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:
Well, thanks everyone for joining us. Today marks the next in a series of discussions exploring a variety of business-related topics with a unique focus on the intersection of technology and business. We try to make these conversations brief and focused to make the best use of your time. And we're hoping this podcast format inspires you, our audience, to think about how technology impacts your own organization and to engage with us as this series continues. So, I'll have some information about how to engage with the series and our guests at the end of today's discussion. My name is Bill Wohl, and I'm honored to be the host of this series. brought to you by ACSIS. I've been working in the technology sector since the late 1990s, including 11 years at SAP. So, I'm always fascinated by the business challenges faced by companies and how those challenges can be addressed by technology. So, we started this series talking about the global and macro trends facing companies today, including the impact of course of the pandemic. And interestingly, a lot of that comes back to a renewed focus on global supply chains. And so, we've been digging a bit deeper today. We're changing things up with two guests. Our podcast series regular is ACSIS Chief Strategy Officer John DiPalo and today's special guest Tony Fonk, president CEO of SpotSee. So, John and Tony, welcome to the program.
Great to have you both here. John, sir, let's start by setting the stage. In our previous  podcast programs, we've been talking about the challenges that businesses are having uniquely in the supply chain space and in particular sort of filling the gaps in transparency in the supply chain  and how companies get started in that effort from concept to execution. So let's remind our audience why is data at the edge so important?

John DiPalo:
You know and Bill when we look at data at the edge you know it's really the actual information that we're seeing as product moves through the supply chain. So rather than you know kind of theoretical macroed up information when we look at edge computing today especially with the advent of all of the new IoT based sensors and other ways of collecting information. That information now allows your solution to have a much better view as to what's going on as product moves through your supply chain or transforms from, you know, one form to another in a manufacturing process. And the reality is the more real-time actual data that we can capture, the better we're going to be able to make supply chain solutions actionable. So if you do see an adverse event or something that happens, you know, when a product is being transported or when a product is being moved, you can remediate that situation or understand what's going on with that situation much earlier. So the drive towards real time actionable data starts with information being captured at the edge.



Bill Wohl:
So that then it makes sense really I think for  Tony for your business to be a part of this conversation. I know there's a bit of a a play on words in the name of the business. Let's start by talking a little bit about SpotSee and what your business is all about.

Tony Fonk:
Yeah, you nailed it. You know, spot and see, that's really what we help our customers do in a broad variety of different in across a broad variety of industries. Both, you know, predominantly life sciences and what I would say that the rest of our business is almost half life sciences and the other half is specifically focused on supply chain and operations, helping customers to spot and see changing conditions in their supply chain, operations, process validation, etc.

Bill Wohl:
And And so in thinking about the context of this problem which ultimately I think was the genesis of the demand for your business a lot of supply chain ERP solutions I started my career at SAP working on supply chain, but those solutions at a high level are really not designed to  absorb or to use your company's name spot and see all of these transparency gaps. What got things started and where are you seeing most of the customer challenges today?

Tony Fonk:
Well so interesting that you say that you know if you look about it it's more about evolution than anything and for us as well I mean parts of our business are as much as or as long as 50 years old  in in helping customers you know see what's happening or see changes that are occurring when we talk about the evolution you know from your days at SAP I'm sure it probably started as  predominantly inventory management  having visibility to your inventory which if you just look at the adoption of that innovation alone it took a long long time for a lot of companies many are still adopting it. Now, what we're doing and what you're seeing more broadly across the industry, is okay, well that's great. I I see it, but do I know what what condition it's actually in when I receive materials at my dock?  Do I know if it's seen some sort of a catastrophic impact? If it's a temperature sensitive product, do I know if the temperature has been a temperature threshold has been exceeded, or a temperature over time threshold has been exceeded? Those are some of the pieces and the data point that points that you know the infrastructure is already being being put in place with RFID readers with SAP ERP systems being put into place. We're developing products that work in a cost-effective way to actually go into that ecosystem into that into that infrastructure ecosystem. So that one more piece of information is you know is it potentially damaged?

Bill Wohl:
The challenge of course is is not only to get that piece of information and then present it and make some decisions around it. So, does your business spend more of its time at the sensor level, or are you really helping customers figure out what do you do with this information?



