where this. This the court is a court. The court. 1.5 million square foot facility. It’s going to, as we mentioned, going to help company better serve millions of consumers across Europe. Middle East. We talk the court runs on 100 percent clean energy from five different sources. Wind, solar, geothermal, hydro, electric, biomass. Wow. In it’s part this type of build is part of their thinking where they’re trying to be zero carbon by 2025. And I think one, two places are starting here. Recent efforts is eradicating waste from their supply chain.

[00:40:57] Tremendous. That’s great. Great to hear. I’ll have to go. Goodbye. Have some great beer. And then stop by. Hum.

[00:41:05] That’s it. I hope you know I’ll be pronounced hand here in the states. I had to kind of reread that train myself in that one syllable. Threw me off. But what kind of raising the bar? Move with Nike and be interested. Can see how that plays out across industry in new builds. OK, so let’s now talk about when you mentioned inventory a couple of times and I kind of gathered this notion from our pre-show banter. So you kind of describe yourself as an inventory nerd, too. Was this short?

[00:41:39] I was having a conversation with me the day and mentioned, you know, I see the world through inventory turns, anything. So what’s what’s one of your fair pastimes?

[00:41:47] For example, favorite pastimes would be Clemson football or Braves baseball. We can’t tell we can’t talk about the Braves here today.

[00:41:53] I understand. So it’s just like a generic sports stadium. Okay. Wow. So think about everything that flows in and out of that stadium everyday. So people we we are their inventory and we come in and out. They need to be fast about how inventory can flow. They they do a lot of design when people flow. Just imagine the beer, the food that has to come in and it’s all about turns. Right. How fast can we get that to turn in a responsible way, sustain this food topic, for example, as I’ve traveled around the world to lots of different types of countries. I typically gravitate towards street food. Okay. Normally it’s delicious. Yes. But it has to have the right circumstances. Right. So I like the places that have longer lines because their inventory is turning faster. So I’m encouraged when I’m I’m fairly convinced that they sell to 0 at the end of the day vs. a restaurant. But you don’t know what’s going on back there necessarily. So as I’ve done a lot of travels through Africa, for example, some of my best meals have been just, you know, in alleyways with open fires and we just know more food at the end of the day. So they start from fresh every day.

[00:43:03] Love that. And I’ve never really thought of it that way. I figured I was go learn. I’ve got about 17 pages of notes already, Deborah, but that is a really neat way of thinking about where you get your food and why you get your food. Looks at the inventory is churning. Fasters can be fresher ingredients.

[00:43:21] Absolutely. I really hope that this impacts the way that you walk around. And I hope you see inventory because wow, it to me, it’s fascinating.

[00:43:29] Well, I can see now why be kind of neat to be an inventory nerd? I might have to be an honorary one. We can start a club. So I should give a shout out to Malcolm.

[00:43:40] Hee hee hee hee. And she helped me out on the the Harm Belgium site.

[00:43:46] And he and she also confirmed that the Pont’s market was a former series. Huge department store. Some good stuff, Malcolm.

[00:43:55] And a couple of weeks LBA pulling with a small group of volunteers. We are bringing the Circular Economy Club Circular Cities Week. OK, concept to Seattle for the very first time. And this is relevant because Starbucks headquarters has agreed to host us, which I’m really excited about. And it’s an old seres building. So same type. And one of the women helping to coordinate this. Her mom worked at Sears and has such a cool story about repair ability. You know, in appliances used to be that anybody could repair their own rights. They would send out repair guides. And actually just in Europe, I think in Scotland, they just passed the right to repair law. So if you think about today, it’s actually pretty hard to repair stuff. We’ve sort of built obsolescence into our lives that we all can.

[00:44:43] Well, depending on the sector, we kind of control the IP.

[00:44:47] Right. Right. And so now seeing that there is an advantage to being able to actually repair iPhone has actually changed the design to make it repairable and more modular so we can actually take it apart with. Newer models were before they were basically Industrial super glued shut.

