How Real Experience Changes Supply Chain Thinking

If you think about a hub inist spoke planning is it's that central part of what supply chain does, and it actually connects all the stakeholders in an organization, right So it connects sales and finance to manufacturing. It connects procurement to what our plan is to deliver. It connects service and our customers into what we're choosing to bring to market and how we're choosing to fulfill consumer demands. Hello and welcome to Speaking of Supply Chain, where mebok experts from around the world unpack the real stories, strategies, insights and innovations shaping the future of supply chain.

I'm your host, Ellen Wood. Speaking of Supply Chain has always been about real world insights, not theories, and as the industry evolves, so should the voices we bring to the mic. Today's episode is a little bit different. It's about where we've been and more importantly, where we're going to help us take that next step.

I'm excited to introduce someone, and many of you may already know from the industry, Christine Barnhardt. Welcome Christine, Thanks el. And I appreciate it. It's great to be here.

You are known in the industry as the supply chain whisperer. But before we get into that, why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about your journey and what drew you to supply chain in the first place. Yeah, it's pretty eclectic. There's like a joke within me Vach then where my boss Nick says I'm a unicorn.

I'm like, eh, I think I'm more like the Swiss Army Knife of supply chain. But really eclectic. Journey started out in engineering. I'm an electrical engineer by education with Warpool Corporation.

So I spent twelve years with Whirlpool. Started out in maintenance, maintenance engineering, process engineering, quality, and then transitioned into product development and so was in a lot of operations around the world over the years. After you know that, Journey did a complete career shift into supply chain with a company called me Johnson Nutrition. You may have heard of Infamil, so they made Afemil.

I was a six sigma black belt and they had a capacity problem, so they wanted to hire somebody with that background. And I really found when I joined the company, I really fell in love with these really complex problems and complex systems, and I think for me, it was bringing that engineering kind of mindset into the realm of supply chain. So spent six years with me Johnson Nutrition, really loved it, did sourcing and planning and led global implementations, and had the opportunity to go to a company called Barry Plastics.

They're now a division of Amcore, but they were doing a very large global transformation and that appealed to me. So I went to Bury and part of the Center of Excellence. And what I've since learned since I joined me BACH is I was a consultant and I didn't even know it, right, like a Shair of Excellence person is like an internal advisor, internal consultant. So got to lead planning and procurement transformation and after three years they were like full stop, We're done.

You know, we need a break. But I had fallen in love with kind of that piece of change and being connected to the to the broader market and really you know, kind of looking at you know, what's the next thing, What's how do we make it better? Like this continuous improvement kind of mindset. So I did another pivot because why not at this point, and went to in for in supply chain.

So it was a strategist for a product at in four or which you know, most people, I think in the industry have heard of Infour, but they're the third largest enterprise planning software company on the planet. And I spent three years with them leading go to market and product strategy, and then shifted into a little bit different space, still in technology with a company called Nulogy and and really got embedded in the COPAC and UH contract manufacturing space, you know, so again like really kind of rounding out, you know, my experience in terms of manufacturing and supply chain and operations and whatnot.

So and then four months ago I took a risk and decided that I needed to do something a little bit different and UH was connected with the folks from Mebak and really you know, love the work that they were doing globally and kind of liked how things were structured. And it's a little different from what I've experienced with kind of you know, the big consulting houses, and I love that were really focused in supply chain. It's a good fit for me. So yeah, it's I don't know when am I am I Unicorn, am I Swiss Army Knife?

I don't know, both I mean that is a very unique journey. You've worked across operations and technology and manufacturing and advising. Does that shape the way that you look at supply chain challenges? Oh?

Absolutely, because you've. Got all those all those facets and all of those viewpoints. I have the scars ellen right when you when you've worked through, you know, kind of multiple businesses, it changes your perspective. So it's not just something you learned in a textbook.

