3053: The Future of Electronics Supply Chains: Challenges and Innovations

[00:00:04] [SPEAKER_01]: How have you ever wondered how the global semiconductor shortage has impacted industries far and wide from automotive and electronics?

[00:00:13] [SPEAKER_01]: About what steps could be taken to address a challenge like this?

[00:00:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Well today I'm joined by Richard Barnett, the Chief Marketing Officer at SupplyFrame.

[00:00:24] [SPEAKER_01]: A company leading the way in design to source intelligence for the electronic supply chain.

[00:00:30] [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to discuss everything from optimising sourcing decisions to integrating sustainability into the procurement process.

[00:00:39] [SPEAKER_01]: And Richard's also going to share his insights on how SupplyFrame is using advanced intelligence to help companies stay competitive in a volatile market.

[00:00:49] [SPEAKER_01]: And we'll also discuss the electronics product carbon footprint that I'm hearing a lot about now.

[00:00:55] [SPEAKER_01]: And how that is reshaping the way global manufacturers can manage carbon emissions in new product designs.

[00:01:02] [SPEAKER_01]: I'll also learn more about, yes, how AI and real-time data can mitigate risks and ultimately improve sustainability across the entire electronics industry.

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[00:03:13] [SPEAKER_01]: But enough rambling from me.

[00:03:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Let's get him on now to find out more.

[00:03:18] [SPEAKER_01]: So a massive warm welcome to the show.

[00:03:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Can you tell everyone listening a little about who you are and what you do?

[00:03:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Sure.

[00:03:25] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm the chief market officer and SAS go to market leader for Supply Frame.

[00:03:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Supply Frame is part of the Siemens family.

[00:03:33] [SPEAKER_02]: We were acquired in 2021.

[00:03:35] [SPEAKER_02]: And we really help transform everything going on in the electronics value chain.

[00:03:41] [SPEAKER_02]: So we help suppliers and semiconductor companies promote and engage a global engineering audience to really understand the latest capabilities and new design and influence the new design decisions that are going into new hardware cycles.

[00:03:57] [SPEAKER_02]: But then we also take this intelligence from across this huge community.

[00:04:02] [SPEAKER_02]: And we have real-time visibility around what's going on from a supply chain perspective, lead times, pricing, demand changes, engineering popularity.

[00:04:10] [SPEAKER_02]: And we inject that intelligence into a set of SaaS solutions that really helps contract manufacturers, global manufacturers in multiple industries, automotive, industrial, aerospace and defense, consumer electronics, become more resilient around what they're doing from design through their sourcing, procurement and supply management activities.

[00:04:30] [SPEAKER_02]: And we call this process design to source.

[00:04:32] [SPEAKER_02]: So it's really helping to transform the global market.

[00:04:36] [SPEAKER_02]: We saw during the pandemic what happened and how pervasive and how critical chips and components and everything that are feeding and us sort of digitizing downstream industries, how important that is.

[00:04:50] [SPEAKER_02]: And so we're really passionate, focused on really helping many companies in different industries really connect the dots, break down the silos from engineering through procurement operations.

[00:05:02] [SPEAKER_02]: And so we're really passionate about how to make better decisions around resilient products that then allow them more flexibility as we deal with uncertainty and global supply chain challenges, which are unfortunately here to stay.

[00:05:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today.

[00:05:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Everything or every day on this show, what I'm trying to do is take a trending topic or something that people have heard about in the tech industry or how technology is impacting businesses, try and understand it and demystify it.

[00:05:28] [SPEAKER_01]: And the global semiconductor shortage has been a significant challenge for many industries over the last few years.

[00:05:35] [SPEAKER_01]: But I'm curious, from everything that you've seen and in your experience there, what are the key factors contributing to this shortage and what steps can companies ultimately take to build resilience into their supply chains?

[00:05:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Because it has been a huge problem, hasn't it, recently?

[00:05:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, absolutely.

[00:05:51] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, if we go back in time, we've done, based on our own analysis and from other industry experts, it's estimated that over a trillion dollars in lost revenue took place directly attributed to electronics and semiconductor shortages over about a three-year period from the beginning of the pandemic, over about a three-year period.

[00:06:11] [SPEAKER_02]: And automotive in particular, probably up to $300 billion, I mean, sorry, billion dollars in lost car revenue, again, directly attributed.

[00:06:20] [SPEAKER_02]: So what we're seeing is there's a global reliance on the electronics industry overall.

[00:06:28] [SPEAKER_02]: One of the key factors, though, is complexity and mix.

[00:06:32] [SPEAKER_02]: A lot of new product designs, when we're digitizing and putting sensors on everything to understand where we are in monitor assets and motion or in cars or now computers on wheels.

[00:06:45] [SPEAKER_02]: We see this in every industry, right?

[00:06:47] [SPEAKER_02]: But what's happening upstream is that the density and the complexity of everything that goes into an electronic board design, into an IC chip, into a product that's purpose-built from a power management, battery management, you know, into these downstream devices is incredibly complex.

[00:07:03] [SPEAKER_02]: And so that means that you've got, from a supply chain perspective, you know, tens, if not hundreds of suppliers being sometimes designed into the next big product.

[00:07:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And every time we're designing a new product, we're designing a new supply chain.

[00:07:15] [SPEAKER_02]: And that complexity means that you have a much bigger surface area, if you will, for risk.

[00:07:21] [SPEAKER_02]: And we think about risk in a very broad way.

[00:07:24] [SPEAKER_02]: It's not just what we call continuity of supply, which means, you know, how reliable are the lead times and the ability to kind of get the parts when we need them.

[00:07:32] [SPEAKER_02]: But it's also these big disruptive factors that can turn the industry upside down.

[00:07:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Obviously, the global pandemic and health crisis was completely unexpected and sort of, you know, black swan moment in terms of disrupting, you know, everything right from, you know, being able to run a factory to distribution to downstream, you know, demand changes that occurred.