[00:45:01] Interesting, did not know this and going back to the event at Starbucks. We love Starbucks, by the way, especially now we are as a veteran. We really are passionate about helping our veteran community and Starbucks, the one the companies that get it. They have hired a lot of veterans and veterans spouses and they’re also doubling down on initial. I think they’ve hired 15000 veterans or veterans spouses. And I think you’re gonna raise that to 25000 next few years. So big fans of Starbucks. But it’s interesting, you mentioned that that you’re meeting there in an old serious facility. Unfortunately, we’re probably have opportunities to meet and more old Sered. So that’s been a very interesting story of how that’s played out. But, you know, it’s great to see, you know, as as as best as part of the business lifecycle drives us really neat. See us in different groups were uses facilities rather than than, you know, calling the bulldozers. OK. So let we’ve talked about inventory nerd, which I like. There’s two things I want to ask you about. Cause I think these these next two opportunities present ways that our audience can can plug in and plug in more with with some things you’re touching on. First, I wish I could plug in the Paris. I’m very jealous. You’re going to Paris here in just a few weeks or a month or so. Tell us more about what’s going on there in November.

[00:46:19] Absolutely. As I’ve gone through and engage with both the Industrial community and the circular economy community, I’m finding that there is not a space for Supply chain leaders to get together to talk circular and really, really in-depth so past what we can find online. And I found a couple other folks who are saying, yeah, we just don’t have that dedicated forum. So after a couple of weeks of brainstorming, we are going to host this event together with ASTM at our innovation center in Paris. And it’s a two day event with an additional third day to play a game called the Blue Connection. Highly recommend the same team that puts out the fresh Conexion game so that people can really get a hands on simulation about using circulars, a strategy. And then when you spend two days going really deep in to what makes what makes circular hard for supply chain, you know, we we sometimes struggle with just no carrier claims like a tiny, tiny return. It’s hard for us. Our large systems don’t like to wiggle or bend or loop. And so how can we support these types of business models that will be very quickly emerging and will need to be able to address. That’s going to lead to major shifts in our field. And I’d love for us to get out a how to that. And that’s why I’m so excited that ASTM will be there, you know, home of the score model. And I put out a white paper for the same PIC’s conference in June about based on the score model, where are some of the changes that the shifts that will happen to our supply chain habits? And so ideally at the end of these two days, we’ll have a good understanding and dialogue around challenges, shifts coming and then how can we start to get out ahead of these shifts? As an industry, how do we want to see the future looking? And I’m already speaking with HCM about conference in New Orleans next year, 13th to the 15th of September, and we’ll be heavily discussing and focusing on circular economy there.

[00:48:23] Outstanding costs are so much. Two days is not enough yet. I could be there for a month.

[00:48:29] I know right to make it longer, but people told me they probably can’t get away. It’s the week before Thanksgiving, so I’m pushing it as it is.

[00:48:36] Well, you know it. It’s so. I’m kidding. But it’s so important to sit down to its dedicated time to dive into these topics. And great partner with A-S-S Stacey g.E. And ASTM get together two very recognizable global brands. And I’m looking forward to kind of seeing what comes out of in fact, we’ll have to have you back all maybe some key takeaways from that that Paris event. Absolutely. And set your innovation center in Paris, is that right?

[00:49:02] That’s right. Yeah. There’s a great talk about reclaiming old buildings. It’s a beautiful building, really hosting lots of different types of companies in there. Now, we’ve got this great innovation center where we bring in Industrial companies, apply design thinking and investigate how data science can get their processes running better.

[00:49:21] Love it. Okay. And so Comcast, we just wrapped up conference in Vegas and the next one for HCM is gonna be in New Orleans, which will try to include some dates on the run up show notes as well. All right. So beyond the Paris event, which is the much more exciting I live webinars not not taking away from them, but that is is a pretty cool webinar. Yeah. Oh, so let’s do it justice. Let’s talk about the webinar. Next Wednesday is open for anybody.

