Fixing Gaps in Supply Chain Partner Integration

Gil Rodriguez: Thank you, Bill. It’s a pleasure to be here. Thanks for the invitation.

Peter Musser: Thank you very much.

Bill Wohl: Great. Gil, let’s start by setting the stage. We’ve been talking about filling the gaps in transparency in the supply chain and, in particular, how companies can think about that effort from concept to execution. Today, we want to dig into the integration of partners—the challenges and opportunities there. Why is that so important?

Gil Rodriguez: Well, it’s important in the sense that supply chains are continuing to evolve. They’re nothing new—I mean, they’ve been around since before the Silk Roads. You had events 100 years ago or more where a country would make something, sell it in-country, and then expand to selling it outside their borders. Then they’d go in-country with manufacturing and use existing distribution infrastructure. That has always had a heavy reliance on a partner network—the ability to collaborate with in-country manufacturing, distribution, even marketing.

There has always been—and will continue to be—a huge emphasis on a partner network to help track products, as they used to say, from cradle to grave. Not just logistically from point A to point Z, but understanding the product’s attributes in real time. There’s a big push now for the concept of “one windowpane,” or one view, into the supply chain. And you simply can’t achieve that without a strong partner network. I’ll share more later on how companies can get started on achieving that one view.

Bill Wohl: All right, Gil, that’s a good way to start. It’s always great in this series when we can get the perspective of a customer. Peter, welcome again. I know your many years at DuPont gave you a front-row seat to all this. In preparing for this, you said that really this is a challenge about managing the complexity of IT to handle simple problems. What did you mean by that?

Peter Musser: What I meant was that a lot of the challenge centers on finding solutions that are complicated versus those that are simplified. Historically, EDI interfaces were the primary way to integrate with vendors, and those solutions were often complex and expensive. What we needed was something more modular, more portable—tools that could be applied broadly across our supplier base, not just for warehousing but also for manufacturing.

That was our real challenge: developing robust but simple-to-execute solutions that worked across vendors.

Bill Wohl: That makes sense. And at DuPont, your challenge was to extract all the relevant data from partner systems, give them enough transparency to stay connected, but not so much that it risked exposure to competitors or other suppliers. It’s that balance of just enough information—but not too much, right?

Peter Musser: Yep, exactly. And it wasn’t just about data transparency—it was also about cost. Full EDI implementations came with significant costs: process mapping, data interchange, security, and more. So we looked at standardized tools that followed both common business processes and our SAP-based systems. We designed those tools so a vendor could come on board and feel like they were just another DuPont plant.

Same terminology, same tools, and the same training documentation we gave to everyone.

Bill Wohl: It’s not just vendor by vendor either. You also had to manage things like seasonality, right?

Peter Musser: Right. Many of our businesses—especially in agriculture—had seasonal vendors that only operated six months out of the year. So we had to be able to quickly onboard a vendor, get them up and running, and then off board them just as smoothly. Sometimes we’d bring on someone totally new six months later. That agility—without adding capital or time costs—was critical.

Bill Wohl: This isn’t just an IT issue, though. You’re not just talking APIs here. You wanted those partners to integrate into your full business process, not just a system interface.

Peter Musser: Exactly. IT shouldn’t drive the solution—business processes should. Whether it’s shipping, receiving, manufacturing, or billing, those processes should be consistent. We shouldn’t have to change them just to work with a new vendor, and they shouldn’t have to change theirs either.

Our system needed to be both standardized and flexible—able to fit into the existing business structure while still being configurable.

Bill Wohl: As we think back, supply chain was front and center around the year 2000. Then other priorities came along—CRM, BI, etc. But now, for a lot of reasons, supply chain is back at the forefront. From your time at DuPont, what’s the biggest lesson you learned about connecting IT and business?

Peter Musser: One of the biggest is this: don’t pigeonhole your vendors. For example, a subcontractor might make something for you and send it back—but why stop there? Let them warehouse it. Let them label, invoice, and ship it directly to your customer. That’s how we reduced “hops” in our supply chain.

Our systems enabled us to expand those vendor relationships and create new efficiencies in how we fulfilled orders.

Bill Wohl: I want to go back to something we touched on earlier: don’t let IT define the business. Why does that matter so much?

Peter Musser: It comes down to cost. Reengineering business processes to match an off-the-shelf system is expensive—and often unnecessary. It’s far more valuable to invest in a system that meets your current needs and can flex with you. That’s what we focused on—systems that adapt to us, not the other way around.

Bill Wohl: Peter, that perspective is incredibly helpful. Gil, let me turn back to you. All this can feel overwhelming. Where should companies begin?

Gil Rodriguez: Well, I think the first thing they have to do is to have a goal in mind and the theme that you’ve talked about and the examples that Peter have given is really the basis. It’s the foundation for the goal, and the goal at the end of the day is supply chain visibility. And I know that that’s a $14 phrase but it is the ability to know where your assets are product semi-finish product at any given point at any point in the supply chain. And I’ve heard things like, IT shouldn’t drive that, the business process should drive that. That is incredibly accurate.  The other concept that we’ve heard today is a robust application and a robust approach to this. But I’m also going to add the words flexible and scalable. Because Bill, you had mentioned 20 years ago that in order to achieve full supply chain visibility, you were bringing some heavy tools to bear. The technologies changed. It’s become more nimble. It’s it’s become more agile. And it certainly has become much more cost-effective. So you have to start with the goal. And the goal is of course visibility, the ability to do track and trace, the ability to do a recall, and then you have to formulate the plan. And really the plan starts with defining your business network. Mhm.

Who are your suppliers? What are you trying to achieve within the four walls of your enterprise? Where are your plants located? Are they close to customers? Are they close to native infrastructure, your suppliers, your warehouses, your distribution centers, even the end consumer? Do I want the end consumer to validate that they’ve made a purchase and be able to do quality control? The second thing you have to do is you have to define the business processes within those networks. I want to track procurement, shipping, receiving, manufacturing. And lastly, define the assets that you want to track and to what degree do you want of data fidelity or granularity do you want to track them? You have to have a goal and a plan. I’ve outlined those three plans the three elements to the plan and it’s it’s a good starting point.

Bill Wohl: I think that’s good advice, and of course, having the right talent and advice in your array of partners is really important. I’d like to thank both of you for providing the advice on today’s podcast. That’s where we’ll wrap it up. Thanks to Peter Musser for that important customer perspective. We really appreciate that. And to Gil of ACSIS and to ACSIS for making this podcast series possible. We welcome your comments and questions about the discussions on these podcasts. You can engage with us at the official Access Twitter and LinkedIn accounts. Please be a part of the discussion. I know Gil and Peter would welcome that. I’m your host, Bill Wohl. And for everyone at ACSIS, thanks for joining today. We look forward to our next podcast. Talk soon. 

Narrator: Thank you for listening to supply chain visibility stories brought to you by ACSIS, the 100% supply chain visibility cloud solution provider. Visit us on the web at acsisinc.com. That’s acsisinc.com or join the dialogue on social media. Look for ACSIS Inc. on LinkedIn and Twitter. Join us next time for supply chain visibility stories. Brought to you by ACSIS.