It's not a theory, it's not even somebody else's framework. Like you, you have the wounds, and and you know you've you've tried things that didn't work, you've tried things that do work, you know. So I definitely think it shaped you. I think for me, it's part of why I think I'm pretty practical, very pragmatic, because you know, like I've worked with maintenance, and I've you know, you just you've worked at all levels of the company, and and I think it's important to kind of get all of those voices together, especially when you're solving complex problems from a manufacturing or from a supply chain perspective.

All right, and so with all of that insight, with all that perspective, you know, what kinds of challenges and conversations do you find yourself talking about with supply chain leaders right now? Yeah, I mean I tend to talk a lot about planning. I think planning is if you think about a hub and as spoke, planning is it's that central part of what supply chain does, and it actually connects all the stakeholders in an organization, right, So it connects sales and finance to manufacturing, It connects procurement to to what our plan is to deliver.

It connects you know, service and our customers into what what we're choosing to bring to market and how we're choosing to fulfill consumer demand. So, uh, for me, planning is a passion and and that is kind of an area that that I'm really really focused right now is really helping, uh, the North American market understand what Meebach does in the in the context of planning and how we're really helping shape people's journey to you know, a better planning outcome. So for me, that that's kind of my personal passion, I guess and lucky for me and aligned to where the company is headed as well.

It is very exciting to have you here. I have to say. So, one of your other roles is you lead the industry Engagement and Alliances for North America. So how does that fit in What does that look like day to day with your personal passion?

Yeah, I mean, I think what I've learned over the last decade or so is I'm a connector. And I didn't know that when I was younger, Right. I have always been kind of that person that was relationship oriented in every role that I've had, and it's part of what has made me successful both within a company and moving within an org. But you know, between companies and orgs, and I think for me, it's about figuring out, like how to connect people that maybe you wouldn't even think should be connected to have a conversation.

And so for me, the industry engagement piece has kind of grown organically, right. I connected myself to various you know, subject matter experts, thought leaders, influencers, industry organizations, and so over probably the last ten or fifteen years, as I've moved to different orgs and to different roles, I've just kind of taken those with me. And so when I came to Mibok, it made sense to really own that from the mebok perspective because I was already connected to supply chain leaders in action and association of supply chain management and whatnot.

And I had been leading analyst relations when I was at in for and at Nulogy. So again, you know, I understand the analyst community if connected to gartners supply chain insights, you know whatnot. So all of that made sense. And then I had been working a lot as I joined the technology side of supply chain with various supply chain partners and had had experienced growing joint offerings and partnerships and working with with with others.

Because at the end of the day, my personal philosophy is that I think that there's enough issues out there in the world and in supply chain that there's room for all of us, right, Like I think supply chains in general are the mechanism where you actually can lift all boats. Right. I think supply chains are what solved those complex problems in the world, and they lift groups of people out of poverty, and they you know, they make the world a better place and they make sure that we're not damaging our planet.

Right, So supply chains do all of that. I think supply chain providers technology providers, influencers, analysts, consultants. There's enough to do for us all to benefit. And I think how we help the industry and how we help our customers and clients is by working together in a really meaningful way.

So for me, partners partnerships, alliances, it just makes sense because I'm a connector and I want to hear what other people are doing. I want to see how they're solving a problem, and then how can we leverage that to our benefit, to our customers benefit. Absolutely, So does that give you any insight or visibility into what clients are struggling with before it becomes a popular problem that everyone knows about, before it becomes a trend. Yeah, I mean I think before it hits the headlines, we see it, hear it, we're already trying to solve it before I ever, you know, really is going to come across your social feed or before you're going to see it in kind of a national publication.

So I think, and we do that in multiple ways. One is just the conversations that we're happening, Like, you know, people coming to us saying, you know, I can't reduce my inventory or I have all this volatility and I'm not meeting my you know, customers requirements, right I'm out of stock, or I'm not on shelf, or it's taking way too long to get things through through my operations. So I mean, for us, I think the kinds of problems that people are servicing surfacing have they haven't changed that much, right, So supply chain still ultimately do the same things now that they did forty or fifty years ago.

