Monthly Archives: March 2013

WOW! Finally a Decent Piece on Higher Education!

A recent press release over on Brookings.edu that summarizes a recent paper by Robert D. Atkinson and Stephen Ezell, who are calling on Congress to Support the Designation of 20 ‘U.S. Manufacturing Universities, is a breath of fresh air where the debate on (higher) education is concerned.

Despite what some academics might think, including Mr. McAfee who published this unbelievable post on the HBR blog site calling for us to stop requiring college degrees when every single job that doesn’t involve serving food is going more high tech every day, we need more college education, not less. The problems we have are a) it costs too damn much (which should not be the case because an educated society is a productive and innovative society, and if anything is going to be subsidized, it should be education) and b) we are giving too many people the wrong education. As those who follow me on Twitter will know (as I try to avoid the crushing weight of the fail whale), I do not lament the fact that Liberal Arts Colleges are Disappearing. How many english literature and classics PhDs do we need anyway? (The answer is not that many.) As long as we save the historians, so we don’t repeat the mistakes of the (recent) past, it wouldn’t hurt to have the number of literature and the philosawfical majors approaching extinction levels compared to the counts for science and engineering majors. (I’m not saying we shouldn’t study these disciplines, as we all should study them to a degree, but graduating tens of thousands of students when there are only so many teaching jobs opening every year is just a waste of money and potential all around.)

We need people focussed on science and technology and other pursuits that benefit the economy and them, especially where jobs are concerned. And to this point, after a decent grounding in the basic theory has been conveyed, we need programs with a strange focus on the practical. Even in Engineering, we only need so many designers — after that, we need manufacturers and maintainers. We need people with a grounding in the practical. Now, I know the academic among you will argue that university is about improving the mind and increasing the mental potential of the individual, the real world be damned, but lets face the fact that, right now, for the most part, we have no trade schools, we have no apprenticeships, and we have, in many industries, no other way of identifying someone who is likely to be intelligent and educated enough to do a job. The College / University degree is the passport to a job in today’s world, and its about time we had programs that were appropriate.

So the suggestion by Atkinson and Ezell that Congress should establish an initiative to designate 20 institutions of higher education as “U.S. Manufacturing Universities” as part of a needed push to strengthen the position of the United States in the increasingly innovation-driven global economy is one of the best, and most logical, suggestions I’ve seen in a long time. And since we are not going to return to the way of apprenticeship (which is the answer), let’s finally create the outputs that industry wants from Colleges and Universities. This doesn’t mean that all programs have to be practical, just that there should be practical options where they are needed and required by today’s society. It just makes sense. (So, as you all know, you can bet that Congress won’t do it. Especially since this would mean raising taxes to beyond the point necessary to prevent the budget reductions that are coming into effect that could cost America up to 1 Million jobs because the Republicans refuse to allow the rich to pay their fare share of taxes. But still, it’s nice to know that somewhere there are still some level, practical heads.)

Ping Me Now

I’m just an instant message online
You can pop up a window any time
And ima listen to all you got to say
Cause I’m the type of man that never turn a demo away
Think of this as an invitation
Your brain to mine in a conversation
So when things get to much to bear like the twitter sphere
I’ll be there
Just message me on the internet
Hit me up when you’ve got no air
And I’ll give you an online review
Until your brand rings true
Or if you want to you know what you could do, why
You could always get on the train, take a chance and sponsor SI

Ping me now, ping me now
(Ping me now, ping me now)
Ping me now, ping me now
(Ping me now)
Pi-i-ing!!!

I hate to see you flounder while the media
Acts like your product is a game
I know their types and they’re all the same
Playing fast and loose without a care
Co, if I was in you shoes they’d be outta there
PR is whack, good for nothin’ but flack
I’d tell them to pack and hit the road jack
Who loves ya baby? I do not know
But they don’t care about you, let them go
Where they at now? you don’t know
Layin’ on the beach just out of reach
Just let me write, you know I will get it right
Cause yo I’m the best and the stats will vow
That I’ll be here, so ping me now

Ping me now, ping me now
(Ping me now, ping me now)
Ping me now, ping me now
(Ping me now)
Pi-i-ing!!!

