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Lou Paioletti: Phoenix Rising
It took three months of intense work last fall for Phoenix Contact to shake the bugs from a new, fully automated distribution center in Middletown, Pa. The transition wasn’t easy, says Lou Paioletti, director of logistics at Phoenix Contact USA. But according to the company’s distributors, adjusting to new technologies and processes can take a […]
Read MoreMike Segal: The Paper Chase
Mike Segal always keeps one eye on the weather. When you ship paper, water damage is a constant concern. “You need watertight equipment and good procedures for managing equipment integrity,” says Segal, director of logistics at Sappi Fine Paper North America, a division of Sappi Ltd., a global company headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa. The […]
Read MoreDaniel Most: Making the Pieces Fit
Daniel Most loves a good brainteaser. Give him a tough sudoku or a flood of orders from the stores he serves, with no obvious way to fit the goods on available trucks, and he’s a happy man. So when Most got a chance to test his logistics smarts in a global arena, he grabbed it. […]
Read MoreJoe Steffney: One for the Books
Examine Joe Steffney’s early career and a theme starts to emerge. He paid his way through college loading trailers for UPS. His first post-graduation job saw him supervising warehouse staff for Kmart. Then the story takes him to a series of distribution centers—Macmillan Publishing, Koen Books, Harcourt Brace, Houghton Mifflin, and Ingram Book Group. The […]
Read MoreJennifer Hughey: Cleaning Up
Jennifer Hughey wasn’t looking for a career in logistics. But somehow, it sucked her in. In 2003, Hughey was senior finance manager at Whirlpool Corp. when her former boss, Dan Clifford, recruited her to join him at The Eureka Company. Clifford, president of Eureka, now called Electrolux Home Care Products North America, wanted Hughey to […]
Read MoreCharles Graffeo, Sr.: Wake Up and Smell the Coffee
Coffee drinkers in certain regions of the South should raise their cups in salute to Charles Graffeo, Sr. At Community Coffee Company in Baton Rouge, La., Graffeo is responsible for the whole process chain—purchasing, logistics, manufacturing, and distribution—that takes coffee from bean to cup. Graffeo joined Community Coffee in 2006 as general manager of manufacturing. […]
Read MoreBill Justus: Home Sweet Home
Throughout your industry, sales are down. But the cost of materials keeps going up, and those higher prices sure don’t help you draw in hordes of new customers. What to do? Get all your partners working together to drive costs out of the supply chain, says Bill Justus, vice president, supply chain services at David […]
Read MoreJames Bradley: Supply Chain Management is in His DNA
Is there a gene for supply chain management? If so, James Bradley must have it—his father worked in logistics and supply in the Air Force, and Bradley has been focused on the field since college. If scientists do discover such a gene, chances are they’ll be working with technology from Bradley’s employer, Affymetrix, a Santa […]
Read MoreSteve Schad: Navigating a Career in Supply Chain Management
As a college student studying business management, Steve Schad thought a lot about links, but not the ones in the supply chain. “I thought I’d be on the PGA tour,” says this avid golfer. “But that didn’t work out.” What did work out was a 30-year career in supply chain management and operations. And for […]
Read MoreShawn Surber: Going Whole Hog
Farmers feed the world, and Shawn Surber moves the feed. As logistics manager for Premier Feeds in Wilmington, Ohio, Surber coordinates ingredient flow into three feed plants and product delivery to distributors and farmers in his region. He manages a 26-truck fleet, occasionally hopping into the driver’s seat himself. When needed, he also lends a […]
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