I think the pace of change has really accelerated, right, So things are you know, it used to be kind of this slow kind of progression, and now everything is happening, you know, really really quickly. There's a lot of volatility. Obviously we have some global destabilization that you know, are making people rethink supply chains. Because look, I've been around long enough that I've seen this kind of come full circle.

Right when I graduated from engineering school and ninety six ninety five and into manufacturing, we were de integrating, right, So it was like, this isn't a core competency. We're going to send this out to somebody else, right, And and so that was when we started to see a lot of specialization and and a lot of concentration in low cost regions and whatnot. And now here we are, you know, thirty, I'm doing it my years later, and we're how do we reshure how do we retrain us you know, employees to be manufacturing technology employees, right and or how do we you know, near shore friendshore?

And so I think, you know, everything is in life is a cycle, and and so we're we're in an interesting spot. I think the other thing that I would say is people are finally starting to see that it's not actually like technology is. It's not a technology problem, and technology is probably not where you should start. Right.

So we've been in these multiple hype cycles for the last twenty years where we have these really amazing tools, you know, new advanced planning tools and new you know, artificial intelligence, and now we have agentic AI and and honestly, it is a game changer. Is I do work differently now? However, in the context of supply chain, if you haven't made those investments and by that I don't necessarily mean money, I mean time resources, right like, but if you haven't made investments to really build a good foundation, and that means you people understand why we do the things that we do, and they know enough to question the model and to ask is there a better way?

But also do you have the data? And I think a lot of people are swimming in data, but they lack insight, they lack decisions support And by the way, the data that they're swimming in is dirty. It requires a lot of massaging. So I think, you know, I really have been preaching recently about guys, we gotta let's make sure that the fundamentals are good.

We have good data. The data is moving through the ecosystem at the speed of business, right, So that means it can't be an Excel spreadsheet that I'm emailing from person to person. Right, so you know, like I mean, all the very least, it has to be centralized. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

So you know, I think I think it's really about, you know, making sure that we're that we're really taking a step back, that we're looking end to end, we're not looking within our individual silos. I mean, all of that is really I think where the conversations are centered. For most, for most big supply chains these days. One of the things you do is you are working closely with our mebach teams globally, not just North America.

Although we're so glad to have you. What stands out about some of the diversity of the expertise within me Boch that you've experienced so far. Yeah, I mean it really is amazing. When I think about the level of subject matter expertise within Meebach, certain regions are are really they kind of they have a really really deep subject matter expertise in maybe a given industry or you know, a given type of supply chain problem.

And I think you know, like you probably see that in other consulting houses as well. What I haven't seen, and I think is really unique to me Bach is this sharing across practices, across subject matters, across geographies. Right, I'm working on a project and you know, I have a resource out of Canada, I have a resource out of Europe. I have two resources out of the US, because those are the best resources for this particular project given their experience and what we're trying to do.

So you know, you don't have those arbitrary lines. I would say between the various business units, it's not competitive within the company, it's very collaborative and it's very nurturing. And you know, in particular, our expertise in network design and network optimization is just unparalleled based on what I've seen, you know, fifty some idears of experience. Miebach was was really a leader in that space.

They've continued to develop in that space. Warehouse automation planning, so planning relatively new for North America, but a practice and and a level of expertise out of Europe that is that is very impressive. And then you know, I've joined now and I have a lot of planning experience. We have others.

I think that's the other thing that has really been surprising is you meet people and you start to talk to them and you realize, well, their pedigree is as a practitioner, right, they're like me. Right, there's a lot of people that are like me within me back where they have twenty thirty years in the industry. They have the scars, they have the wounds. They've done it from a practical standpoint, and then now they're pivoted and they're sharing what they've learned and they're continuing.

