T. Boone Pickens to keynote Annual Global Conference
Is your supply chain being held captive by the price of oil? Can natural gas help? The iconic energy executive T. Boone Pickens thinks so.
Pickens and Clean Energy CEO Andrew Littlefair will kick off CSCMP's Annual Global Conference (September 30 to October 3 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA) by looking at the current state of global energy supply, America's oil crisis, and how domestic natural gas could replace diesel and gasoline, bringing competitiveness and prosperity for the trucking industry.
The conference's closing presentation will feature motivational speaker Erik Wahl's creative and entertaining presentation, "The Art of Vision." Wahl will show how breakthrough thinking leads to extraordinary results and will identify ways to utilize unconventional wisdom to build a strategic vision for the future.
In addition to the opening and closing keynotes, the conference will include educational sessions, roundtable discussions, exhibits, networking opportunities, and distribution facility tours. For example, the 24 educational session tracks will cover a wide range of topics, such as managing innovation in technology, supply chain ideas that changed the world, talent and leadership, and how to manage capital-intensive supply chains, to name just a few.
Other special events include the 2012 Educators Conference, the Supply Chain of the Future exhibition, and full-day, pre-conference workshops. The four workshops will include: Building and Maintaining Business Relationships; Leveraging Supply Chain Management for Enterprise Development; Supply Chain Risk Mitigation; and The "New" Fundamentals of Supply Chain Management: What Matters Now.
A new offering this year is the "Women at Work Panel: Power Up Your Supply Chain Management Career," a fresh and honest perspective on the challenges facing women in today's corporate supply chain environment and how to overcome them. Speakers will discuss how women's roles, relationships, and responsibilities have changed in the field, and the skills women need to transition into leadership positions.
For the first time, CSCMP is offering discounted registration rates to active, retired, and civilian U.S. military personnel. Additionally, 10 percent of the proceeds from military registrations will go to the "Wounded Warrior Project," a program that provides services for and raises awareness of the needs of injured service members.
For more information about CSCMP's Annual Global Conference, click here.
Three new research projects investigate current hot topics
Since its inception, the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals has helped to guide and fund cutting-edge research to advance supply chain management practices. Currently CSCMP has three major research projects under way, with results to be published later this year. They include:
Offshoring Trends and Directions. This research initiative studies trends in offshoring and identifies the criteria currently being used to make offshoring decisions.
Supply Chain Management Talent Development. This research is exploring best practices in supply chain management talent development and retention.
Organizing Supply Chains in a Time of Change. Supply chain management organizations can be organized in a variety of ways, with different reporting arrangements, functional scope, and coordination structures. This research will ascertain whether certain business conditions make some supply chain organizations more effective than others.The three research teams will each provide a preview of their results at the Annual Global Conference in Atlanta.
To make members aware of these and other research efforts, CSCMP has launched a new publication, CSCMP Hot Topics. In two to four pages, Hot Topics highlights new research and insights or revisits older research topics that have reemerged as critical issues. The first issue of CSCMP Hot Topics covers the organization's offshoring research. To learn more about this publication, go to cscmp.org, and under the Member Only menu, select Hot Topics.
CSCMP On-Site Education comes to you!
Professional education of supply chain management talent has become a critical need for companies that want to maximize employee performance. Yet it's hard for employees at all levels to take extended time away from their daily responsibilities. For companies facing this challenge, CSCMP On-Site Education is a cost-efficient and timely solution.
Thanks to its global membership and relationships with educators and leading practitioners worldwide, CSCMP can provide educational workshops and seminars at any company location or facility anywhere in the world. This can significantly reduce or eliminate travel time and costs, create an efficient in-house educational experience, and enhance team building while staff learns together.
Curricula can be created for any type of organization, function, location, market, or industry. Organizations can choose an established CSCMP on-site workshop or develop a program that meets the business needs of an individual enterprise. Established on-site workshops cover change management, fundamentals of supply chain management, global supply chain management, SCM collaboration, relationship management, and strategic issues. Education levels range from introductory to intermediate and advanced.
On-Site Education programs qualify for one SCPro continuing education unit (CEU) per one hour of instruction. (Learn more about CSCMP's SCPro Certification at cscmpcertification.org.)
To discuss how CSCMP can deliver targeted education to your organization, contact Director of Education & Research Kathleen Hedland at khedland@cscmp.org, or call +1 630.645.3463.
CSCMP Explores... looks at humanitarian logistics
The United Nations believes that the global demand for humanitarian assistance will continue to rise. The reasons: escalating conflicts and a dramatic increase in vulnerabilities caused by financial crises, increasing food scarcity and prices, insufficiency of energy and water, and the increased severity of disasters.
Supply chain management plays a critical role in helping governments and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) address those problems. Accordingly, Humanitarian Relief: Broken Supply Chains and Role of the Private Sector, the latest publication in the CSCMP Explores... series of booklets, investigates how logistics and supply chain professionals can play a role in filling important gaps in the humanitarian supply chain.
