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. Today, marks the next in a series of discussions exploring a variety of business-related topics with a focus on the intersection of technology and business. Our discussions are designed to be brief and focused and we're hoping this podcast format inspires our audience to think about how technology impacts their own organizations and to engage with us as our series continues and I'll have 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. In our first segment, we explored some of the macro trends facing companies today, including the impact of the pandemic and how that has been driving a renewed focus on global supply chains. In our second episode, we examine some of the supply chain focus areas, and today, we dig a bit deeper with our guest, David Perrine. David is Director of Sales and Partnerships at ACSIS, a leading technology player in the supply chain space. David, welcome to the podcast.

David Perrine:
Good morning, Bill. Glad to be here.

Bill Wohl:
Great to have you. So, in our last podcast, we sort of talked about big business issues that are being faced today. And it's interesting to see the focus back on supply chain. From where you sit, why do you think that focus is back on supply chain?

David Perrine:
I think probably as covered off in our previous podcast, COVID revealed some glaring holes in what we all thought was a very solid supply chain whether it's coming products from Asia or Europe to the US or vice versa. So now we have a situation where whether you're in the chemical industry, the life sciences, the food and beverage, general manufacturing, there the there's a commonality of issues experienced which is once products are produced and they leave the distribution docks or the manufacturing centers of these various enterprises and industries, they lose visibility. We experienced that as consumers. We experienced this firsthand during the COVID when commodities were no longer available, and no one would have thought that paper products or 2x4s would become scarce in the supply chain. And we realized the fragility of the supply chain, and corporate America the corporate world globally realized that the supply chain really is the next area of focus. We're very comfortable with digital transformation and manufacturing and digital transformation in other areas of  industry. But what was overlooked was the very paper-based or manual processes in the supply chain that we all rely upon. We rely upon it for our food products. We rely upon it for chemicals, for business-to-business and so on. So we all experience this at the same time. And so the issue that we see with the various customers is they know they have a problem. They're experiencing it firsthand. They're experiencing with customer satisfaction levels. They're experiencing with as they attempt to order their products to their raw materials.

Bill Wohl:
And what we end up with is a situation where they say, "We know we have a problem. Where do we part?” So, as we as we go further in this podcast series, we want to dig a little bit deeper. So, without revealing company names because we're talking about business problems, give me an example of one of these challenges that a company that you're working with is facing.

David Perrine:
Sure. Let's say it's a a a perishable food manufacturer. They push their product out in in returnable packaging. It's the you see it in the back of grocery stores and convenience stores. As trucks pull in typically early in the morning and they offload their baked products whether it's bread or it's it's rolls or whatever the donuts whatever the case may be they unknown to many folks in as consumers those those trays are essential those plastic returnable packaging is essential for the supply chain.  it's a it's known in this industry it's it's a little bit of a secret you know a known secret that 20% of those packaged trays and materials are lost on an annual basis. As a result of that, the expense of the of replacing them is borne by the bakery, the manufacturer. But where we see it from is a disruption in the supply chain. They can't ship their products. So as we begin to examine this overall supply chain issue, whether now we're talking about a bakery or a perishable food manufactur, They experience this in through the ways that they can't ship their product because they don't have the returnable assets to put the product in to ship it to the stores. And so what is the common thread is whether it's shipping a chemical product out or a perishable food or or or a television is where is my product in the supply chain? Where is the product that I ship from my manufacturing site or my distribution environment to you? Either as a consumer or another business for an intermediate distribution center.

Bill Wohl:
Now, in this particular example, while the manufacturer is a bread producer, the item that we're talking about that's missing is actually the shipping container. So, the impact on the business is they don't have enough of these containers then to actually deliver the product that they're selling.

David Perrine:
That's exactly right.

Bill Wohl:
For a chemical company, you're talking about things like tractor-trailers or rail cars, right? 



David Perrine:
Well, tractor-trailers or rail cars, but how about 55-gallon drums that are returned? How about specialty purpose-built plastic containers, sometimes called IBC's, intermediate bulk containers. Those are purpose-built and optimized for the chemical and the distribution of that chemical. And often they would fit on the size of a pallet. Without having access to those returnable assets, they cannot ship their product.