I think what sets consultants apart is they've liked to move fast and they don't like to stand still. Right, So they're like people that end up in consulting based on what i've seen. They're the ones that are They're pretty progressive. They were early adopters.

They want to continue to move businesses forward, but doing that in a way that's not theoretical, it's not academic, because they've done the work. I think is is really something that's unique based on based on what I've seen. You know what, I agree, but I also disagree to a point. I mean, we're a company of engineers, and engineers love solving problems, and these are just people who happen to have experienced these problems in real life, in real work situations, and they are just like taking it to the next step of yeah, I'm not going to just exist with this problem anymore.

I'm going to fix it, and I'm going to fix it for everybody so that everybody has a chance to, as you said, level up and get to that next point. We have a weird mix of engineers, and you're right, there's a lot of engineers engineers on one side and then like like business masters, informatics data folks on the other side. So from my standpoint, I love it. I think it's great.

I've been kind of complaining to the academic community for years that I really wanted supply chain engineering because you know, I love the business side and I love supply chain, and I think you need to be able to speak that language. But engineers understand complex ecosystems and really really complex, multi layered problems. So I really feel like you need both. So from my standpoint, Mibach is the best of both worlds so well.

And that kind of leads us into this next area, which is the podcast itself and what our plan is for this year, what we're going to talk about, what we're going to be exploring with our you know, with our platform here, and so how do you see that aligning with all of these great things that you're saying about me Bach and I do agree, I love it. It's I've been here for ten years and I couldn't agree more. But you have a fresh set of eyes, a new perspective. Yeah, I think subject matter experts, a lot of them are not extroverted necessarily, right, So I'm an outlier.

I'm I'm actually an ombivert. But we can get into that in a different episode. But like as an engineer, it's it's really unusual to have like to see engineers promoting themselves, you know, writing and publishing things in in you know, social media, and really you know, they have great knowledge and they'll share it one on one, but they never even it doesn't trigger their brain that they need to you know, advocate in a broader in a broader sense. So for me, part of the goal is really to make sure we're promoting the great experts that we have within me boch and within our partner ecosystem, right because we have access to some really brilliant minds and great companies doing wonderful work.

So I think that's gonna be one of the big shifts that you're going to see, not even just in the podcast, but just in how Meeboch kind of talks to the market is we need to do a better job of being our consultants and our advisors a means to share what they know and what they've learned and what their best tips and tricks are, uh, in a way that that really moves the industry forward. So those are those are the conversations you want to have with with our internal SMEs and really you know, filling those gaps in those conversations that maybe they wouldn't have stood up for.

Absolutely yes, yes, uh, And you know what. I think some of them will will probably find a few people that have a passion that they'll find their passion for for being a public advocate hopefully. Uh. But you know, at the end of the day, if you have knowledge and you don't have this ability to share it, then that's knowledge that kind of dies with you.

And I think that that that's that's not where we want to be, right Like, we we really want to move the industry forward. We want to make it better, easier, faster, more profit football, right Like, that's that's what we're all kind of programmed for. And I think we do that by sharing freely of what we've what we've learned, and what we would not do again. I know one thing that that people have asked me in the past, as as the host of speaking of supply chain is you know, how how can I talk about what we do without it sounding you know, very sales self aggrandizing?

Yeah, sales e. How how do you how do you anticipate us doing that going forward without just making it all about us us US? Yeah, I mean I think it's about a I would say, you know, you don't have to work with me back, We're like, I mean we want you to and I think fabulous. But but at the end of the day, do I think that you need some outside support, advocacy, consulting.

Should you be looking beyond your four walls? I would say should? And so I think it's kind of how you present it, right, Like, Look, I transitioned to you know, the dark side, the technology side in twenty eighteen. But my reputation is not that I'm selling selling selling, right.

My reputation is that I'm I'm, you know, going to freely share what I've learned. I'm gonna tell you know where the skeletons are in the closet if I need to, you know. Like, so, I think it's really about being genuine and pragmatic, and it's not about like four syllable words, right, Like, it's not like marketing buzz or sales speech. It's really about, like, you know, how do we get our hands dirty?