Topics in the CSCMP Explores... series focus on practical, real-world information that can inform day-to-day decisions and help prepare readers to handle the uncertainties of today's economy. Issues alternate between in-depth coverage of supply chain topics and case studies that showcase best practices and lessons learned from implementations.
Business software vendor Cleo has acquired DataTrans Solutions, a cloud-based procurement automation and EDI solutions provider, saying the move enhances Cleo’s supply chain orchestration with new procurement automation capabilities.
According to Chicago-based Cleo, the acquisition comes as companies increasingly look to digitalize their procurement processes, instead of relying on inefficient and expensive manual approaches.
By buying Texas-based DataTrans, Cleo said it will gain an expanded ability to help businesses streamline procurement, optimize working capital, and strengthen supplier relationships. Specifically, by integrating DTS’s procurement automation capabilities, Cleo will be able to provide businesses with solutions including: a supplier EDI & testing portal; web EDI & PDF digitization; and supplier scorecarding & performance tracking.
“Cleo’s vision is to deliver true supply chain orchestration by bridging the gap between planning and execution,” Cleo President and CEO Mahesh Rajasekharan said in a release. “With DTS’s technology embedded into CIC, we’re empowering procurement teams to reduce costs, improve efficiency, and minimize supply chain risks—all through automation.”
And many of them will have a budget to do it, since 51% of supply chain professionals with existing innovation budgets saw an increase earmarked for 2025, suggesting an even greater emphasis on investing in new technologies to meet rising demand, Kenco said in its “2025 Supply Chain Innovation” survey.
One of the biggest targets for innovation spending will artificial intelligence, as supply chain leaders look to use AI to automate time-consuming tasks. The survey showed that 41% are making AI a key part of their innovation strategy, with a third already leveraging it for data visibility, 29% for quality control, and 26% for labor optimization.
Still, lingering concerns around how to effectively and securely implement AI are leading some companies to sidestep the technology altogether. More than a third – 35% – said they’re largely prevented from using AI because of company policy, leaving an opportunity to streamline operations on the table.
“Avoiding AI entirely is no longer an option. Implementing it strategically can give supply chain-focused companies a serious competitive advantage,” Kristi Montgomery, Vice President, Innovation, Research & Development at Kenco, said in a release. “Now’s the time for organizations to explore and experiment with the tech, especially for automating data-heavy operations such as demand planning, shipping, and receiving to optimize your operations and unlock true efficiency.”
Among the survey’s other top findings:
there was essentially three-way tie for which physical automation tools professionals are looking to adopt in the coming year: robotics (43%), sensors and automatic identification (40%), and 3D printing (40%).
professionals tend to select a proven developer for providing supply chain innovation, but many also pick start-ups. Forty-five percent said they work with a mix of new and established developers, compared to 39% who work with established technologies only.
there’s room to grow in partnering with 3PLs for innovation: only 13% said their 3PL identified a need for innovation, and just 8% partnered with a 3PL to bring a technology to life.
Even as a last-minute deal today appeared to delay the tariff on Mexico, that deal is set to last only one month, and tariffs on the other two countries are still set to go into effect at midnight tonight.
Once new U.S. tariffs go into effect, those other countries are widely expected to respond with retaliatory tariffs of their own on U.S. exports, that would reduce demand for U.S. and manufacturing goods. In the context of that unpredictable business landscape, many U.S. business groups have been pressuring the White House to pull back from the new policy.
Here is a sampling of the reaction to the tariff plan by the U.S. business community:
American Association of Port Authorities (AAPA)
“Tariffs are taxes,” AAPA President and CEO Cary Davis said in a release. “Though the port industry supports President Trump’s efforts to combat the flow of illicit drugs, tariffs will slow down our supply chains, tax American businesses, and increase costs for hard-working citizens. Instead, we call on the Administration and Congress to thoughtfully pursue alternatives to achieving these policy goals and exempt items critical to national security from tariffs, including port equipment.”
Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA)
“We understand the president is working toward an agreement. The leaders of all four nations should come together and work to reach a deal before Feb. 4 because enacting broad-based tariffs will be disruptive to the U.S. economy,” Michael Hanson, RILA’s Senior Executive Vice President of Public Affairs, said in a release. “The American people are counting on President Trump to grow the U.S. economy and lower inflation, and broad-based tariffs will put that at risk.”
National Association of Manufacturers (NAM)
“Manufacturers understand the need to deal with any sort of crisis that involves illicit drugs crossing our border, and we hope the three countries can come together quickly to confront this challenge,” NAM President and CEO Jay Timmons said in a release. “However, with essential tax reforms left on the cutting room floor by the last Congress and the Biden administration, manufacturers are already facing mounting cost pressures. A 25% tariff on Canada and Mexico threatens to upend the very supply chains that have made U.S. manufacturing more competitive globally. The ripple effects will be severe, particularly for small and medium-sized manufacturers that lack the flexibility and capital to rapidly find alternative suppliers or absorb skyrocketing energy costs. These businesses—employing millions of American workers—will face significant disruptions. Ultimately, manufacturers will bear the brunt of these tariffs, undermining our ability to sell our products at a competitive price and putting American jobs at risk.”
