Supply Chain Quotes

“He who controls the spice controls the universe.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“Fortifying the company may involve diversifying suppliers and establishing contingency plans to mitigate supply chain disruptions.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr., Board Room Blitz: Mastering the Art of Corporate Governance

“Reshoring, backshoring, and onshoring are now replacing offshoring and outsourcing.”
― Roger Spitz, The Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption: Volume I - Reframing and Navigating Disruption

“Slime mold can teach us how to establish better supply chain networks.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr

“In terms of systems design; ovals, circles and hexagons are more efficient than rectangles, squares and straight lines — Thats something to consider when designing supply chain systems.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr, CEO of Mayflower-Plymouth

“Our ports wouldn't have backlogs if our supply chains, distribution systems and transportation systems mimicked fungal networks.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr, CEO of Mayflower-Plymouth

“By eliminating over-production and long transport routes from the supply chain distribution system, it allows for more responsiveness.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr, CEO of Mayflower-Plymouth

“In terms of systems design, shapes are important. Rectangles are not common in nature. That's probably because from a systems design perspective, rectangles often degrade efficiency instead of contributing to efficiency. Yet humans have designed an entire supply chain system based on rectangles, squares and straight lines. If we want to be more efficient, we should replace those rectangles, squares and straight lines with ovals, circles and hexagons. And maybe some other nature inspired geometries.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr, CEO of Mayflower-Plymouth

“If you wanna learn about supply chains and distribution, go meditate in a forest.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr, CEO of Mayflower-Plymouth

“The best supply chain is one that has no beginning and no end.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr, CEO of Mayflower-Plymouth

“Everything in a permaculture ecosystem is expected to have continuous present utility.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr, CEO of Mayflower-Plymouth

“When production, consumption and capacity are not in alignment, the result is waste.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr, CEO of Mayflower-Plymouth

“Waste is one of the biggest threats to supply chain resilience. No system can be resilient and wasteful at the same time.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr, CEO of Mayflower-Plymouth

“By combining supply chains, we maximize space utilized per vehicle, we streamline routes, we remove waste from the system, we do more in less time, and we provide superior value to the businesses in the network.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr, CEO of Mayflower-Plymouth

“The best supply chain is one that has no beginning and no end; and decentralized points of access and distribution.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr, CEO of Mayflower-Plymouth

“Inventory is something you don't see in nature. Everything in nature has continuous present utility. Our factories and distribution centers need to be optimized such that everything in there has continuous present utility.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr, CEO of Mayflower-Plymouth

“Eliminating waste from the supply chain is not a chore, it's a reinvestment opportunity. Whenever we eliminate waste, we extract an opportunity to introduce more productivity and profit into the system.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr, CEO of Mayflower-Plymouth

“Improving the material ecology of all products is one way to improve supply chains.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr, CEO of Mayflower-Plymouth

“Logistics management and supply chain management are just different ways of saying capital allocation.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr, CEO of Mayflower-Plymouth

“Permaculture economics empowers local resilience, reducing dependence on distant supply chains.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.

“Supply shortages are a business opportunity. If your business can efficiently fill the gap and match demand, there's money to earn there.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr, CEO of Mayflower-Plymouth

“The data side of supply chains is really important.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr, CEO of Mayflower-Plymouth

“The factory should be so production capable and responsive that it is basically synchronized with demand instead of being dragged by demand.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr, CEO of Mayflower-Plymouth

“I don't like the term Stock Keeping Unit because it Implies that the priority is to keep products in stock. But keeping things in stock is inefficient and therefore should not be the priority. The ideal is for there to be minimal gap between production and sale; minimal gap between the time of production and time of consumption. The ideal is for things to be produced as needed, not to be stocked until needed.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr, CEO of Mayflower-Plymouth

“Every product in every product ecosystem needs to have multi modal utility. The system should be such that few products can serve many purposes and products and components are maxiximally interchangeable.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr, CEO of Mayflower-Plymouth

“Supply chain management is all about the efficient utilization of capital.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr, CEO of Mayflower-Plymouth

“It is a common practice of life to focus on the world immediately before us, the one we see and smell and touch every day. It grounds us where we are, with our communities and our known corners and concerns. But to see the full supply chains of Al requires looking for patterns in a global sweep, a sensitivity to the ways in which the histories and specific harms are different from place to place and yet are deeply interconnected by the multiple forces of extraction.”
― Kate Crawford, Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence

“Grace told her to stock up on toilet paper, that she’d read there might be a shortage. Toilet paper? Seriously? Sometimes her mother was so over the-top in the worry department.”
― Susan Kraus, When We Lost Touch

“We have a lot of supply chain issues these days. And if you don’t believe that, take a walk down the ‘common sense’ aisle of our culture.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“One of the best Industrial Management books of all time”
― BookAuthority