[00:49:50] Open for anybody at 7:00 a.m. Pacific Time as I’m based on the West Coast. But it’ll be recorded. So if you. To register, you’ll get the recording. It’s only half an hour. We kept it really brief. And again, it really investigates. Industry 4.0 and this transition, an extension of lean management into the circular economy. So if you are applying Lean Six Sigma Kaizen in your operation, you’re probably already starting to apply circular strategies and you don’t even know it and it won’t include a note.

[00:50:21] But can you can folks go to GE Digital Google that and find their way to the. Yep. Absolutely. Okay, great. So let’s let’s kind of wrap up on this go brought. Right. We’ve talked about some some heavy weight issues, but what else in the world of and then global supply chain, what else is on your radar? Other topics, challenges, you name it, more than others right now.

[00:50:44] Yeah. We we briefly touched on this earlier. The increase in women in Supply chain is actually really encouraging to watch. And I sit on the board from my old university program up at Western Washington University, and we started tracking gender to say, wow, are we actually being intentional about creating opportunities? And we see, you know, in high schools and middle schools, more girls being encouraged to go into STEM fields. It’s pretty sad, actually, just being a little bit of a bummer by age seven. Girls are already saying, I’m not as smart as boys, I’m as fast as boys. And so somehow already that that happens really, really, really early. And so we were briefly speaking before the show about engaging in elementary schools, about supply chain and actions is another passion area for Abe Ashkenazi over at ASTM. And they developed a elementary school friendly version of the big game, which we’ve you know, you’ve probably played if you’re a supply chain professional. Yeah. And so they actually had the lemonade stand game. Yes. They go in and play in in all major schools and then the cell phone game for middle and high schools. And we see we’re seeing more women get into the space. And I have a theory on this. I’ve not actually tried to ever confirm this theory, but if I think about my own path in was an academic one and the Supply chain field is relatively new now you can find it at most American universities over five Auslin 500 programs in the states.

[00:52:09] Right now, it’s offering some sort of a four year degree or two year degree or or some kind of formal education course on splotchy management.

[00:52:17] Fantastic. And 15 years ago there would be a small handful. Yeah. And so I think as we see an academic path in, we’ll see more and more women. So I think back to my undergrad program, it was a half, half women, my graduate program. And Supply chain, though, didn’t have very many women at all. I would say more like 5 or 10 percent. And so it’ll be an interesting one to watch. But I just recently went to Gartner’s Supply chain conference in Barcelona in June and they had a breakfast that essentially celebrates women in Supply chain. And I found this interesting. They previously had constrained it to women. And this year they invited men in the room. And I thought, wow, well, there. How else do we get women promoted? You know, we need to actually have a holistic conversation. So that’s one major trend I’m seeing. And I’m very I’m hopeful about about that. As we see, you know, with more women on boards means a higher financial success for a company. And that’s been proven proven time again.

[00:53:13] That’s right. And it’s not a pitting. The two is not two sides. But in terms of a male versus females, it’s not one side wins. One side loses. And some I think one of the most important things we can do is get more men involved in the conversation. I think there’s an I think we’re up against an awareness challenge enough that you’ve got great people that would help out if if they’re just not aware. Right. And so we have a huge awareness issue. But I mean, just the numbers you just shared there, you know, you mentioned that the undergrad program is about 50/50. But then if you move into the Masters 5 or 10 percent and unfortunately we’re seeing the same percentages, if you look at entry-level, believe or not, folks, at least the same as things I’ve seen in terms of coming into certainly supply chain managed programs and coming in industry, those numbers are or are closer than you would think at to 50/50. However, as folks get those early promotions and then the second promotions and certainly in the C-suite, it becomes so lopsided. And to your point, I believe McKinsey did one or less studies. I saw a saw where if the team, the executive team, the more diverse they are, the stronger financial performance organizations are may have. That’s right. That’s right. Okay. So I love that we could spin that. That’s near and dear, you know. And it’s important because it’s important. But also as as as follow two daughters and a married to a incredible female entrepreneur. We’ve got to move the needle on these things. Right. We got to make sure that women know they can do. And then and especially young women, they can do whatever they want to do. Absolutely. All right. So what else? Anything else? In terms of the bigger picture, the Indian supply chain, what it what else is on your radar more than it is right now?