[00:07:53] [SPEAKER_02]: Where all of a sudden, the most boring accessories that we want for the home office, you know, started selling, you know, off the, you know, 300x, you know, from normal demand patterns because everyone was working from home, schooling from home, etc.

[00:08:05] [SPEAKER_02]: So risk is a big is a big consideration, geopolitical risk, looking at supplier health, understanding kind of the shift in manufacturing.

[00:08:14] [SPEAKER_02]: So all of that's a big factor.

[00:08:16] [SPEAKER_02]: And so the other part of it, though, is is the complexity around demand.

[00:08:22] [SPEAKER_02]: So we see, you know, it's not just company versus company competing for the same supply, but it's actually industry versus industry.

[00:08:29] [SPEAKER_02]: So in specifically in automotive, what happened when the automotive industry decommitted demand because of great uncertainty around who would buy new cars, anyone can go to a dealership, etc.

[00:08:39] [SPEAKER_02]: That very quickly propagated upstream where that decommitted demand freed up available supply and capacity that then that was reallocated to, in many cases, other industries like in consumer electronics, because oftentimes the electronic parts and components, not all, but a lot are just interchangeable.

[00:08:59] [SPEAKER_02]: They can be used in many kind of the same kind of core design, but for different end applications.

[00:09:03] [SPEAKER_02]: And in the automotive industry, and in particular, what you find is that the structure of these what we call a multi-tier supply chain.

[00:09:12] [SPEAKER_02]: So it's not just as simple as one company just buying from their key suppliers.

[00:09:16] [SPEAKER_02]: In electronics, what you oftentimes have is in automotive, for example, an automotive OEM, like a GM, a Ford, Stellantis, whoever, buying from a tier one automotive supplier, which they've completely outsourced the design, the manufacturing, etc.

[00:09:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Just to go just in time or just in sequence into their final assembly.

[00:09:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, those folks don't have a lot of incentive to manage any inventory liability or buffer the second guess what their OEMs are sharing with them from a demand perspective, because that whole industry has spent 80 years optimizing for cost efficiency and lead time.

[00:09:52] [SPEAKER_02]: So what happened was they decommitted, and then that went down to contract manufacturers, distributors, semiconductor companies, and everyone upstream.

[00:10:00] [SPEAKER_02]: So this multi-tier supply chain means that you have vulnerability because you don't see the change when that propagation signal comes back upstream.

[00:10:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And we call that the bullwhip effect.

[00:10:11] [SPEAKER_02]: If you think about the movement of a bullwhip, what happens is as you have more tiers from real demand, they're interpreting that signal of demand.

[00:10:22] [SPEAKER_02]: And what happens is the variability or the unreliability or the accuracy continues to increase.

[00:10:27] [SPEAKER_02]: And that means that we don't know what to build.

[00:10:29] [SPEAKER_02]: We don't know how much inventory to hold.

[00:10:31] [SPEAKER_02]: We've got to second guess the market.

[00:10:33] [SPEAKER_02]: And then that propagates into capacity and shortage and lead time problems.

[00:10:37] [SPEAKER_02]: And we saw that play out in a massive way during the pandemic, but the reality of what we're seeing is underlying the sort of aftermath of the bullwhip effect was there was an inventory buildup, and that's being consumed down.

[00:10:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Where people bought too much of the stuff they might need or too much of the wrong stuff.

[00:10:54] [SPEAKER_02]: And now that's getting sorted.

[00:10:56] [SPEAKER_02]: But underlining that sort of, you know, if you think about the iceberg, you know, like the deeper water flow is a lot of volatility and demand and lead time, et cetera, that's going to emerge again over the next year.

[00:11:07] [SPEAKER_02]: We were kind of looking at that closely from we have forecasting around six months out for most of the key commodities.

[00:11:14] [SPEAKER_02]: And we're seeing that that pressure point starting to to emerge again.

[00:11:18] [SPEAKER_02]: So the reality is we're dealing with not going back to the past.

[00:11:22] [SPEAKER_02]: There's a new normal, which is inherently riskier and important to have greater agility, greater transparency, alignment in order to make sure we don't repeat the mistakes of the past.

[00:11:32] [SPEAKER_02]: So it's a very, you know, in one way, complex issue.

[00:11:35] [SPEAKER_02]: But on the other hand, it's very relevant to so many downstream industries that we all should be paying attention and understanding it better.

[00:11:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And one of the things that put Supply Frame on my radar was you recently launched this electronics product carbon footprint tool or PCF.

[00:11:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And for anyone listening that has not heard about this, can you just explain how this resource works and ultimately how it's helping manufacturers track and report on the sustainability of those electronic components that we're talking about here?

[00:12:05] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, we're very proud of the announcement and the launch because we launched basically the base product carbon footprint calculation for over 380 million electronic components.

[00:12:17] [SPEAKER_02]: So we actively monitor 600 million.

[00:12:20] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's more than that.

[00:12:21] [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, I think the context is kind of important, particularly for those that may not understand this term product carbon footprint.

[00:12:27] [SPEAKER_02]: But we probably are all paying attention to, you know, the goals for sustainability to improve the, you know, the energy efficiency, resource utilization, carbon footprint, et cetera, impact of many new products and new industries.

[00:12:43] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, a lot of that responding to new regulations, you know, for improved traceability or specific carbon reduction goals.

[00:12:50] [SPEAKER_02]: And we've made a lot of progress, I'd say, over the last 15 years, but we're still early in this effort.

[00:12:57] [SPEAKER_02]: So most companies, you know, the first what they call scope one emissions is really tracking and trying to measure what your footprint looked like.

[00:13:05] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, every place that you manufacture distribution centers, you know, what is that total carbon footprint for all your operations and activities?

