On this episode, I put on my other hat which is Professor Lawton, and was joined by previous guest Jeff Lem. Being at MODEX 2022, I could not teach my class in person so we did it virtually and I had a guest speaker come on. That guest speaker was the president of Portable Intelligence and author, Jeff Lem.

Key Takeaways

• Jeff highlights the amount of technology we are seeing coming into the warehousing space which was even more evident at MODEX 2022. Even with all of the technology, Jeff is sure to mention that you must rely on your data and that the data must be accurate and consistent in order to continue to make smart business decisions. This is very much a topic that I have discussed with my students as we have covered the importance of accurate data within the supply chain.
• He also highlights the growth of business intelligence and how it is being grown utilizing AI. This was very interesting as my students are very interested to hear about how AI is growing and being utilized in the supply chain. The biggest growth point for AI in the supply chain according to Jeff is the predictive analytics side. This is allowing operations to understand what is going to happen and how to plan for it in their operation. Additionally, emphasizes that having solid data for AI to work properly is a key to implementing it.
• One of the other things that Jeff highlights is how the pandemic has caused companies to rethink how they distribute products in their supply chain. He discusses how things have changed for the customer experience and how companies have adopted different ways to allow for contact-less experiences. Through this companies have been able to start not only distributing and fulfilling orders from warehouses but also through their stores. This expands the available inventory and allows it to get to customers with more efficiency.

Listen to the episode below and leave your thoughts in the comments.