Narrator
Welcome to the supply chain visibility stories, the podcast for supply chain managers, brought to you by ACSIS, the 100% supply chain visibility cloud solution provider. Supply Chain Visibility Stories is hosted by Bill Wohl, a technology industry veteran and enterprise software professional.

Bill Wohl:
Thanks, everyone, for joining us for this next in the series of discussions exploring the intersection of technology and business. We're talking supply chain. Our podcasts are designed to be brief and focused, and we're hoping this format inspires our audience to think about how technology impacts their own organizations and to engage with us. And I'll have information how to engage with this series and our guests a little later on in the discussion. I'm Bill Wohl and I'm honored to be the host of this series brought to you by ACSIS. I'm always fascinated by the business challenges faced by companies and how those challenges can be addressed by technology. And if we, of course, have a focus on the supply chain, we've talked about big macro trends. We've talked about global systems integrations, reverse logistics, and edge devices. Today we're going to talk a little bit about data and digitization, particularly in manufacturing. So, let's dig in with two guests on the program. John Dipalo, the chief strategy officer at ACSIS, a leading technology player here in the supply chain space. And also joining us is a special guest, Prashanth Sharma, CTO of Thoughtfocus. Gentlemen, welcome to the program.

John Dipalo:
Hey Doc, good to be here.

Prashanth Sharma:
Thank you Bill.

Bill Wohl:
So John, why don't we start with you? Digitization- What does that mean to you as a chief strategy officer at ACSI, and why is this topic so important?

John Dipalo:
Yeah, again, it's one of those things where digitization means different things to different people.  you know and I like to focus on you know companies turning processes that were typically you know run on you know pencil and paper and calculators and other things kind of into a digital representation. Of both the workflow and then ultimately being able to digitally represent the process that is happening so that we can analyze the information you know through the process that we can streamline the process and get rid of a lot of you know manual reporting and and manual processing of information you know that tends to get macroed up in such a way that you know manufacturers don't have a true view as to what's going on on their shop floor. So, this digitization concept is really, you know, how can I turn, you know, kind of analog processes into digital, automatically fed things that then can be automatically integrated into my ERP system and passed on to downstream processes.

Bill Wohl:
All right, that's great setup for our guest pashant. Welcome. Let's start basically first with understanding about Thoughtfocus. Tell us about your business.

Prashanth Sharma:
Our focus is primarily a solutions provider in the financial services and manufacturing space of manufacturing and encompasses transportation, logistics, and supply chain and we provide solutions specific to these two areas in the domain that we operate in.

Bill Wohl:
So the digitization of manufacturing, John touched on a lot of aspects and I suspect we're going to touch on a few topics here. Let's talk first about the end goal because When I listen to supply chain leaders in this area, they tend to talk about moving from a world of very processdriven supply chains to today's modern view which is well yeah process is important but on top of that we need to add data to the equation. Can you talk about that?

Prashanth Sharma:
Absolutely, Bill that's a great segue to the discussion in terms of data because really if you look at process-driven organizations, originally, the process was put in place to drive efficiencies. And efficiencies mean that you can make decisions on time and you can actually define where the organization needs to head in terms of planning, and the process is only as efficient as the information that the process has and that is where data comes in because today data has exploded because of the global network both supply chain and manufacturing and that means the importance of data and information in decision making is multiffold. Actually, it has escalated quite a bit. So, while process is important, information has become equally important, and then the systems have to adapt to that.

Bill Wohl:
It's a fascinating area for me because I cut my teeth in supply chain at SAP, which is all about business process optimization. This concept now that we've discussed on this podcast series a number of times about the the level and huge quantity of data that's being supplied by devices is out at the edge means that the data is available but one of the challenges is how do you manage this you know deluge of data that's flowing in you spend some time thinking about that for sure.