[00:13:13] [SPEAKER_02]: And then there's scope three emissions, which is looking upstream.

[00:13:16] [SPEAKER_02]: What's that same view for all of your key suppliers or manufacturing partners that you have, say, in your network?

[00:13:24] [SPEAKER_02]: Product carbon footprint is extending that even further, but going bottom up.

[00:13:29] [SPEAKER_02]: So what we're doing is we're saying, look, if we have a complex product and we have a bill of materials and we have multiple components that go into that and we, you know, have a mechanical assembly around that and we, you know, produce and package this product discreetly.

[00:13:40] [SPEAKER_02]: What is the product carbon footprint for that process for that one product?

[00:13:46] [SPEAKER_02]: And what's happened is there's been a ton of progress in measuring that accurately for companies that are very specialized in their manufacturing process where they deliver, say, a fabricated metal part for an automotive sort of in market.

[00:14:02] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, electronics, sadly, we've not made a lot of progress on suppliers self-reporting and doing their own calculations for product carbon footprint that they can share with distributors and or their in customers.

[00:14:14] [SPEAKER_02]: And but the key industries like an automotive that are regulated are now pushing this as a key requirement to their upstream suppliers and oftentimes going multiple tiers like they want this visibility tier three, tier four visibility of product carbon footprint because they want to have a more accurate view of buildup cost of a product delivered, say, to a consumer with that full as discreetly built and shipped and delivered calculation.

[00:14:40] [SPEAKER_02]: And so we're really doing this in the spirit of a starting point.

[00:14:44] [SPEAKER_02]: By no means do we feel like we cracked all the different elements that you want to have as a complete end to end view of product carbon footprint because you really got to layer in what's the logistics and transport mode.

[00:14:55] [SPEAKER_02]: Are we shipping by rail or truck from this location to this location?

[00:14:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Those elements still need to be added into that calculation.

[00:15:02] [SPEAKER_02]: But we saw that the market and the industry overall was kind of stuck at no visibility.

[00:15:08] [SPEAKER_02]: And there's many reasons for that.

[00:15:10] [SPEAKER_02]: But we wanted to basically raise the bar, create a new level of a starting point for everyone in the electronics ecosystem to start building and enhancing.

[00:15:19] [SPEAKER_02]: And we are very open to helping suppliers in their broad product catalogs start self-publishing and syndicating this information through their networks as well.

[00:15:29] [SPEAKER_02]: But we believe it's an important starting point to start with 380 million components and start building out from there.

[00:15:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Because we really are, I would say, in our view, behind where the market needs are and the transparency and visibility.

[00:15:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Because the whole point of all this is if you can measure it more accurately, then you can begin to make better trade-off decisions.

[00:15:50] [SPEAKER_02]: You can optimize design for sustainability.

[00:15:52] [SPEAKER_02]: You can choose between two suppliers that basically have the same products or components in their catalog who's better from a full sustainability impact because of their manufacturing process or their location of supply, for example.

[00:16:05] [SPEAKER_02]: And so these are where we're going, but we're not there yet, where we're making a more balanced trade-off decision between three dimensions.

[00:16:12] [SPEAKER_02]: One is cost.

[00:16:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Second is risk.

[00:16:16] [SPEAKER_02]: And the third is sustainability impact.

[00:16:18] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's really where we see the market needs to be at.

[00:16:22] [SPEAKER_02]: But it's going to take a while because there's a lot of change that is involved in getting to that point.

[00:16:28] [SPEAKER_01]: And I suspect there's a lot of people listening, a lot of business leaders listening that want to do the right thing and know where we're heading and want to be a part of that.

[00:16:35] [SPEAKER_01]: But they're often conflicted and pulled in a million and one different directions.

[00:16:40] [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm curious, how are you seeing companies balancing the often competing priorities of things like cost optimization, efficiency, and sustainability in their supply chains?

[00:16:52] [SPEAKER_01]: It feels like quite a tricky balance.

[00:16:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Is that what it feels like on your side?

[00:16:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, 100%.

[00:16:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Because I think that right now the market realities like we were talking about in terms of the pandemic and shortages and risk is that, generally speaking, the best lead time,

[00:17:12] [SPEAKER_02]: sometimes not at the best cost, right?

[00:17:14] [SPEAKER_02]: If we're in a constrained market, we might buy a higher price.

[00:17:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Trump's sustainability goals and impacts, generally speaking, within electronics.

[00:17:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Because it's so critical to getting to your target goals for launching a new product or addressing shifting customer demand and revenue opportunities.

[00:17:32] [SPEAKER_02]: That commercially takes a higher priority.

[00:17:35] [SPEAKER_02]: However, we have facilitating sort of drives and forces that are pushing for a deeper adoption of sustainability thinking and operationalizing sustainability trade-off decisions.

[00:17:49] [SPEAKER_02]: And some of that's because of industry-specific mandates by OEMs that are pushing their whole upstream supply chain to adopt and think about and align.

[00:17:58] [SPEAKER_02]: The other part of this is regulatory pressure.

[00:18:02] [SPEAKER_02]: And that can be in the EU, for example, United States, Japan, Korea, et cetera.

[00:18:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Everyone's been maturing what their requirements are for visibility, for measurement, et cetera.

[00:18:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And all of that's creating a better baseline for measurement and then trade-off.

[00:18:17] [SPEAKER_02]: I think where companies are making the biggest inroads is it's kind of the Credo principle.

[00:18:23] [SPEAKER_02]: They're taking their 20% of their supply base or 20% of their manufacturing locations and really focusing on specific goals over a three- to four-year period of improvement, sharing those goals together with their key suppliers and working on sort of the big boulders, let's say.

[00:18:42] [SPEAKER_02]: The things that make the things that make the biggest difference, whether that's kind of energy that's being consumed at a manufacturing plant, source of supply to reduce the logistics and transport costs, for example, and carbon footprint.

