For our February episode, co-host Ted Stank was joined by guest host Lance Saunders, associate professor of supply chain management. They spoke with Jen Kelly, vice president of planning for North America at Schneider Electric, about shortening supply chains, nearshoring and supplier capacity challenges, adding visibility into planning, generative AI for forecasting, and standardizing practice across a global organization.

Kelly was in town for a meeting of the GSCI Advisory Board. Schneider Electric, ranked by Gartner as No. 1 for best supply chain in 2023, is a longtime partner of the Supply Chain Forum and a member of the Advanced Supply Chain Collaborative, which brings together industry professionals and UT faculty to tackle issues of critical importance to the discipline.

To start the episode, Ted and Lance discussed U.S. job growth, freight surges, disruption of global trade, regulatory constraints, tensions with China, and much more.

The episode was recorded on February 8, 2024.

CORRECTION: At 11:05 in the episode, our host says that Target acquired Whole Foods. It was Amazon that purchased Whole Foods in a $13.7 billion deal in June 2017.

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