[00:55:02] Hi, this is gonna be broad and we talked about it quite a bit already, but industry 4.0 is a force. We’re in the middle of it. It’ll continue. And so I really encourage Supply chain professionals either at the beginning of their career or throughout their career, even 15, 20, 25 years in to stay relevant. We need to get smarter. I’m not saying go out and get, you know, a peach dive data science, but certainly understanding the different components, how digital physical will come together. There’s a couple of really interesting conferences really exploring digital physical for Supply chain. And again, we see early innovators and I expect the next five to 10 years this will become this is normal. So to stay relevant, get ahead, get your feet wet in some of these topics and the whole industry with better for it.

[00:55:46] Yeah, I think humans, all of us, we do not like change. Right? I think it hasn’t been. Yeah. If A-League’s improved, that’s been proven. And I think, you know, going back to your flavor of the month commentary. Yeah. I think a lot of folks may, myself included, make me a song that to some of the technologies. But gosh, across the industry, 4.0 landscape. Nothing could be further from the truth. And these are these are revolutionizing technologies, approaches, applications that are not just changing the supply chain world, but changing the business world. Right. The global business world, blockchain blockchain has gotten you know, a lot of people take pot shots at blockchain, but it really it’s here to stay. And it is changing that that distributed ledger is changing how global trade happens.

[00:56:33] Absolutely. We’re seeing really interesting. There’s a there’s a team in Rotterdam, actually, the BLOCK Black Lab, I think it’s called, and they are exploring and improving supply chain processes with a different type of data structure. So just a quick example. You know, as we ship cargo in a vessel on the ocean, maybe that the sailing time is twodays, but the bank transfer, you know, takes two weeks. So there it is. Twelve days of Demiraj. Twelve days of waiting. And what they’re finding is they can actually use tokens which set on this distributed letter very, very secure. And the bank is accepting that so they can release the cargo as soon as it arrives. And now consider the savings both in time and cost.

[00:57:13] Enormous. Enormous. Okay. So I’d love to dive in more, but we’ll have you back. We’ll talk talk about some things we couldn’t get to today. But how can folks you know, you’re doing keynotes, you’re doing events, webinars, you name it, podcast. Now you can add that to rest. And hey, how can folks reach out if they heard something they like, they heard something you’re involved in. They want to learn more. How can they reach out to you and to GE Digital?

[00:57:38] Great. Yeah. Our our website for GE Digital is active. The team is very diligent about responding to requests from there. I’m also very active in Ellington community, posting quite a bit around circular economy, of course, and I’m posting about the different events upcoming or papers, et cetera. So definitely reach out to me there. There are not very many Deborah Dole’s Dulac not sharp in it, so it’s tough to miss me.

[00:58:03] But you’ve heard that your entire life that that’s somehow urging people to spell it properly. Thought doled out the whole. It’s it really as DLF. Yeah, well, anything.

[00:58:12] But really, I’ve enjoyed your passion and your perspective and your thought. Leadership insights, Europe. You’re involved in some really interesting ground, Brett. Breaking conversations, projects, technologies. And I’ve really enjoyed our our our together for our audience. g.E. Dot com forward slash digital’s where you can connect with so many things that they’ve got going on, including next week’s webinar. Right. Next Wednesday. Absolutely. Okay. Good stuff. Really big thanks to Deborah Dull with GE Digital for joining us here today. Safe travels to everywhere you’re going between now and, of course, Paris. And we look forward to learning about some of the key takeaways from that event here in November. Thank you so much. Has been a great conversation. You bet. Really enjoyed. Deborah. OK. So to our audience. As always, we’re going to close on a couple of events that we’re going to be at. We invite you to come out and check us out in person. And, you know. Well, for starters, if there’s anything that you heard here today that you cannot find, you can’t Google, you name it, you can shoot us. Note to connect at Supply Chain Now Radio dot com and we will get more information to you as best we can. First up, though, so next Wednesday for us, Deborah, we’re going to be at the Georgia Manufacturing Summit is about 10000 manufacturers in the state of Georgia right now. And next Wednesday, we’re going to celebrate all of that with our friends at Georgia manufacturing alliance.