[00:18:53] [SPEAKER_02]: It's really working on that first 20%.

[00:18:55] [SPEAKER_02]: The tail, though, is really where I think it's going to take a longer period of time because that requires things to work at scale.

[00:19:03] [SPEAKER_02]: And to your point, having a commercial preference for I'm going to buy a component or work with a supplier that may be higher cost because they're more efficient from an overall footprint perspective.

[00:19:15] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's my preference.

[00:19:17] [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm trying to reduce my total scope of impact across my value chain.

[00:19:21] [SPEAKER_02]: That's the vision.

[00:19:22] [SPEAKER_02]: But operationalizing that is going to take a lot of work.

[00:19:26] [SPEAKER_01]: And sustainability in the supply chain is becoming a major focus for so many companies around the world right now.

[00:19:34] [SPEAKER_01]: So what would you say are some of the best practices for integrating sustainability goals into manufacturing and procurement processes that drive that real transformation that we want to see in the world?

[00:19:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Anything you're seeing here or any tips and advice you can offer there?

[00:19:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, what we're seeing is, you know, there's a kind of a first principles thinking, which is to say, you know, let's get to the root cause.

[00:19:59] [SPEAKER_02]: So one of the big insights that we know is true across almost every industry is that up to 80 percent of a new product's life cycle cost, risk and sustainability impact is often locked in in the design phase.

[00:20:13] [SPEAKER_02]: So what we see is you've got to start in engineering.

[00:20:16] [SPEAKER_02]: You've got to start in the new design requirements, even if you're working with a key supplier to design fully the key component or the subsystem that goes into your product.

[00:20:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Perfect. That's where your first leverage point is.

[00:20:29] [SPEAKER_02]: So if you can start with understanding the impact of that new design and do some simulation on what's the product carbon footprint, what's the total cost, what's the risk profile, how many alternate suppliers have been sourced in, for example, so that we have more diversity of supply.

[00:20:46] [SPEAKER_02]: We start looking at those factors and making those tradeoff decisions.

[00:20:49] [SPEAKER_02]: It's a much lower cost of change to just do additional design iterations to further optimize that mix.

[00:20:56] [SPEAKER_02]: As soon as it's released to manufacturing, it becomes more locked in.

[00:21:00] [SPEAKER_02]: It's much harder to change.

[00:21:01] [SPEAKER_02]: The other key leverage point is in procurement.

[00:21:04] [SPEAKER_02]: So indirect materials procurement for a lot of companies, generally speaking, has been overly anchored on cost reduction or cost inflation avoidance.

[00:21:15] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's sort of, you know, not looking holistically at the overall supplier relationship.

[00:21:21] [SPEAKER_02]: The most mature companies, though, have really moved to a more of a balanced scorecard view and are incorporating sustainability goals into that balanced scorecard view and are looking at supplier preference, trying to draw on long term supplier relationships, even doing joint development innovation cycles with those suppliers are the most aligned to both their sustainability goals and their innovation opportunities.

[00:21:44] [SPEAKER_02]: And so that portion, again, it's not across the board, but if you kind of look at a two by two matrix, that's your highest value, highest critical to design sort of supplier partners.

[00:21:55] [SPEAKER_02]: That's where the biggest impact is being made around alignment to sustainability goals and objectives.

[00:21:59] [SPEAKER_02]: I would say generally right now what we're doing is in the early stages of just measuring scope three emissions from key partners, trying to track that, analyze that, say, on an annual or semi-annual basis, and then beginning to look at supplier segmentation, you know, sort of ranking or measurement views, which is a good first step.

[00:22:18] [SPEAKER_02]: But we really to get at sustainable designing for resilience, designing for sustainability.

[00:22:23] [SPEAKER_02]: It really starts in engineering and it starts with a cross-functional view of all of those decisions.

[00:22:29] [SPEAKER_02]: That's pulling those insights in from procurement, from supply management, from commercial teams.

[00:22:34] [SPEAKER_02]: And we call this shifting left.

[00:22:35] [SPEAKER_02]: It's pulling that intelligence and that decision making earlier in the new product cycle.

[00:22:40] [SPEAKER_02]: That's where the biggest leverage point is for most companies.

[00:22:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And with increasing regulations around environmental compliance, such as ESG scores, how important is it becoming for companies to have access to accurate carbon footprint data in their product design and sourcing decisions?

[00:22:58] [SPEAKER_01]: I hear more and more about it, but is that importance on the rise?

[00:23:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Is this something you're seeing more and more of at the moment?

[00:23:05] [SPEAKER_02]: It is because I think, you know, you have some variations in what the standard measurements are, even for scope three.

[00:23:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And so, you know, companies are struggling a little bit with, you know, how do they just get their own, you know, sort of view internally of how they're consistently measuring?

[00:23:23] [SPEAKER_02]: It could be the, at a specific manufacturing plant, what is the energy consumption, the overhead, you know, impact from a carbon footprint or from an energy utilization, water, for example.

[00:23:34] [SPEAKER_02]: And then applying that or allocating that to a discrete product.

[00:23:38] [SPEAKER_02]: In electronics, that's incredibly challenging because you're dealing with sometimes very, very tiny, you know, ceramic capacitors, for examples, or very complex circuitry.

[00:23:48] [SPEAKER_02]: That's a very complex upstream process and fabrication for an integrated IC ship.

[00:23:53] [SPEAKER_02]: So it's different and less obvious than, for example, building a transmission or an axle, say an automotive, where the material composition, the weight, the packaging is super easy and clear to measure.

[00:24:07] [SPEAKER_02]: And you can apply some basic cost calculation and sustainability calculation to that product.

[00:24:12] [SPEAKER_02]: In electronics, sometimes you've got to, you know, translate a ton of overhead costs and indirect impacts to sustainment to a discrete product.

