05: The Future of The Supply Chain in Manufacturing - with Sarah Barnes-Humphrey

Get to Know Sarah: Sarah is a logistics and supply chain expert. She is passionate about collaboration, transparency, diversity, and doing better business. She’s the host of the popular podcast Let’s Talk Supply Chain! Kris: Is the supply chain going to get better? Do you have a message for the supply chain professionals that might be listening today?Sarah: Yeah, and it's so important, right? What you said about the fact that we have not had any relief or you know, supply chain professionals supply chains in general haven't had the relief that we need. It's sort of been one disruption after another. And you know, I have multiple friends in the industry who are supply chain professionals. And throughout the pandemic, actually, I checked on a lot of Supply Chain Leaders, because what was happening was that they were checking on their people. But the people above them weren't necessarily checking up on them. And I think we're going to talk about this a little bit later on in the interview. But people are at the heart of the supply chain, people are at the heart of this industry. And we've got to really, and I started throughout the pandemic, a buddy check that I was doing every Friday to just encourage people to tag people in the industry to say, Hey, how are you doing? Hey, I'm thinking about you, hey, I'm just checking in. And it was really important. And it's still important to this day for us to be able to check in on each other and provide each other with a safe space to vent because they might not be able to vent within their current environment. And there are a lot of challenges, you know, and some people thrive on it. Right? That's why we're in the supply chain. We're natural problem solvers. And this gets us going and gets us excited. But then there's also the mental challenges around having to do that day after day and shifting and pivoting and And so really, really important to check up on each other, check in on ourselves, give them give ourselves some grace, give others grace for what we're going through, and you know, hopefully, we're gonna see some relief because supply chains, not just the people, but supply chains need a chance to be able to have some relief from all of this disruption.Erin: Can you tell us something about those relationships, and draw a picture for those of us not in the supply chain world?Sarah: Yeah, I mean, if you think about supply chain, right, it starts out with sourcing, right? So there's sourcing, there's purchasing or procurement, then there's manufacturing, then you're moving the goods, either by air, by truck, by ocean, then they go into a warehouse for distribution. And then they are out for delivery, either to a retail location or to a consumer's door. So if you think about the supply chain, as it is, and how many people are along the way of that chain, and how many people are involved, just to get one package to your door. relationships do matter. I was recently at TPM. And there the mantra of the conference was relationships matter. And it was bringing people back together, right, bringing people back together, bringing people back in person to really kick start those relationships. Again, we've kept some relationships going through zoom and different things like that. But the relationships really matter to a successful supply chain. And when you think about, you know, some of the other things that we're thinking about in the supply chain as well, which is diversity and inclusion and sustainability, relationships matter for those to be executed. And for us to all come together and collaborate, which I always say collaboration is the future of business. And for those audio only, I have a sign behind me. And that's what I'm pointing to. And so that collaboration, that relationship is really important for...