Prashanth Sharma:
Oh absolutely and typically when you look at all the data that is coming into an organization based on the type of organization you are you are and as well as the maturity of your processes that data will mean different insights for you and is different for midsize companies or large organizations who have more resources at their disposal. Right? So from that standpoint, when we look at converting that data into information, it can overwhelm organizations because there is going to be a lot of ideas that can come up as you start looking into that data and especially you talked about edge devices and there is so much happening in the field that once you get all that data you start getting a lot more insights into what is happening over there. So it is very important to actually analyze what is your short-term goals in terms of your overall strategy and your long-term goals and identify the road map of how you want to internalize that data and implement solutions for the goals of your business as such because all said and done what the last four years have taught us is that nothing is going to be as you know permanent as we thought it would be. So it is very important to visualize this information in the context of today and tomorrow on where we are headed.

Bill Wohl:
I know, I don't want to make it sound like an indictment but it's been my experience that  manufacturers of all sizes tend to have lots of legacy systems around their IT environment. When you talk about digitization of manufacturing, some of those legacy systems are not really optimized for these kinds of integrations. How much of the thinking of supply chain managers has to be in modernizing legacy systems to get to the benefits that you're talking about?

Prashanth Sharma:
That's a great question because a lot of the challenges that supply chain managers face today is actually both external and internal. When you look at external, the traditional methods of demand planning and demand forecasting looked at historical data, and that is where your point of the legacy systems and what kind of information is captured in those legacy systems become important. However, when you look at supply chain planning today, those external factors have multiplied into different aspects of changes in the supply chain, different aspects of movement in the geopolitical environments of where things can be shipped from, and such. And so what happens is while the legacy systems are important and they are a challenge, the external factors have become more of a challenge in the recent years as well. So converging these two points is very important for supply chain managers and that is where the demand planning aspect comes in and this is where the digitization of demand planning versus demand sensing and the debate of how to do that happens as well.  one important aspect coming back to the technology point of all of this is there are areas in all of this where you can solve the micro challenges that exist for today which will provide you the foothold for the road map for the future. For example,  one of our customers had this challenge where they had all sorts of robotics in the manufacturing plant. One of the challenges was when the robots finished manufacturing these units, these components. They were on a pallet, the inventory management was a challenge because they weren't sure where those parts would be on the floor because of you know labor shortages and such. And typically the idea is to serialize components and figure out where they are and such. But if you don't have that kind of an infrastructure as a legacy system that you have inherited, then what do you do at that point of time?  The solution was to figure out how to pack the crates in which they are stored and actually have technology which is connected in S3 4.0 technology where the weight of the crate would tell you the number of parts in there. So at any point of time you always had an accurate inventory of how many parts have been manufactured in the shift or such.


Bill Wohl:
We love those specific challenge examples. Thanks for sharing. I think that one of the things that our audience is often dealing with today is the difference between a supply chain network that's right in country and one that's global. What are some of the challenges or differences between a global versus domestic supply chain that you're seeing with clients?

Prashanth Sharma:
Specifically, when it comes to a global supply chain, there are a lot of moving factors, from track and trace and shipping and transportation all the way to the quality of components that gets developed because the consistency of a global supplier is slightly different than the consistency of a local supplier. The relationships are different, and the information flow is also different because of some of the trust factors that comes into play. Again going back to the size of a manufacturer if you will midsize manufacturer, smaller manufacturers would have a local supply chain where the buying organization or the folks in the organization would have relationships and would pick up the phone and just say, "Hey, Bill, can you manufacture this part for me? It's urgent, and there are these challenges that we're facing versus now with a global supplier network. You have solved some of the challenges on availability and all those things to a certain extent, but you don't have the same sentiments of assuring that you do have these challenges. So,  overall information flow becomes very important which starts with the orders and order management aspects of it of it as well as understanding the challenges that your suppliers might face as well when it comes to raw materials and such where they would need to do manufacture those parts. A simple example I can take is with one of the manufacturers that we work with where they had these part numbers and they were vendor part numbers. And typically they used to change those part nbers quite often and the vendor had to intercept those part nbers. And this is traditionally it was done through EDI and other mechanisms. But with the moving external changes right now it became a challenge because now the vendor has to understand this new partner part number is the same part number that they were manufacturing and actually put that through the process. So one of the ways that we solved that problem is through the services of integration API related services that gave them a reference to the old part number so they didn't have to redo all of those challenges and get that in. So some of these kinds of things as well as track and trace if you're figuring out a way to track and trace throughout this and again that is not applicable overall but the cases where it is applicable it does solve some of those problems.