Tony Fonk:
Yeah, actually great question. So we separate you know how we see the solutions in three different buckets. So there's deterrent, there's detect and diagnose. So just you know the diagnose I think is obvious. There's a lot of conversation that happens on diagnosis. It's pretty obvious. It's we're going to take all these data points and we're going to aggregate those and we're going to understand where our problems occur. Detection is obvious to an extent, right? So, you're saying, hey, look, I need some sort of sensor that's going to detect whatever the predominant problem is here. The problem with detection is and has been, or I should say has been, is the cost associated with it. Right? So, you're automatically attaching batteries to these things. You're attaching processors before you know it, and you need a cell phone if you want, you know, real, real time. Before you know it, you're attaching a cell phone to every one of your products, and that's not necessarily cost-effective, right?  so detection, how do you drive that cost down? Eliminate batteries. Use use the simplest forms possible, whether that be some sort of mechanical way of detecting an impact or tilt or some chemical way of detecting chemistry, but triggering a data sort of process. And then finally, when we talk about deterrence, this is actually a big deal. When we approach many any of our customers or our customers approach us, they say, “hey, listen. I've got a damage problem, and I want to get those guys, right”? I mean, it automatically starts from this perspective of somebody's doing something wrong to us and I want to get them, but I want to hide it so that they don't know it's happening. And I can tell you through 50 years of of of our company being involved in this sort of a of a business with these sorts of solutions, the most effective way to prevent damage or to stop damages to prevent it. And so actually, you know, our advice on the other side of that is actually no, no, no, you want visual deterrence. You want people to know that this part package, you know, box of vaccines is being monitored so that people handle with care. And it's amazing when they do that 40 to 60% reduction in the actual damages that occur. When they hide it, it's different. We had an automotive manufacturer who was using one of our products and they were so happy with the results that they got when they were using the products. They asked us if we could actually just send them or they could just purchase empty shelves, meaning of the actual case of the product so people thought that it was actually inside there.

Bill Wohl:
It's the concept of the homeowner putting fake cameras up at the gutter level, right? It's the same kind of thing. But you I mean it's easy for the audience to think, okay, for perishable products, for regulated products like pharmaceuticals, this makes sense. But you're often involved in actually solving a problem of supply. chain waste, right? People are losing stuff or they're having to throw it away. Can you give an example of why that's a business problem?

Tony Fonk:
Well, let me put it into perspective, right? In today's day and age of operational excellence, Six Sigma, as an example, right? 99.99967% defect free. The supply chain waste that happens on a global level annually is over 2% of all goods are damaged. Right? So, you go from running processes within four walls of a manufacturing facility and you know you are at six sigma level quality and then you send it outside your door and you're subject to 2% waste and the big gap between the two is visibility period. It's going through multiple hands it's going through  you know the scope of conflict is really big right when you step outside of your four walls so the only thing that you can control is can I put a device  on my product so I can see actually what's happening and where it's happening and and potentially who who did it.

Bill Wohl:
So you work with lots of different types of customers which means by definition they're not all SAP ERP customers is probably a mix of Oracle and Infor and others. How do you as someone out at the edge build IT systems that are open if you will to everything, because that that's got to be a bit of a challenge?

Tony Fonk:
Yeah. I mean you could get into a standards are extremely important right? So you you can get into a  into a customization nightmare if you're not careful. As a company with SpotSee as an example, we have we have really focused on using basic simple methods such as RFID barcodes is another example of that or even simple visual detection systems where you can actually you can pick up and actually grab that data point in a very ubiquitous way. What we have learned is that you know, as you start to think about global business is and you think about even the world of cellular. Think about it right now today.  we have markets and countries and regions that are 2G and we have markets and regions and countries that are actually on 5G,
right? You know, so you've got four different levels of band that you would need to navigate and multiple different modules in order to communicate effectively if you were to send something around the globe. That's just not effective, right? So we look for actual low common denominator solutionsnwhere we can capture the data point for our customer and implement it into their ERP system.

Bill Wohl:
Can you  give give an example of sort of a best practices approach? I know sometimes company names are a challenge. So, you know, we don't have to go there, but if you think about a customer who had a unique business challenge and did it the right way, talk about how that happened.

