We are ex­ci­ted to in­tro­du­ce our new month­ly se­ries, Em­ployee In­ter­views, whe­re we will dive into the per­so­nal ex­pe­ri­en­ces, chal­lenges, and in­sights of our team mem­bers. In this first edi­ti­on, we ex­plo­re the jour­ney of one of our ex­perts, shed­ding light on his uni­que chal­lenges and how he over­ca­me them. Stay tu­n­ed for more in­spi­ring sto­ries in the co­ming months!

Com­pa­nies of­ten un­de­re­sti­ma­te the risks of a high­ly glo­ba­li­zed and cost-op­ti­mi­zed sup­p­ly chain. While mi­ni­mi­zing cos­ts and warehousing in­crea­ses ef­fi­ci­en­cy, it also makes sup­p­ly chains vul­nerable to dis­rup­ti­ons, as seen du­ring the co­ro­na­vi­rus pan­de­mic. The more com­plex a pro­duct and its pro­duc­tion pro­cess, the more sub­con­trac­tors are in­vol­ved. Even with al­ter­na­ti­ve sup­pli­ers, glo­bal dis­rup­ti­ons can quick­ly im­pact all sup­pli­ers if they lack their own di­ver­si­fied sup­p­ly chains. The pan­de­mic high­ligh­ted the im­portance of re­gio­nal sup­p­ly chains and warehousing to mi­ti­ga­te risks. Gi­ven on­go­ing geo­po­li­ti­cal un­cer­tain­ties and trade rest­ric­tions, com­pa­nies must re­du­ce de­pen­dence on glo­bal in­fluen­ces to en­su­re sta­bi­li­ty.

In my ex­pe­ri­ence co­ope­ra­ti­on and a fair pro­cu­re­ment po­li­cy are key but of­ten over­loo­ked. In in­dus­tries like au­to­mo­ti­ve, a top-down ap­proach pres­su­res sup­pli­ers into low mar­gins, ris­king long-term sta­bi­li­ty. While lar­ge com­pa­nies ma­xi­mi­ze pro­fits, sus­tainable sup­p­ly chains de­pend on pro­fi­ta­ble sup­pli­ers who can at­tract skil­led workers. A fair pro­cu­re­ment stra­tegy is es­sen­ti­al – so­me­ti­mes, it’s bet­ter to sup­port exis­ting sup­pli­ers th­rough pri­ce dis­cus­sions ra­ther than con­stant­ly see­king che­a­per al­ter­na­ti­ves. That’s why I’m very cu­rious about the ac­tu­al con­tent of ma­nu­fac­tu­r­ers’ fu­ture sus­taina­bi­li­ty po­li­ci­es re­gar­ding the streng­thening of their sup­pli­ers.

Va­rious tech­no­lo­gies will shape the fu­ture of sup­p­ly chain ma­nage­ment, in­clu­ding Block­chain-ba­sed data sha­ring, Cloud-ba­sed track & trace, Pre­dic­ti­ve Ana­ly­tics, and Di­gi­tal Twin Si­mu­la­ti­ons. Ho­we­ver, it’s un­cer­tain which will have the most dis­rup­ti­ve im­pact. Ri­sing en­er­gy cos­ts are a ma­jor chall­enge in en­er­gy-in­ten­si­ve pro­duc­tion and lo­gi­stics, espe­ci­al­ly for Eu­ro­pean sup­pli­ers and ma­nu­fac­tu­r­ers. That’s why I be­lie­ve that tech­no­lo­gies dri­ving the tran­si­ti­on to green and cost-ef­fec­ti­ve en­er­gy will be inva­luable for glo­bal sup­p­ly chains.

One chall­enge per­fect­ly il­lus­tra­tes the com­ple­xi­ties of pro­cu­re­ment in our com­pa­ny. Sin­ce we de­sign our own pro­ducts but ad­apt to va­rious mass spec­tro­me­ters, we so­me­ti­mes need to source iden­ti­cal com­pon­ents to the ori­gi­nals. Ear­ly on, wi­t­hout es­tab­lished ma­nu­fac­tu­rer cont­acts, I had to find a spe­ci­fic hin­ge for a Ja­pa­ne­se mass spec­tro­me­ter. I as­su­med a si­mi­lar hin­ge would be available in Eu­ro­pe, but none matched the exact di­men­si­ons. So, I sear­ched Ja­pa­ne­se fas­tening sup­pli­ers and en­ded up spen­ding a who­le weekend – with my fa­mi­ly’s help – go­ing th­rough 1,000-page ca­ta­logs from th­ree ma­nu­fac­tu­r­ers, but un­fort­u­na­te­ly wi­t­hout suc­cess. Even­tual­ly, our sa­les part­ner in Ja­pan poin­ted me to the right sup­pli­er: a ma­nu­fac­tu­rer of kit­chen ca­bi­net hin­ges. The next chall­enge was ar­ran­ging de­li­very to Ger­ma­ny, as they only sup­pli­ed Ja­pa­ne­se kit­chen ma­kers. In the end, I se­cu­red a bulk or­der of left and (un­nee­ded) right hin­ges – en­ough to last for de­ca­des!