EP 222: Supply Jane

Kevin Lawton

In this episode, I was joined by author Megan Preston Meyer. She has created the Supply Jane series of books for children which focus on teaching supply chain concepts to elementary level kids. We discuss her background in analytics, why educating children on the supply chain is important and how the idea for the books came about.

Key Takeaways

• Megan’s background is in analytics and insights which have ranged from all different aspects of the business. As we all are well aware analytics and insights are a huge part of the supply chain. While Megan was going through her career in the analytics world she realized that she was always finding herself telling a story with the data. She makes incredible points about the difference between showing someone a spreadsheet and actually giving them a story that the data tells which is much more digestible. As she realized that she had a knack for storytelling she started to think about writing. She landed on the supply chain because she realized it was something that was never really advertised or promoted in schools so she thought it would be a good thing to write about.
• The idea for her books focused on the character Supply Jane actually comes from a hike with her husband where they were coming up with supply chain puns. As you can see, Supply Jane is very close to the supply chain which is the perfect character to fit into her books. Originally she had not set out to write for children but when she realized that kids were not being exposed to the supply chain early in their lives or at least they were not realizing that it was all around them she knew that was the path to go on. Currently, she has two books with one discussing the concept of FIFO and the other discussing bottlenecks in manufacturing operations.
• I wanted to highlight Megan’s book because I think it is an incredibly important thing to be bringing more exposure to the supply chain world earlier on in individuals’ lives. Even as I currently teach a supply chain course at a university level, many students are not very familiar with the concept of the supply chain. With the importance of the supply chain in our everyday lives and to keep the global economy running it is important that we continue to develop the talent pool for our industry. Supply Jane is a great way to start kids off right and give them exposure early on. I highly recommend getting it for the kids in your life.

Buy the book here.