Bill Wohl:
So, let's talk about the business pain that is a result of it. And you certainly talked about the fact that there could be shipping delays, but we're talking about things like dissatisfied customers, but there's a balance sheet impact, right? A reputational impact. What are some of the pains you're hearing about from customers?

David Perrine:
If you're taking as an example that a returnable asset can be anywhere from four or five dollars and be numbered in the millions for a large enterprise or, conversely, you have maybe a hundred returnable assets, but are much more substantive and they might be in the hundreds of dollars each. And so when you start to do the balance sheet as you say, on this 10 million returnable trays at $5 each is a $50 million investment. If you're losing 25% of them per year, then you have a cost on your balance sheet on your P&L of about 12.5 million a year to replace them. And so, we see that the disruption in that particular supply chain for the use of returnable assets has to do largely with the inability of the enterprise to know where this product is, the diversion of those products, and in some cases are simply lost or misplaced. But in any case, in order to avoid that customer satisfaction issue, in order to try to mitigate the cost on the balance sheet, is why they are now looking these enterprises are now looking as to being able to solve this unique problem.

Bill Wohl:
So you talk about that as a gap in the data, and you're talking about data that's happening
way out at the edge. It's at the final mile.

David Perrine:
That's right.

Bill Wohl:
Once it's left the factory that you're really talking about that sort of internet of things topic, right? You're talking about data out at the edge. How big a problem is that? Are all companies facing that challenge?

David Perrine:
Our experience today suggests that all major industries have this problem, yes. 

Bill Wohl:
The size of the gap may vary, but they all have some visibility gap.
David Perrine:
Right, and they don't know how to start to to change that whether even if they're shipping their product straight out of the back of their distribution center on a pallet and they don't expect to see the pallet back, how do they put into place the techn ology the the pieces and parts that make up a digital supply chain transformation. How do you do that? Well, you do that with a sort of a multi-faceted approach. There is the IoT technology, there is the software technology. There is the knowledge of how to do this, and there is the ability to recognize that in a budget and capital expense to actually fulfill it. As we began this conversation as the awareness of this problem and how large it was when our supply chain was disrupted. Now the focus has turned to how do I solve it and to your point, this does occur out at the edge, and it does require the kind of marrying together a variety of technologies to solve this. So when we engage with a customer when when our competitors engage with a customer to solve this problem. We have to bring forward the best of breed technology from multiple suppliers of IoT and sensors and computing technology.  We bring this into a cloud environment if you will in order to facilitate the adoption of this ease of adoption. So there are many moving parts to to turn the supply chain that have to come together to do this last this last Last major digital transformation which is the digital transformation of the supply chain from largely manual paperbased processes into something that allows the enterprise to react quickly and efficiently to disruptions and events and have the system tell them versus relying upon almost the point of relying on a telephone call from someone saying I didn't get the materials that were promised.

Bill Wohl:
So I got it as we wrap up today's short podcast. It sort of leaves me with a question: how does the customer wind up not being the integrator of all these technologies? Is that the role that ACSIS plays is is is bringing all these piece parts and third-party solutions together for the customer? 

David Perrine:
It absolutely is. While our primary focus is to bring the best software that we can, the best solution that can be configured and personalized, we recognize that our our customers need our help in pulling together all the these various componentries that make up a digital supply chain transformation, the IoT sensors, the barcode readers, the RFID readers, the the drones in some cases these days, and bring that that that technology to this packaged in something that it can be deployed efficiently by our customer base. And we supply them with the intelligence and the knowledge to do this. And not make false steps moving forward.

Bill Wohl:
Well, we have lots to talk about in the coming podcast, really exploring how these technologies out at the edge can close that data gap. Dave, thanks very much for joining us today.

David Perrine:
Thank you, Bill.


Bill Wohl:
That wraps up today's podcast. My thanks to ACSIS's David Perrine for joining and to ACSIS for making this 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 join that discussion. I'm 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.