[00:59:34] We’ve got keynotes from PMG and KIYA. Did you see the. Well, you may not have watched last year’s Super Bowl, but there was a tell your Rod commercial. So terrorises Newquay, a vehicle. It had a really neat commercial. It’s one of the more popular ones that really tells the story of West Point, Georgia, where he makes several vehicles. We’ll tell you right now. They can’t make enough that they can’t make a. Fast enough. So I think for everyone’s come off line, it already has an order, sorry, it’s already going somewhere. Wow. Yeah, no kidding. That is so so that they get some secret sauce down in West Point, Georgia. But anyway, we’re going to hear more about the Keith story. And registration is still open for the Georgia manufacturing summit here at the Cobb Gallery in Atlanta. You can learn more at Georgia manufacturing alliance dot com. And if you’re a vet and you’re interested in making connections, adding to your network hearing, Mark, you know, gathering some market intel. I think we have still some free seats available. You can use a promo code USA vet at Georgia manufacturing alliance dot com and get a free seat while they last. I think we’re given away 50 free seats, which is outstanding. It’s tremendous. OK. This past October 9th, we’re going to be back in Charleston, South Carolina. Logistics Tech talk on October 23rd in partnership, the South Carolina Council on Competitiveness.

[01:00:51] You can learn more about that event at EFT SC Competes DOT or DHL. Supply chain will be keynoting that focused on Logistics Tech, freight tech, supply chain tech, which is such a dominant force here these days. And then we’re talking about London. Sounds like you’re London’s number one fan, which is great to hear. Deborah, we love our friends, E.M.T. Which is based in the U.K. They are holding their Logistics CEO form in Austin, Texas, November 7th and 8th. We’ll be we’ll be there with broadcasting live. We’ll be featuring some senior leaders at the intersection of Supply chain and technology. Looking forward to that. You can learn more at E.M.T. Dot com. And then while working on some other events, it’s hard to believe we’re talking in the year 2020. But reverse Logistics Social Action Conference and Expo out in Vegas in February. Deborah, you touched on returns in reverse Logistics. And as such, a company struggling to figure out the approach there in is such an expectation from a consumer standpoint. Right. That’s how e-commerce happens these days. But RLA is doing a great job of disseminating best practices. So look for more information there on that event. That’s gonna be in February. And then, of course, Modoc, you’ve read the Botox. Deborah Knight It is one of the if not the largest one, the largest supply chain trade shows in North America, 35000 people are expecting.

[01:02:13] That’s more than the town I grew up in.

[01:02:16] It’s it’s what it’s encouraging many ways, right? Absolutely. Because there’s so much interest these days. I think many folks, whether you’re consumers, whether you’re, you know, in some non supply chain industry, we’re all making a connection that that to get our stuff in two days or less. That’s supply chain. Absolutely. But motets 2020 is free to attend, which is really neat. You can go to Modoc showed dot com more affirmation there, but we’re going be broadcasting throughout the four days and they are hosting our 2020. Lana Supply chain awards their own side with Madox being the backdrop. We’ve secured our keynote, which is Christian Christian Fisher, president and CEO, Georgia-Pacific. So you can learn more at the new Web site. We’re developing now fast and furiously. Atlanta Supply chain Awards dot com live for more information, details to come. So once again, great conversation. Really enjoyed my passion and your your bias for action. Right. And driving the conversation and driving the things that that’s a spotting leaders organizations should be talking about. So big things. Deborah Dull what GE Digital for joining us to our audience. Be sure to check out other upcoming events, replays over interviews, other resources at Supply Chain Now Radio RT.com. You can find us on Apple podcast, SoundCloud, YouTube. All the leading sites were podcasts can be found. Be sure to subscribe. You don’t miss anything on behalf of the entire Supply Chain Now Radio team. This is Scott Luton wishing you a wonderful week ahead and we will see you next time on Supply Chain Now Radio links.