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Gabriel Alcazar: He’s Got His Job Down Cold
When you tinker with a job that workers have been doing the same way for years, someone’s bound to get upset. “Change management has always been one of the biggest challenges I have faced,” says Gabriel Alcazar, supply chain manager at Sub-Zero Freezer Company in Phoenix, Ariz. Consider what happened when Alcazar’s team introduced a […]
Read MoreBeth Ford : A Woman of Taste
Some supply chain professionals like their work best when things are humming. Not Beth Ford. “I can’t get enough craziness,” says Ford, executive vice president, head of supply chain at International Flavors Fragrances Inc. (IFF) in New York. What kind of craziness makes Ford’s day? Consider the time during her stint at Mobil Oil […]
Read MoreElizabeth Little: Little Goes a Long Way
For Elizabeth Little, success lies in the details. There’s always a fresh piece of legislation moving through Congress, a revised rule, or a new security or safety requirement that affects the way companies ship goods across the border. “As the importer of record, I need to know what’s currently happening with everything related to shipping,” […]
Read MoreLou 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 […]
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