Now I know this sounds like a fairy tale
But know this ain’t no children’s book
I’m here for you, so take a look
Open your eyes and see what SI entails
And if you blink then you might miss
Something great, don’t make a mistake
Pay attention to what we’re doing
Marketing’s full of pitfalls, ups and downs
Its own type of mission
You’re on a rocky road
You could turn off, just make that decision
You want the blog that will review you fair
If you’re ready to not be disavowed
Then you can ping me now


This one is to the Fresh Prince’s classic, Ring My Bell

What are the keys to a successful supply chain?

In a recent article over on Inbound Logistics on three keys to a successful supply chain trading partner network, Christopher Mazza, SVP of Business Development at IAS (International Asset Systems) claims that the three keys to a successful supply chain trading partner network are connectivity, visibility, and optimization. And those are definitely the fundamental requirements of a trading partner network.

But since a supply chain goes beyond a trading partner network, it leads one to ask what are the keys to a successful supply chain. This is a bit harder to answer in general because the depth and breadth of supply chain required is different for every vertical, and every company, and it can be argued that the most critical success factors are different across verticals and companies, but there are some common fundamentals. In this post we will attempt to identify some of them.

  • Analysis
    The first step is figuring out what is needed, when it is needed, and how much it should cost.
  • e-Document Management
    Then you need to find suppliers, send specs, get designs, get quotes, send responses, make awards, cut contracts, send orders, get invoices, process payments, etc. — all e-Documents.
  • Collaboration
    You need software that allows you to interact online with your suppliers and partner and customers virtually and in real-time. (Connectivity in this day and age is a given — but it’s not enough unless there are collaborative elements to the connectivity).
  • Optimization
    Bid analysis, awards, logistics management, inventory management, real-time order management, etc. all require optimization to keep costs down and value up.
  • Visibility
    Knowing what is, and is not, where all the way back to suppliers of critical raw materials and sub-components, is key to avoiding devastating disruptions in today’s supply chain. If a raw material doesn’t reach a component supplier on time, then the component is not going to reach the tier 1 supplier on time, and your product is not going to reach you on time.
  • Risk Monitoring
    Hand in hand with visibility is near real-time risk monitoring. This involves monitoring significant global events (so that you know an earthquake has damaged a tier 2 supplier’s plant when it happens, not 60 days later when the product doesn’t ship), monitoring supplier’s financials and/or brand (as irresponsible corporate practices such as the use of child labour could be more damaging then to your organization than if they went bankrupt), and monitoring shipments and inventory for risk of loss or theft for starters.
  • Innovation
    The supply chain needs to be progressive, constantly on the look-out for new processes and technologies that can improve it, and forward moving when opportunities arise.

Furthermore, these requirements hold true across the board. And if you have trouble remembering them, think of the fact that when you bring these needs up, you are A VOICER of truth.

If You Really Want to Reduce Costs, Reduce Waste!

SI recently asked if you, like your peers, were chasing the lost cause of cost reduction, giving the recent findings by Supply Chain Insights that, from 2000 to 2011, 75% of companies in process industries lost ground on margins despite best efforts to reduce costs over the last decade or so. That being said, there is one cost that can be reduced — and that’s the cost associated with waste.

As per a recent article in Forbes on How GM Makes $1 Billion A Year by Recycling Waste (which should be titled how GM reduces costs by $1 Billion a year) that referenced a GM media publication on how GM Makes the Business Case for Zero Waste, the US generates 7.6 Billion tons of industrial waste a year that ends up in landfills. Given that the average tipping fee for a ton of waste exceeds $53/ton, industrial manufacturers are wasting over 402 Billion a year!

And that’s the losses assuming that the best that could be done with the waste is diverting it from the landfill. If the waste is scrap steel, which can be melted down, or cardboard that can be recycled, or smaller batches of chemicals that can be resold, the cost reductions can be extremely significant. Furthermore, 98% of these cost reductions go straight to the bottom line. As per the GM press release, the waste manage costs associated with its mature waste management program are about eighty cents per ton of solid waste reduced! In other words, in the long run, it costs pennies to save tens of dollars (and at the rates tipping fees are increasing and metal costs are rising, it will soon cost GM pennies to save hundreds of dollars). And once GM converts the other half of its manufacturing facilities to landfill-free facilities, it’s savings will double!

So if you really want to reduce costs, stop burying your money in landfills.