Bill Wohl:
I find as we do this podcast series there are a lot of adjectives that define the supply chain. One clearly as I I'll ask you a last question is the need for flexibility and I suspect that because the world and you talked about geopolitical forces the world is constantly changing and supply chains are highly now connected. So I'm presuming that digitization one of the benefits of that is to provide a transparency of information that makes flexibility that much easier to deal with. Is that the right way to think about it?


Prashanth Sharma:
Absolutely. And when talk about digitization. It's actually not systems that are put in place. It's the ease of information flow and digitization is synonymous with how you are looking at data and the perspectives of information and data as well. I give the examples of the part number. Another example that I can think of would be that all the other areas that surround the part number. If the if for example if you have process manufacturing and you have certain certificifications let's say a chemical manufacturer then the organic certifications require you to trace the source to all the way to the distribution right and then how do you make sure that those are intact and in play is part of the digitization so you're absolutely right but going back to what you were talking about flexibility now you're talking about an environment where there are multiple suppliers coming in who have to follow the same pattern or the same behavior on how you accept those and I'm talking about upstream upstream processes here. So there is a lot of information that needs to flow out and needs to be orchestrated and you know the technology tools are the best way to do that otherwise, the communication is going to fall apart.

Bill Wohl:
John let me bring you back in here because we often in this program talk about the challenges of dealing with all of the idiosyncrasies of a supply chain. It can sometimes be daunting for people that want to modernize their supply chain. What's the right way to kick off that process for manufacturing companies?

John Dipalo:
It's a great question, Bill. I think there's it's somewhat multiaceted depending on kind of what your supply chain looks like. And Pashant talked about, you know, some of the some of the examples, but you know, I always come back, you know, to the same thought process for a lot of these things, which is how can I get started? How can I get a quick win? And how can I put in a solution that is inclusive as an example to my suppliers or to my contract manufacturers or to different facilities that are running with different technology? I think that that is key you know and many times what happens in in these types of scenarios is we get hung up on a particular technology and then we force that technology on all the participants and your adoption turns into this 80/20 adoption which is 80% of the people adopt it but the 20% that have challenges with don't. Right? So, being able to digitize information across a spectrum of partners utilizing technologies that they're capable of utilizing will get you there a lot quicker. But I also recommend that we go with, you know, a pilot that is a real world pilot, you know, because my thought process around that always is, you know, pilot becomes production and production becomes permanent and How do you then put in a realistic pilot that's going to incorporate a lot of these facets for sharing information that then can be expanded? So again, my thoughts are start small, win quick, and then move forward.

Bill Wohl:
Good advice as always. And of course, choose the right partners, which gives me great reason to thank Pashant Chararma, CTO of Thoughtfocus for being with us today. Thank you, sir, for being on the program. Lots more to talk about. And John Dipalo, chief strategy officer at ACSIS, a regular guest on our series. Gentlemen, thanks for being on the program today.

John DiPalo:
Thanks, Bill.

Prashanth Sharma:
A pleasure.

Bill Wohl:
That wraps up today's podcast. My thanks to ACSIS for making the podcast series possible. We welcome your comments and questions about the discussions on these podcasts. You can engage with us at the official ACSIS Twitter and LinkedIn accounts. So, please be a part of the discussion. I'm your host, Bill Wohl. And for everyone at ACSIS, thanks for joining. We look forward to our next podcast. Talk soon.

Narrator:
Thank you for listening to supply chain visibility stories brought to you by ACSIS, the 100% supply chain visibility cloud solution provider. Visit us on the web at ACSISinc.com. That's acsisinc.com or join the dialogue on social media. Look for ACSIS Inc. on LinkedIn and Twitter. Join us next time for supply chain visibility stories brought to you by ACSIS.