Tony Fonk:
Yeah, I'll I'll give you a great one. It's a major automobile manufacturer. They have multiple different suppliers within about 100-mile range of their facility. So they engaged with us in a program to to stop damage that was incoming from their suppliers. In this particular case, they owned the the the automotive manufacturer owned the rack that they would send out to their suppliers and then receive those racks in with everything from instrent control panels to windshields to bumpers, which believe it or not, that's one of the most expensive parts of the car with all the sensors and cameras in it now and also most sensitive. And so what we did is we put a program in place is where we have fixed our our sensors and monitors. In this case, it was a cellular solution onto their racks. Those racks would then send out to their suppliers and they'd come back and if there was a specific GeForce and we pick up specific GeForce, there's specific GeForce over the threshold for that particular product category, say bumpers, they would actually instruct that supplier in real time to turn that truck around and send a new one because the cost of disruption into their manufacturing line, shutting down that line could cost them millions of dollars.

Bill Wohl:
Without even looking at the product. They just made the assumption, we don't want to deal with it.

Tony Fonk:
Yeah. So, we help them diagnose what the problem was or what the threshold was that caused the damage, and then yes, that's exactly right. So, without being seen part of the specification of showing up, you know, you do it with scratches, why can't you do it with a with a GeForce? And so that's an example there. What they did with that information, they kept seeing actually among different product categories damage happening in the same spot over and over again. They went and investigated the spot. It's amazing. Comes to find out that in route to a major route to the  to the manufacturing facility itself, there was a rail crossing, that rail crossing had been beat up over the years. And actually this particular company  chose to to pay for the repair of that rail crossing  and  and saw the damage reduced significantly.

Bill Wohl:
So I want to ask one last question because I think that example sort of points to it. You could make the argument successfully. I think that the the auto company there were the ones trying to avoid the problems. But do you see those big manufacturers turning to the suppliers and say, "We want you to monitor the load and report to us and we want you to take the responsibility and the cost and the time to prove to us you're delivering good." How often do you see that switch in emphasis?

Tony Funk:
We see both. I'll say that. I would say it's interesting as you think about the companies that are premier companies that are best-in-class in their industries. It's manufacturer driven, meaning they're the ones who are saying we want to do this. There are a lot of retail examples I would say large retailer examples where they have tremendous amount of power. It's really if you think about it's five forces in terms of who pays and that's really what we're talking about right who's going to pay. Who's going to pay for the implementation of the program and the answer is well it's whoever is not going to pay is whoever has the most power. That makes sense.

Bill Wohl:
It does make sense. And John, as we sort of wrap up today's episode. I sort of bring it back to you. The classic conundrum, I think, for companies is look, I want my supply chain to be better. I want all of this transparency. How the heck do I get started? So, what hearing what Tony had to say here today, what are good first steps for people to think about how to engage ecosystem players like SpotSee and start a roadmap to better supply chain transparency? 


John DiPalo:
Yeah, and I think it goes back to, you know, some of the earlier discussions we've had, Bill. You know, when you when you look and identify an issue, you know, like damage as an example for a product either inbound or outbound, you know, I think the first thing that companies should do is take a look at technologies that can help them solve that problem, but then quickly follow that on with how do I take that new technology and not make it a silo or just a vertical one thing. How do I then integrate that solution into a broader solution, so that I can leverage that data along with the business data that we've talked about before in order to not only be able to see a problem but make it actionable and see what impact it's going to have on your business. So that's kind of how I like to look at it. Again, you don't need to boil the ocean. You know, you can start with one process or one area where you see issues and move forward with that. I think the philosophy of how you do it is more important. than the scope that you do it with.

Bill Wohl:
Interesting through the years that the formula has always stayed the same, which is find some small victories to show the importance of these efforts and then build out a plan from there. Tony, great to have you on the program and to get some exposure to what SpotSee is doing. Much more that we can talk to. And John, as always, thanks very much for joining. That's got to wrap up today's podcast to meet our commitment to be concise and tight. My thanks to SpotSee CEO Tony Fonk for being with us and to ACSIS's John DiPalo for always being a part of these podcasts and of course to ACSIS for sponsoring this series so we can have these conversations about improving supply chain. We welcome your comments and questions about the discussions on these podcasts. You can engage with us and with Tony and John by joining in the discussion on the official ACSIS Twitter and LinkedIn accounts. Please join that 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.