[00:24:22] [SPEAKER_02]: And that can be challenging.

[00:24:23] [SPEAKER_02]: So I think companies are using some of these standard modeling tools, like what we did and what we created was looking at the material composition, the manufacturing process, the average energy cost utilization based on source of manufacturing, and looking at the packaging weight to come up with a baseline calculation.

[00:24:43] [SPEAKER_02]: So there's a starting point now available that really helps to accelerate.

[00:24:46] [SPEAKER_02]: But there's a lot of nuance with how companies self-measure and then how do they align to standardized measurement to certain industries or certain geographic regulatory regimes are slightly different.

[00:25:00] [SPEAKER_02]: But we're in the early stages of that.

[00:25:02] [SPEAKER_02]: I think the key is that companies really are going to, I think, right now respond to pressure when it's a regulatory or a customer demand requirement are going to be the trigger points for them to move faster.

[00:25:16] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's OK, because we need the right incentive structures to allow for participation acceleration.

[00:25:21] [SPEAKER_02]: But I would say we're early in those phases.

[00:25:25] [SPEAKER_02]: I would say there's new mandates coming in 2026, 2027.

[00:25:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Generally, electronics industry is flat-footed and far behind hitting those time goals.

[00:25:34] [SPEAKER_02]: So we're going to see more time pressure in the future as we don't really see it actively being communicated and in play.

[00:25:40] [SPEAKER_02]: But most companies have dedicated teams that are working on it.

[00:25:44] [SPEAKER_02]: They're trying to get ahead of it.

[00:25:45] [SPEAKER_02]: But I think they're a bit behind.

[00:25:47] [SPEAKER_01]: And we have gone 25 minutes in a tech podcast without mentioning AI.

[00:25:51] [SPEAKER_01]: But I suppose we have to go there.

[00:25:53] [SPEAKER_01]: And AI is having a growing impact on supply chains around the world.

[00:25:58] [SPEAKER_01]: But I'm curious from what you're seeing, how is AI being integrated into supply chain management?

[00:26:04] [SPEAKER_01]: And ultimately, we hear about the hype.

[00:26:06] [SPEAKER_01]: But what advantages is it offering when dealing with challenges like shortages or inefficiencies?

[00:26:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:26:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, what's funny is I think we reached peak supply chain awareness during the pandemic.

[00:26:18] [SPEAKER_02]: I'd had cousins be about supply chain.

[00:26:20] [SPEAKER_02]: I think we're in this new moment of peak AI awareness right now.

[00:26:24] [SPEAKER_02]: And there is a lot of what I would call buzzword bingo being played.

[00:26:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Everyone claiming AI does AI that.

[00:26:31] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's important to kind of boil it down a little bit.

[00:26:33] [SPEAKER_02]: So the latest wave of kind of AI fascination mostly has to do with generative AI and using large language models.

[00:26:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Because consumers are now experiencing it, say, with chat GPT and apps on their phone.

[00:26:46] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's broadly accessible.

[00:26:48] [SPEAKER_02]: And so it's everyone's imaginations being, you know, sort of elevated around the art of the possible.

[00:26:54] [SPEAKER_02]: We can do more with AI, which is great.

[00:26:57] [SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, that's only one applied AI method, really, that you can use in different ways.

[00:27:03] [SPEAKER_02]: And a lot of it has to do with changing our ability to access information, transform consumer experiences, the way we interact with, you know, systems and, you know, get new intelligence.

[00:27:15] [SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, there's inherent challenges around that reliability and the ability to kind of, you know, sort of refine those models to be more domain specific and trusted and reliable.

[00:27:28] [SPEAKER_02]: But if we look at supply chain as a domain, applied AI methods have been used in decision support and optimization for supply chain for many years.

[00:27:36] [SPEAKER_02]: I started my career with I2 technologies back in the late 90s.

[00:27:39] [SPEAKER_02]: And we were, I think, at the time had 30% of our organization were PhDs, many of them coming from India, from like IIT, the best universities and MIT.

[00:27:48] [SPEAKER_02]: And we were doing sort of the front edge, you know, work on operationalizing different mathematical models around simulated annealing genetic algorithms.

[00:27:58] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, all for optimization, for, you know, looking at very complex supply chains and balancing demand and supply and optimizing capacity or sequencing the paint line set up in an automotive paint.

[00:28:09] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, we've been working on these problems and applying them a real way for many, many years.

[00:28:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Way before AI was, say, sexy like it is now.

[00:28:22] [SPEAKER_02]: And so I think that the real world applications, some of which are very mature as, you know, how do we better predict demand?

[00:28:28] [SPEAKER_02]: How do we optimize for inventory based on multiple variables and uncertainty around, you know, everything that's, you know, demand and supply lead times.

[00:28:35] [SPEAKER_02]: But the more interesting use cases that are emerging right now are applying AI and very large data sets for bringing outside in intelligence to the point of decision making in a new way.

[00:28:48] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's really what supply frame is a small example of, because we take all this derivative digital exhaust of engagement across 12 million engineers and supply chain professionals.

[00:28:57] [SPEAKER_02]: And we distill what is that telling us, right?

[00:29:00] [SPEAKER_02]: What is predictive?

[00:29:02] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, how can we kind of predict where the market's going, whether it's new design popularity, you know, the sort of cluster of what, you know, products or components are, you know, sort of emerging in a mix of new applications and in markets.

[00:29:15] [SPEAKER_02]: What's what's going on pricing with lead time and taking that insight and then putting it at the point of a tradeoff decision when I'm making a design for new product or when I'm negotiating with supplier, I'm trying to manage my supply chain.

[00:29:28] [SPEAKER_02]: And really bringing in, you know, AI derived, you know, insights into that point.

[00:29:33] [SPEAKER_02]: That's something you don't see as a consumer, but it's something really transformational.

