Eszter Dean is leading the Global Sourcing Office at Alfa Laval Corporation. Listen to her views of the three dimensions which needs to be developed in the supply chain at the same time and what she is looking for from the digital landscape.
“There are three main things that you need to have, and you need to have them sort of in the same phase. If you really want to improve and really take a leap, you have to have people who are willing to do the change. You need also supporting processes because people need to know how they should get there. And the third dimension is systems which supports both people and processes. If you lack any of these three dimensions it won’t work. You might improve, but not to the point you want to be, you won’t reach the leap. And I don’t think it will be a big bang, I’m convinced it’s an iterative process.”
“There is a huge variety of different solutions in the digital landscape. What I’m looking for is a solution which makes data transparent and that will lead collaboration easier and more seamless, and not so people depended. Of course, we still need the people, but I’m seeing is that if somebody is on vacation or sick leave then some things just stop, because there is an email sitting in someone’s mailbox. If we can get away from that because we have some sort of shared platform it will solve a lot of issues. If we can find platforms that make it simple and easy to find data and securing it’s always the latest update that is available, that will solve a whole number of issues for us in the supply chain. And especially if we can expand that from our company towards suppliers and customers, that will be a huge leap.”
“I have realized that no-one is perfect, no company is perfect, we have our challenges, we have our gaps, but learning from others, where they are doing something in a smarter way, is very giving. To learn from supply chain peers is very valuable”, concludes Eszter Dean.
