Dr. Rodolfo Santamaria, PhD, MBA, CMBB

Timeless wisdom from Doug Lambert’s 5th edition of Supply Chain Management. It shows that SCM isn’t just a function. It’s the C-suite’s blueprint for resilience and value creation in turbulent times. These reflections from Birgit Dam Jespersen hit home with my experiences.

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Where is the supply chain profession headed next? At TPM26 I had the opportunity to speak with Jordan Zeldin, President of CSCMP - Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals. CSCMP sits at the center of the global supply chain leadership community — connecting executives, academics, and practitioners across industries. That vantage point gives Jordan a unique perspective on where the profession is evolving. One theme from our discussion stood out: ➡️ The supply chain profession is entering a new phase where discipline, resilience, and talent development will matter more than ever. In our conversation we discussed: • How supply chain leadership is evolving • Where companies are investing in talent and capability • What today’s volatility means for the next generation of supply chain leaders This was a great conversation about the future of the profession itself. 🎥 Interview below. #SupplyChain #CSCMP #SupplyChainLeadership #LogisticsLeadership #GlobalTrade #TPM26 #thecoolkids

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Over the years, I’ve seen a consistent pattern across manufacturing organizations: Purchasing reports savings, dashboards look fine—and yet COGS doesn’t move the way leadership expects. That disconnect is rarely about effort. More often, it’s a sign that cost structures haven’t been fundamentally reset, especially in direct materials. We pulled together the most common signals we see when organizations need more than incremental fixes—and why a true supply chain transformation is often required. Sharing here in case it’s useful. 👇

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A useful and data-backed look at ASCM’s executive compensation structure from Jeffrey McDaniels. Right now ASCM is not facing a revenue problem… it is facing an expenses problem. Accountability for restoring balance to the budget belongs to the board, and revising executive compensation should probably be their first step. ~Mr. Supply Chain® #SaveASCM #FreeSCOR

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I found this resource in my archives, and, on re-reading, the tenets of this survival guide are very relevant today. Whether undertaking enterprise-wide transformations or executing supply chain strategic initiatives, many organizations overlook the value of a mature PMO. With mounting pressures to capitalize on automation, digitization, strategic alliances, build financial resilience, harness data intelligence, upskill the workforce, improve operational efficiencies, and capture supply chain agility, an ePMO or PMO can be a catalyst for driving sustainable transformational success. From direct experience in building and leading PMOs, there are a few things to remember: 1) Do not let perfection be the enemy of good, and remember building an ePMO is a journey, not a sprint. Greatness is built on a solid foundation. 2) Focus on "quick-wins" to generate cultural buy-in and establish trust in the process. 3) Architect a PMO structure that aligns with the company's operating model, strategy, and level of infrastructure maturity, tempering speed of change with the capabilities of the organization. 4) Establish a dynamic governance structure that is aligned with strategic initiatives, projects, and optimal future state business objectives. 5) Be open to applying different project management techniques, such as Agile, Waterfall, Kanban, Scrum, or Critical Path Method, based on the various projects to be undertaken. 6) Implement a formalized framework that has top-down, bottom-up support, but invest in nurturing collaborative relationships that rely on personal power over positional power. 7) One of the most decisive advantages in architecting and building out a formalized ePMO/PMO is transparent communication; keeping stakeholders and the workforce engaged and updated is vital. 8) If leading or building a Program Management Office, be diligent about bringing others along on the journey, using every opportunity to train, coach, and educate others. If organizations want to increase their success in achieving the desired outcomes from transformational projects, they should reconsider the value of a formalized PMO. #pmo #projectmanagement #organizationaltransformation #thoughtleadership #businesssuccess #technology #supplychain #strategy

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Kristen LeBaron, this is a wonderful idea! There are so many common supply chain issues that span industry and geography that having a group of practitioners to discuss would almost certainly create tremendous value! Sharing with my network to help build visibility and momentum.