[00:29:38] [SPEAKER_02]: It's just one example of the way new forms of applied AI methods can be used to transform decision making or transform the outcomes for many companies.

[00:29:48] [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm a believer about, you know, the impact of AI, but in a much broader context than what we're sort of overly myoply focused on, which is the power and the experience of gen AI.

[00:30:00] [SPEAKER_02]: When I, when I, I heard recently at a conference that, you know, someone said, well, we're using, you know, gen AI, you know, and then a legacy AI.

[00:30:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, we've lost the plot here, you know, because when we really, when we're really achieving maturity around the use of AI, we'll actually stop talking about it as being AI enabled.

[00:30:21] [SPEAKER_02]: It will just simply be part of the experience, part of the capability that companies are delivering to a market and it's embedded and it's, and it's mature.

[00:30:30] [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, we've got, you know, sort of a high curve AI, peak AI awareness.

[00:30:35] [SPEAKER_02]: What I'm looking for is when we actually stop using AI as a term, and we actually are talking about the problems that we're solving or the new experiences that we're creating.

[00:30:44] [SPEAKER_02]: That's really where the meat of the matter is.

[00:30:46] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm 100% with you.

[00:30:48] [SPEAKER_01]: And so refreshing to hear you say just that.

[00:30:50] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think the older I get, the more I realise that everything happens in cycles.

[00:30:54] [SPEAKER_01]: We're currently seeing the return of transparent tech that we saw back in the 90s.

[00:30:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Everything's going see-through all of a sudden.

[00:31:02] [SPEAKER_01]: And I suspect that as someone that's somewhat of a veteran in the semiconductor supply chain space, you've seen a lot of cycles and a lot of changes.

[00:31:09] [SPEAKER_01]: But what long-term strategies do you think companies should be considering to mitigate the risk of component shortages in the future?

[00:31:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Anything you'd like to share around that?

[00:31:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, it's like we talked about before.

[00:31:20] [SPEAKER_02]: It's getting to that design for resilience mindset.

[00:31:23] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think there's, you know, a few key levers.

[00:31:27] [SPEAKER_02]: One is mandating that you and starting to measure the risk profile of a new design and mandating how to reduce that risk.

[00:31:36] [SPEAKER_02]: So depending on how you measure risk, it really helps define what levers you can use.

[00:31:41] [SPEAKER_02]: So, for example, if you look at how many suppliers are you single-threaded against?

[00:31:46] [SPEAKER_02]: Do you have a single source of supply?

[00:31:48] [SPEAKER_02]: That's a really critical input.

[00:31:50] [SPEAKER_02]: And so you want to create incentives to diversify the sources of supply that you have.

[00:31:55] [SPEAKER_02]: Many companies today have like a China plus one policy if they have a high degree of concentration of manufacturing or suppliers in China, which is a good first step.

[00:32:03] [SPEAKER_02]: But routinely that we see in electronics as companies are not even close to optimizing their flexibility because we design in and qualify in our alternate suppliers.

[00:32:13] [SPEAKER_02]: If you have a disruption later downstream, you can make that switch to that alternate supplier very easily.

[00:32:18] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's designed for manufacturing.

[00:32:20] [SPEAKER_02]: So you can swap it in, so to speak, right?

[00:32:22] [SPEAKER_02]: The other part of it is looking at diversity of parts.

[00:32:27] [SPEAKER_02]: So you can use sometimes standard parts in different applications in different ways.

[00:32:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Many companies are rethinking, for example, what is their super custom ASIC custom-designed chip that they've been using for a while

[00:32:40] [SPEAKER_02]: and seeing if they can achieve the same design need or quality or output performance with something that's off the shelf or a set of chips that perform the same function.

[00:32:51] [SPEAKER_02]: So redesigning for reusability, for reducing exposure to – and you might have very low volumes, right?

[00:33:00] [SPEAKER_02]: So you're going to be competing with other companies, maybe in other industries that are competing for the same capacity, not even for the same part.

[00:33:08] [SPEAKER_02]: Because we've seen this sort of semiconductor capacity be highly constrained.

[00:33:13] [SPEAKER_02]: And what happens is if you have a legacy node component, you have something that's not on the latest edge,

[00:33:19] [SPEAKER_02]: the new capacity that the industry is developing with a ton of incentives is all going to the latest, smallest miniaturization, the latest capability.

[00:33:29] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's really benefiting consumer electronics companies, mobile phone companies, et cetera, that really launch products at scale.

[00:33:35] [SPEAKER_02]: For most of the market, though, they don't have that volume.

[00:33:38] [SPEAKER_02]: So you really don't want to be competing for this diminishing capacity with your legacy products.

[00:33:44] [SPEAKER_02]: You need to redesign them, future-proof them, get them on the right technology path, and then find optionality in them.

[00:33:50] [SPEAKER_02]: The other part of it is also looking comprehensively at the supplier health risk, for example, in addition to the part supply and design risk.

[00:33:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Many engineering teams look at the part lifecycle as a key consideration, so they don't want to be developing or using obsolete parts.

[00:34:06] [SPEAKER_02]: But the problem is they were throwing them over the wall of procurement, and the procurement would turn around and say,

[00:34:10] [SPEAKER_02]: well, it's fine that it's got eight years to end of life, but this part is 23-week lead time, and we're going to slow up and delay the entire new launch for this product by eight weeks.

[00:34:22] [SPEAKER_02]: So let's go back to the drawing board.

[00:34:24] [SPEAKER_02]: So the key is to get everyone on the same page.

[00:34:26] [SPEAKER_02]: So the other key lever here is to have one comprehensive view of risk shared by engineering, procurement, supply management, and commercial teams,

[00:34:34] [SPEAKER_02]: so everyone gets on the same page.

