Top Talent Key to Rapid Innovation in Development Supply Chains

The supply chain has traditionally been viewed in fulfillment terms with a focus on the ability to plan, build, make, and deliver.

But in today’s hyper competitive market, a huge part of driving excellence in “fulfillment” is the investment a supply chain is willing to make in the development supply chain to enable innovation.

A term coined by MIT professor David Simchi-Levi, the development supply chain includes critical processes like strategic sourcing alignment with engineering on commodity strategies, investment in enabling new technologies ahead of a product definition, the new-product introduction processes, advanced test development and product engineering, to name a few.

In this byline article, David Ashley, VP of Supply Chain Operations at Cisco, will detail how to organize, develop skillsets and promote a culture that helps organizations realize the potential of this powerful concept.

David will also showcase the key trends in future staffing as well as processes that underpin this model and help make it effective.

Finally, David will highlight how Cisco has successfully invested in talent towards this end—sharing how Cisco has put in place the people, organizational structure and processes, to create an environment for successful risk-taking and innovation

Top Talent Key to Rapid Innovation in Development Supply Chains
In addition to being involved at the earliest stages of product development, supply chain operations must have the right mix of talent and culture to accelerate breakthrough thinking that delivers differentiated customer outcomes.

Traditionally, supply chains have focused on improving cost, quality and delivery.

But today analysts(1) claim that 80% of total costs are often pre-determined by the time supply chain operations gets involved. So to truly differentiate itself, supply chain operations must leverage their power to change cost structures by proactively engaging early in the new product definition and development phases.

Such an approach not only opens up the possibility to manage total costs better throughout the product life cycle, but accelerates innovation to the market.

However, to realize such benefits, supply chains need to change. They now require not only top talent, but also a culture dedicated to supporting and growing that talent.

Supply Chain’s Contribution to New Product Development
To truly differentiate, mindsets regarding the role of supply chain in product development need to evolve. MIT professor David Simchi-Levi coined the term “development supply chain”, which means early engagement during product design to drive innovation in sourcing, qualification and supplier capability development.

Such a development supply chain, however, requires much deeper investment in engineering talent. Supply chains need to recruit, hire and develop their own engineers with technical skills both in product design and in supply chain business operations. These engineers will then be prepared to influence engineering decisions during the design phase and to optimize supply chain operations throughout the product life cycle.

Three (3) Keys to Realizing the Potential of a Development Supply Chain
The keys to realizing the game-changing benefits of a development supply chain driven by top talent include:

1. Recruit Top Talent
The development supply chain model requires emphasis on deep technical skills. Whether you hire employees with high-level technical skills and train them on the business operations side of supply chain knowledge or vice versa, the combination is necessary, but difficult to recruit.

At Cisco, 40% of our supply chain workforce is comprised of engineers (either by training and/or by experience). By coupling supply chain knowledge with deep technical skills, maximum value can be added to the design of next generation products.

Our Engineering team members listen more and respect those who not only speak their language but also bring technical expertise, resulting in stronger collaboration between the two groups. This integral connection between these organizations ensures that while breakthrough products deliver high levels of customer value, they also deliver fast time to market without sacrificing cost or quality.

2. Continuously Growing Top Talent
Having found supply chain engineers with the elusive skills needed, the next step is to continue developing and retaining them. Clear career tracks, job rotations, comprehensive training and mentorship programs are all vital. The talent needs to be not only supported but also challenged constantly to master new technical areas as technology evolves.

At Cisco, five years ago, we established the Global Engineering Community program, now grown to more than 1,200 members. Supply chain members lead and drive the curriculum for this program. Total curriculum hours delivered has more than doubled over the last year. For technical career paths, we established the Distinguished Manufacturing Engineering (DME) program, which is a senior level position for technical individual contributors.

We currently have five DMEs who serve not only as the most influential top technical experts in their fields, but also as mentors for the rest of the engineering community in the Supply Chain. We also have a well-established Emerging Technical Leader Program, which is a multi-year technical and leadership training program that prepares high-potential engineers for success in technical leadership roles. Together, these programs help provide well-defined career paths for our diversely talented technical team.

3. Proactively Capitalize on Talent
Increasingly, every team member needs to think like a general manager with the goal of driving the best technical solutions to market as quickly as possible, delivering competitive business results. Organizations need to fit individuals into roles in which they can contribute immediately while broadening their skills by exposing them to both internal and external input and opportunities.

At Cisco, not only do we encourage and reward those who exhibit a strong combination of technical and operations knowledge, we also proactively foster involvement in technical, academic, and government standards bodies. Toward that end, we encourage our team to participate actively in industry forums and to collaborate with some of the best minds in the field, especially at world renowned universities. In addition, we nurture an environment and a culture of innovation and intelligent risk-taking.

Why Make the Investment? One Word: RESULTS
A case in point of the effectiveness of the development supply chain model can be seen in Cisco’s recent silicon development. Supply chain anticipated and developed a silicon memory technology within the supply chain ecosystem ahead of Engineering needs, and then guided the Engineering team on its incorporation into new product design at the architecture definition phase.

We were able to not only improve performance of the advanced memory device over industry standard solutions, but also to provide significant cost savings for Cisco’s next generation product. And, we brought the product to market more quickly than competitors. This is just one example of the exciting possibilities for creating a truly differentiated solution thanks to the innovative combination of top talent, team, culture and mindset early in the development process.

In these days of hyper-competition and productivity at all costs, you might question whether the investment in top talent is affordable. In our view, the return on investment of this aspect of the development supply chain is already well proven.

(1) = Source: Spinnakermgmt.com

About the Author
David Ashley, Vice President, Supply Chain Operations, Cisco Systems

David Ashley leads Cisco’s Technology and Quality organization, a global team responsible for delivering customer-driven quality and reliability solutions in support of Cisco’s development supply chain. The team is committed to driving a competitive advantage for Cisco by ensuring innovation and excellence in manufacturing technology, test and component engineering, Advanced Technology Development, and closed-loop quality management.

Since joining Cisco in June 2000, David has held various leadership positions throughout the supply chain. In a previous role, he managed the Service Provider and Enterprise and led the transformation of the Product Operations team, which resulted in increasing the organization’s scope beyond new product introduction to include the total product lifecycle.

Prior to Cisco, David held various management and engineering positions at Lucent Technologies and AT&T, starting his career as a design engineer for Bell Labs responsible for design telecommunication systems.

David has a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Purdue University.