American Apparel & Footwear Association (AAFA)
“Widespread tariff actions on Mexico, Canada, and China announced this evening will inject massive costs into our inflation-weary economy while exposing us to a damaging tit-for-tat tariff war that will harm key export markets that U.S. farmers and manufacturers need,” Steve Lamar, AAFA’s president and CEO, said in a release. “We should be forging deeper collaboration with our free trade agreement partners, not taking actions that call into question the very foundation of that partnership."
Healthcare Distribution Alliance (HDA)
“We are concerned that placing tariffs on generic drug products produced outside the U.S. will put additional pressure on an industry that is already experiencing financial distress. Distributors and generic manufacturers and cannot absorb the rising costs of broad tariffs. It is worth noting that distributors operate on low profit margins — 0.3 percent. As a result, the U.S. will likely see new and worsened shortages of important medications and the costs will be passed down to payers and patients, including those in the Medicare and Medicaid programs,” the group said in a statement.
National Retail Federation (NRF)
“We support the Trump administration’s goal of strengthening trade relationships and creating fair and favorable terms for America,” NRF Executive Vice President of Government Relations David French said in a release. “But imposing steep tariffs on three of our closest trading partners is a serious step. We strongly encourage all parties to continue negotiating to find solutions that will strengthen trade relationships and avoid shifting the costs of shared policy failures onto the backs of American families, workers and small businesses.”
In a statement, DCA airport officials said they would open the facility again today for flights after planes were grounded for more than 12 hours. “Reagan National airport will resume flight operations at 11:00am. All airport roads and terminals are open. Some flights have been delayed or cancelled, so passengers are encouraged to check with their airline for specific flight information,” the facility said in a social media post.
An investigation into the cause of the crash is now underway, being led by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and assisted by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Neither agency had released additional information yet today.
First responders say nearly 70 people may have died in the crash, including all 60 passengers and four crew on the American Airlines flight and three soldiers in the military helicopter after both aircraft appeared to explode upon impact and fall into the Potomac River.
Editor's note:This article was revised on February 3.
GE Vernova today said it plans to invest nearly $600 million in its U.S. factories and facilities over the next two years to support its energy businesses, which make equipment for generating electricity through gas power, grid, nuclear, and onshore wind.
The company was created just nine months ago as a spin-off from its parent corporation, General Electric, with a mission to meet surging global electricity demands. That move created a company with some 18,000 workers across 50 states in the U.S., with 18 U.S. manufacturing facilities and its global headquarters located in Massachusetts. GE Vernova’s technology helps produce approximately 25% of the world’s energy and is currently deployed in more than 140 countries.
The new investments – expected to create approximately 1,500 new U.S. jobs – will help drive U.S. energy affordability, national security, and competitiveness, and enable the American manufacturing footprint needed to support expanding global exports, the company said. They follow more than $167 million in funding in 2024 across a range of GE Vernova sites, helping create more than 1,120 jobs. And following a forecast that worldwide energy needs are on pace to double, GE Vernova is also planning a $9 billion cumulative global capex and R&D investment plan through 2028.
The new investments include:
almost $300 million in support of its Gas Power business and build-out of capacity to make heavy duty gas turbines, for facilities in Greenville, SC, Schenectady, NY, Parsippany, NJ, and Bangor, ME.
nearly $20 million to expand capacity at its Grid Solutions facilities in Charleroi, PA, which manufactures switchgear, and Clearwater, FL, which produces capacitors and instrument transformers.
more than $50 million to enhance safety, quality and productivity at its Wilmington, NC-based GE Hitachi nuclear business and to launch its next generation nuclear fuel design.
nearly $100 million in its manufacturing facilities at U.S. onshore wind factories in Pensacola, FL, Schenectady, NY and Grand Forks, ND, and its remanufacturing facilities in Amarillo, TX.
more than $10 million in its Pittsburgh, PA facility to expand capabilities across its Electrification segment, adding U.S. manufacturing capacity to support the U.S. grid, and demand for solar and energy storage
almost $100 million for its energy innovation research hub, the Advanced Research Center in Niskayuna, NY, to strengthen the center’s electrification and carbon efforts, enable continued recruitment of top-tier talent, and push forward innovative technologies, including $15 million for Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) work.
“These investments represent our serious commitment and responsibility as the leading energy manufacturer in the United States to help meet America’s and the world’s accelerating energy demand,” Scott Strazik, CEO of GE Vernova, said in a release. “These strategic investments and the jobs they create aim to both help our customers meet the doubling of demand and accelerate American innovation and technology development to boost the country’s energy security and global competitiveness.”