^The APQC Blog

Thanksgiving is a time for appreciation of one’s blessings and for reflection. As I reflect back on 2017, I am incredibly thankful for my faith, my family, and my friends in this challenging year. I am also thankful for my work and for my career at an organization where I will celebrate 18 years of tenure in January.

If you were on social media in 2013, you probably saw one viral video that was hard to miss: A Volvo Live Test featuring Jean-Claude Van Damme performing an “epic split” between two rolling Volvo trucks. It was the sixth and final in Volvo’s series of Live Test films, which pushed the boundaries of advertising in the social media age.

November 15 is “Clean Your Refrigerator Day.” Have you ever cleaned out your fridge and discovered some expired old food you’d forgotten about, hidden way in back behind the milk? It can be hard to throw some things away, especially when they seemed like good ideas once upon a time. But when the expiration date has come and gone, you know they’re no good anymore, and it’s time to let them go.

Talent is all around us and we don’t even know it. Well, hold on. Let me modify that statement. Talent is all around us and sometimes we don’t even know it. I’m a volleyball player, so when I compete against a tall, athletic-looking guy, I’m generally not surprised to find out that he’s a strong player. But in many arenas in life, it’s not so easy to identify talent until you see it in action.

This year marks APQC’s 40^th anniversary, so all year long we could hardly wait for the big team party we were planning for the fall. But Hurricane Harvey had something else in store for us, and so our celebration plans ended up underwater – quite literally in this case.

“The first rule of any technology used in business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency” –Bill Gates

I love Halloween, but I hate scary movies. I cringe every time I catch a glimpse of Freddy Krueger, Jason, or Chucky during a binge of late-night channel flipping through the Sci Fi Channel. The costumes-and-candy part of Halloween is fun, but I don’t consider being scared a desirable recreational activity.

Welcome to Fall and the Season of Strategic Planning! If your organization is like ours, you may be in the midst of meetings to reflect upon the past year and evaluate organizational performance, as well as planning sessions for a successful 2018.

“What’s the biggest supply chain challenge facing you right now?”

I’ve gotten some interesting answers to that question, but last week while at the APICS conference in San Antonio, I was chatting with a supply chain leader from Sysco who lives in Houston. Her response to my question gave me pause. Her answer: Truck Drivers.

As I was pulling together content recently around millennials in the workforce, I realized my daughter is the youngest of the millennial range – born in 1995. Millennials, according to APQC’s study definition, are born 1980 – 1995. Why not ask her a few questions to see if her thoughts correlate with other millennials in APQC’s recent study, Millennials in the Supply Chain Workforce.