[00:34:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Until you have a normalized view of the risk that you're managing in that product, the problem is everyone operates in a silo, and they're sub-optimizing.

[00:34:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Engineering says, I released the best product for the best design quality.

[00:34:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Go buy it.

[00:34:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Procurement says, I'm trying to buy the lowest cost.

[00:34:51] [SPEAKER_02]: I can't buy it.

[00:34:53] [SPEAKER_02]: I've got problems on lead time.

[00:34:55] [SPEAKER_02]: What do I do?

[00:34:56] [SPEAKER_02]: They throw it back to engineering to do redesign.

[00:34:58] [SPEAKER_02]: So this is a very, very inefficient boomerang effect that's occurring.

[00:35:01] [SPEAKER_02]: So we really need to break through the silos.

[00:35:03] [SPEAKER_02]: One single source of truth on risk and then make trade-off decisions accordingly.

[00:35:08] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's much easier to do that in the design phase.

[00:35:10] [SPEAKER_02]: So the most advanced companies that are getting more mature in this area are really rethinking everything that goes into their checklist for new product introduction,

[00:35:18] [SPEAKER_02]: for the resilience of their products, and getting a lot more open to making optionality decisions,

[00:35:25] [SPEAKER_02]: expanding maybe the scope of their design and their supply base in order to get greater resilience and flexibility later in the life cycle if disruptions occur.

[00:35:36] [SPEAKER_01]: And if we do zoom out for just a moment, I'm going to ask you to gaze into my virtual crystal ball, look ahead into 2025 and beyond.

[00:35:46] [SPEAKER_01]: How do you foresee the intersection of everything we've talked about here today from AI to sustainability and supply chain manager?

[00:35:54] [SPEAKER_01]: How do you see them all converging and shaping the future of industries that are relying on semiconductors and electronics?

[00:36:02] [SPEAKER_01]: How do you see all this taking shape?

[00:36:04] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I think that, broadly, we're going to enter a new era of both sort of component lead time shortages, capacity shortages, again, creating pressure.

[00:36:19] [SPEAKER_02]: We already see the early signs of that in certain key commodity areas with the explosion in AI data centers right now.

[00:36:26] [SPEAKER_02]: For example, you're seeing new demand shortages around memory, for example, SSDs that needs to go into the data center.

[00:36:38] [SPEAKER_02]: And then pulling through a huge wave of innovation and optimizing power and consumption around those new data centers that are being developed.

[00:36:46] [SPEAKER_02]: That's a near-term pattern that's going to create pressure.

[00:36:49] [SPEAKER_02]: But there's a broader cross-industry, cross-commodity group challenges that we see that are emerging.

[00:36:55] [SPEAKER_02]: Prices have increased over the last year by 21% on average, and most individual companies don't see that.

[00:37:01] [SPEAKER_02]: And we see that pressure against lead time inventory emerging into 2025 more fully.

[00:37:07] [SPEAKER_02]: So what you have is walking us into a little bit more of a pressure cooker environment.

[00:37:12] [SPEAKER_02]: The geopolitical risks, for example, the financial risks, macroeconomic risks, demand uncertainty, those also are very high right now.

[00:37:20] [SPEAKER_02]: And so we're going to see all of that come with us.

[00:37:22] [SPEAKER_02]: I like to say don't put a good crisis to waste.

[00:37:25] [SPEAKER_02]: And I feel like what happened during the pandemic is we put a good crisis to waste.

[00:37:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Not enough companies came out the other side and shifted from firefighting to taking a step back and saying,

[00:37:35] [SPEAKER_02]: what did we fundamentally learn here?

[00:37:38] [SPEAKER_02]: What are the fundamental changes we need to make as an organization or how we manage design or how we work with our ecosystem to become more resilient?

[00:37:45] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that we almost need this next pressure cooker to really get some decision-making acceleration and new thinking really operationalized in many, many industries.

[00:37:56] [SPEAKER_02]: And a lot of it has to do with the way companies are organized still.

[00:37:59] [SPEAKER_02]: We have competing silos and incentives that aren't really aligned for end-to-end resilience.

[00:38:05] [SPEAKER_02]: And so there's a lot of work around change management.

[00:38:08] [SPEAKER_02]: Oftentimes the C leadership, the CFO, the CEO needs to really drive and organize mandates that are across the entire company and they're at their core strategy,

[00:38:21] [SPEAKER_02]: not just operational improvement within a silo, within a manufacturing plant, for example.

[00:38:25] [SPEAKER_02]: That's really what's critical here.

[00:38:27] [SPEAKER_02]: And we're not seeing enough of that.

[00:38:28] [SPEAKER_02]: We've seen some automotive OEMs announce transformational efforts and that's underway and that's taking time, which is great.

[00:38:34] [SPEAKER_02]: But we don't, from our view, see enough top-down strategic alignment yet.

[00:38:41] [SPEAKER_02]: But I believe that this next wave that we're going to go through is going to accelerate that and we're going to see more purpose-driven innovation focused in achieving greater resilience rather than just in other areas.

[00:38:56] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think AI, like we talked about, will be a key part of enabling that.

[00:39:01] [SPEAKER_02]: But it won't be about AI.

[00:39:03] [SPEAKER_02]: It will be about how do we leverage new AI capabilities to be smarter, faster, more efficient, and more intelligent around those decisions.

[00:39:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I cannot thank you enough for joining me on the podcast today and sharing your invaluable insights.

[00:39:17] [SPEAKER_01]: But before I let you go, I'm going to ask you to leave one final gift for everyone listening.

[00:39:21] [SPEAKER_01]: I always ask my guests to leave everyone with either a song that means something to you that we can add to our Spotify playlist,

[00:39:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Guilty Pleasures Are Allowed, or a book that equally you would recommend to people listening we can add to an Amazon wishlist.