And you know, what have we learned? So I think as long as people are being you know, being themselves and being genuine like for me, you would never see me give somebody a scripted talk track and say, Okay, this is what I want you to say when you go right, like me, that then becomes a sales exercise and that is not what we. Want, all right. Well, and to your earlier point, you know that the market is huge.

There's enough room for everybody in the sandbox to come play. There's enough need in the market for all of these different organizations, for all of these different consultancies, for all of these different integrators to you know, to have their spot and find their niche. And you know, with the the expertise that you mentioned across Mebak that you've already you know, come into contact with or or been able to experience through both project work and just meeting your colleagues.

I think that you know, to your point, when we're highlighting those it doesn't have to be about keeping that or it shouldn't be about keeping that information hidden. We're trying to put it out there. We're trying to you know, solve these problems, crowdsource some of this information and put it out there. Yeah.

No, you're spot on. And I think you know the flip side to that is because you know, you said I own partnerships alliances, right is Meebock has always prided itself on being agnostic. Right, We're going to advise a client or a customer based on what the best solution is for them. And so I've had several people ask me, well, how you own partnerships if you're agnostic, and I was like, I can be a partner with somebody because I want to better understand how their solution works or how they do business, and I want to influence, you know, maybe where they're making investments based on what I see.

Right, But if there's not a financial incentive between us, I'm still like not stick right, And so you're going to see us make some some announcements on partnerships in the coming months which are super exciting, But we're still maintaining a neutrality. We're not working exclusively with any one partner where we're really you know, looking at the industry and saying, you know, where are our custom stomers leading us, who is making investments that we really want to understand better that we maybe we want to go to some classes or we want to you know, pick their brains, We want to talk to them.

So I think for us, when we talk about partnership, it's much about like collaboration and sharing and it's not about like financial partnership. So I think that that is also clearly something that makes you know that that we're proud of and that we want to maintain even as we start to grow our ecosystem. I agree. That's one of the things that I've I've loved about our our stance on partnerships over the years is that, yes, we do want to align and be engaged with those you know, those market leaders in their in their own right, and of course we want to use their products when it makes sense and have that ability to deliver that to our clients.

But yeah, it's it's it's an interesting way to approach partnerships that I think is a little bit unique to me. Buck, I would agree I haven't seen it in other places. I mean, even when I've stood up partnerships in previous roles, the first question has always been, oh, well, you know, how do we incentivize you, how do we how do we do referrals? And and and I will say for me, it's a breath of fresh air that I don't have to worry about that.

So, going forward with all of this new and exciting stuff this year, what do you hope listeners feel when they listen to an episode, when they when they get to the end, what what do you want that to provoke for them? Yeah, I mean at the end of the day, if they are a little bit entertained, right, Like you don't want it to be dry and boring, and like hopefully there's at least one part that everybody chuckles and and it's like, yeah, I know what that's like, right, So I think you know, I think the other part would be if if generally speaking, people are like, yeah, that was no bs, right, Like that was that was just like having sitting down and having a cup of coffee or having a cocktail or like right, like with somebody that I genuinely want to spend time with and talk to because because it's an interesting conversation or I learned something, or I just felt like, oh gosh, I'm not crazy, right like oh other people are.

Because I think so often we present the good, the glossy, the polished, right, and I want I want us to have conversations that are real and genuine and you know, that are not polished, and that at the end of the day you're like, yeah, I I feel that. Like I'm I'm tired, I'm grouchy, I'm so tired of listening to agentic AI and and like, just tell me how to make something happen, right, I don't care, you know, so, I cause I think a lot of people like, there's so any messages coming at us so quickly, and and a lot of you know, a lot of people are like, Oh, it's going to fix all the problems in the world.

I don't believe that manufacturers move very slowly, supply chains move very slowly. Is our new technologies going to change the way people work? One hundred percent? They are right?