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Project Vault signals a major shift in how the U.S. approaches critical minerals. In this Supply Chain Byte, Lisa Anderson explains the Strategic Critical Minerals Initiative and why it matters to manufacturers. She highlights what companies should be thinking about now: • End-to-end supply chain visibility • Strategic stockpiles • Capacity considerations • Strategic partnerships 🎥 Watch now—and ask whether your supply chain is positioned for a more complex and strategic operating environment. 👉 Contact LMA Consulting Group to assess how prepared your supply chain is for what’s ahead. #SupplyChain #CriticalMinerals #Manufacturing #Resilience #Strategy #Operations #Leadership

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Thanks Supply Chain Now for highlighting this critical event in Las Vegas in Feb that I will host about training the next gen Supply Chain workforce. Reshoring of critical supply chain nodes such as manufacturing, sourcing of rare earth elements, and pharma and active pharma ingredients will require a much more expedited training and reskilling of the work force. New norms for expediting training to support this critical need with technologies like AI, digital twins, and virtual reality must be explored. Please join the conversation, as we host conversations about new frameworks from industry, academia and government.

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It is with some sadness that I completely endorse Joannes Vermorel's critical analysis of this paper, only I have to be much harsher (since this is supposed to be my home community). This is a paper, coauthored by 40+ top names, that strives to slather "AI" over the rich problem domain known as supply chain management. SCM covers many areas, but I think we all agree that at its core is managing inventories. There is only a brief section within their "Execution" section, section 3.2 - "RL-powered inventory control" that seems to aspire to linking "reinforcement learning" with inventory control. Despite the vast literature on this topic, the section includes only three references: 1. The 1st edition of Sutton and Barto's "Reinforcement Learning: An introduction" that appeared in 1998, but not the 2nd edition that appeared in 2018. 2. My 2011 book "Approximate Dynamic Programming" but not my 2022 book "Reinforcement Learning and Stochastic Optimization: A unified framework for sequential decisions (RLSO)." This book started as a 3rd edition of my 2011 ADP book, before I decided it needed a new title to capture my universal modeling framework 3. A soft overview article reviewing various forms of analytics for SCM (with a brief mention of "reinforcement learning"). Sutton and Barto's book does not even touch on inventory modeling. My 2022 book RLSO does have an entire section on various inventory models, but these are strictly for illustrating models and algorithms - this is not a SCM book, and makes no pretense to modeling realistic inventory problems. I will note that Joannes Vermorel, CEO of Lokad (and author of the new book "Introduction to Supply Chain") truly understands the analytics of SCM. His company has installed advanced analytics in a wide range of companies, something that I suspect has not been done by any of the coauthors of the Informs article. I suspect that none of the authors has any expertise in "reinforcement learning." I recommend my webpage on RL https://lnkd.in/dFpYey62 ("tinyurl.com/" with "what-is-rl") You will learn that by the time they wrote the 2nd edition of their landmark book, even Sutton and Barto admitted that they no longer know what "reinforcement learning" is. RL started as an algorithmic strategy (basically another name for approximate dynamic programming), but just as I did, they found that approximating Bellman's equation is astonishingly difficult. It is a reason that these methods are rarely used in practice, especially in inventory planning. I am sorry, but this section is simply embarrassing. It uses old editions of RL/ADP books that have only shallow treatments of inventory problems. In the rush to write a paper blending "AI" and SCM, the paper seems to demonstrate little or no knowledge of either field. As David Simchi-Levi has found (as have many companies), LLMs are a useful tool for pre- and post-processing. I like the term "democratization of optimization."

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Savings is there in higher ed. You just need to a process and deep analysis of the data to uncover it.

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If you are in supply chain management and you get asked to speak with a group of students, say “yes”. For 2 reasons. Last week I had the pleasure of joining Nezih Altay and his MS Supply Chain Management program at DePaul University as part of their "Emerging Technologies and Ethical Issues” studies and it was great; we were quickly into the Q&A and the questions kept coming. Reason #1. It is valuable to be asked questions from new perspectives about a topic you’ve spent a lot of time thinking about; it causes you to challenge your own assumptions and perhaps reorient the way you think about certain topics. Reason #2. Finding ways to connect academic topics to business problems and solutions is a great way of adding additional meaning, purpose and motivation; a high percentage of the notes I get from my own kids saying ‘great class’ often had a guest speaker. So, just say “yes”. #depaul #supplychain #resilience

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