[00:39:36] [SPEAKER_00]: All I'm going to ask you is, what would you like to leave and why?

[00:39:39] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I was tempted to leave music because I'm in Austin, Texas, and we all love all different kinds of new music.

[00:39:47] [SPEAKER_02]: But I really was thinking that something that has been helpful to our team has been a book that's called The Jolt Effect by Matt Dixon.

[00:39:55] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's a book that's really coming out of research within sales, particularly in B2B, kind of selling around what's happening.

[00:40:04] [SPEAKER_02]: And the best-selling performers, et cetera, in the market, what are they bumping into?

[00:40:09] [SPEAKER_02]: What are their best tactics and techniques for overcoming customer challenges?

[00:40:13] [SPEAKER_02]: And the biggest issue is indecision that many companies and many sales organizations are bumping into.

[00:40:20] [SPEAKER_02]: And the biggest reason is psychological, which I find fascinating, which is the error of omission.

[00:40:25] [SPEAKER_02]: So if you realize the status quo is broken and efficient and challenging, that's great.

[00:40:31] [SPEAKER_02]: But if you're going to be a leader that's going to positively endorse and invest in new investment and new solution capability and then try to promote adoption of it,

[00:40:41] [SPEAKER_02]: your perception of the cost of making that positive commitment to that change is going to exceed oftentimes your view of just living with the status quo.

[00:40:49] [SPEAKER_02]: So oftentimes we find ourselves, you know, as engaging with our customers, as really helping them with their decision-making process and building confidence and really being empathetic around understanding this perception of risk.

[00:41:04] [SPEAKER_02]: And how do you bring teams together to have greater confidence around making a bet on the new change, on the new innovation?

[00:41:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Because to me, it's at the heart of the human factor, if you will, for achieving all this innovation that we're talking about.

[00:41:17] [SPEAKER_02]: It really starts there.

[00:41:18] [SPEAKER_02]: And companies struggle, leaders struggle with overcoming that.

[00:41:22] [SPEAKER_02]: They've got competing initiatives.

[00:41:23] [SPEAKER_02]: They've got pressures for their time.

[00:41:25] [SPEAKER_02]: They've got second-guessing all the time, you know?

[00:41:27] [SPEAKER_02]: And so we've got to get better around feeling more confident, trusting, learning together, earning that trust, and then moving forward, you know, to achieve success in any new innovation activity that we're doing.

[00:41:38] [SPEAKER_02]: So the jolt effect has been something that myself and my team has found a lot of inspiration around.

[00:41:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Fantastic.

[00:41:44] [SPEAKER_01]: I'll get that added straight to our Amazon wishlist.

[00:41:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And for anyone listening wanting to find out more about anything we talked about today, connect with you or your team, or just find out more information about the tool that we mentioned there as well, where would you like to point everyone listening?

[00:41:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, you can just start at supplyframe.com.

[00:42:02] [SPEAKER_02]: We have a great resources section that has a ton of great content and information you can download and check out.

[00:42:09] [SPEAKER_02]: But feel free to reach out to me individually as well.

[00:42:12] [SPEAKER_02]: We'll share our contact information as we promote the podcast and follow-up.

[00:42:17] [SPEAKER_02]: But I'd love to hear from you if you've got specific feedback or questions or insights.

[00:42:21] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm always learning.

[00:42:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Would love to engage.

[00:42:23] [SPEAKER_02]: So Richard Barnett at Supply Frame.

[00:42:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Awesome.

[00:42:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I'll get links to the website and LinkedIn, et cetera, so people can find you nice and easy.

[00:42:31] [SPEAKER_01]: We covered so much in a short amount of time there.

[00:42:33] [SPEAKER_01]: From the challenges of integrating sustainability goals in supply chains, best practices for ensuring real transformation,

[00:42:41] [SPEAKER_01]: and also how to balance corporate goals of efficiency, cost optimization, sustainability.

[00:42:47] [SPEAKER_01]: And yes, we talked about a few AI trends as well.

[00:42:50] [SPEAKER_01]: But more than anything, just thank you for bringing this topic to life today.

[00:42:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much, Neil.

[00:42:54] [SPEAKER_01]: It's been a pleasure.

[00:42:54] [SPEAKER_01]: So what stood out to you most from today's conversation with Richard?

[00:42:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Because the global semiconductor shortage continues to challenge industries.

[00:43:03] [SPEAKER_01]: But for me, Richard laid out practical strategies that could significantly reduce risks.

[00:43:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Whether that is starting resilience planning early in the design phase or leveraging Supply Frame's intelligence platform to monitor sustainability.

[00:43:17] [SPEAKER_01]: It seems clear that the future of supply chain management ultimately depends on that balance between innovation, sustainability and efficiency.

[00:43:26] [SPEAKER_01]: And also a big thank you to Richard for talking about how AI is not just a buzzword in supply chain management, but a tool.

[00:43:35] [SPEAKER_01]: A tool that when applied correctly can deliver measurable outcomes.

[00:43:40] [SPEAKER_01]: So what changes can you implement in your organization's supply chain strategy?

[00:43:45] [SPEAKER_01]: And how will you integrate sustainability into your next product design?

[00:43:49] [SPEAKER_01]: If you'd like to talk about any of this, if you've got any questions you want to ask, obviously you can contact my guest over at Supply Frame.

[00:43:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Check them out.

[00:43:58] [SPEAKER_01]: But equally, if you want to come on here, if you've any questions for me, techblogwriteroutlook.com, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, just Neil C. Hughes.

[00:44:07] [SPEAKER_01]: But as always, I've taken up far too much of your time.

[00:44:10] [SPEAKER_01]: I'll return again tomorrow with another guest.

[00:44:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Big thank you as always for listening today.

[00:44:15] [SPEAKER_01]: And I will speak with you all bright and early tomorrow.

[00:44:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Bye for now.