But is it going to change overnight? No? And and does it mean that it's going to change for the worst? I don't think so, right, Like, I know, at the turn of the century, when we when we you know, industrialized manufacturing and we industrialized farming, there were people that lost their jobs, but new jobs were created.

And so I think for me, it's it's really about being positive and you know, just real, Let's just be real, let's have real conversations. Absolutely, any topics you're especially excited or nervous about tackling. Nervous, I mean, I don't know. It's like I think there are things that if something doesn't make you a little bit uncomfortable, or if you're not a little bit uncomfortable in your day to day, then you probably need to push yourself a little more.

But you know, so for me, it's not the topics. I don't think that make me uncomfortable. I mean, like you and I work together closely, I have a lot on my plate. I'm I'm a fairly ambitious individual.

I don't like to sit still, so I'm committing to a lot and that makes me nervous. But in terms of supply chain, I think I'm more optimistic about business and where things are headed than I am nervous. I think there's a lot of really hard work out there. But collectively, collaboratively, if we if we all are you know, in the right mindset, I think that you know, you can eat the entire elephant, one by it at a time.

So we just have to like, you know, get on the path, stay on the path, you know, maintain our attitude and be willing to be curious and optimistic and you know, try things and have conversations and be vulnerable. I think that's the other thing, right, Like we have to be vulnerable, we have to have these conversations. We're not all making the right decisions all the time, right, Like, so, you know, are we comfortable with failure? And look, I don't like it, I hate it, but some of the best lessons that I've learned, I'm like I learned because I didn't do it right the first time, and and and it would be disingenuous of me not to share that.

So my hope is that as people get comfortable with the podcast, and as we bring on subject matter experts, you know, like I said, within me Bach and within our ecosystem, that people feel comfortable sharing and being vulnerable and being you know, really transparent with the post. Listeners awesome, Well to our listeners, I do want to say I'm not leaving the podcast. I'm certainly not leaving me back. I'm going to be here.

But you will see a lot more of Christine on these episodes going forward, especially this year, as she has all of this work that she has been doing, all of these hats that she's been wearing and pulling together episodes and topics to talk about, and she is clearly the best person to have some of these conversations. So I will still be here, I will still be stepping in from time to time, but you will be seeing a lot more of Christine, so thank you. It's going to be a team effort Allen, like we're you know, so definitely, Folks, you're going to get your your dose of Ellen.

You'll probably get more meat than you want so and that's fine. You can say, hey, can we get Ellen. And absolutely, absolutely yes. So it's going to be a team effort because we have some ambitious goals for this year with our programming, with our business and I can't wait to take our listeners on this journey with us.

Me too, Me too. Yeah, it's gonna be an It's already an exciting year. I mean, we just had the the articles that came out in Supply Chain Brain, the resource SID for twenty six what we had like three three items published for Mebak, which is super exciting. So yeah, I think there's a lot of ways for people to engage with us.

The podcast is one, our social media is one, but hopefully they're seeing us in you know, the spaces where they get their supply chain information as well. Absolutely, and with those SMEs. I know we've got some awards that we'll be announcing later on this year. We've got some some movers and shakers that deserve their recognition, and additionally, you just getting all of these people the recognition that they deserve.

So very excited, awesome, awesome, Thanks for tuning in to Speaking of Supply Chain. If this conversation sparked a new idea or touched on a challenge you're navigating, we'd love to hear from you. With that, I am excited to officially hand over the majority of hosting duties to Christine Barnhardt. Welcome to the next chapter of Speaking of Supply Chain.

Thanks Ellen, appreciate it. Look forward to talking to everybody soon. You've been listening to Speaking of Supply Chain a meboch podcast. Keep connected with us by subscribing to the show in your favorite podcast player.

If you like what you've heard, please rate the show that helps us to keep delivering the latest in supply chain information. Thanks for listening. Until next time.