Going Paperless Improves Everything from Quality Control to Regulatory Compliance to Talent Retention — A Conversation with Brian Curran of MasterControl
February 14, 2024
Category
At North American Food Safety & Quality 2023 we sat down with Amit Jagirdar, the Director of Quality and Food Safety for Bunge, to talk about Food Safety Culture, one of the most vital parts of every FSQ professional’s working life. Amit delivered a case study and hosted a themed lunch discussion on Food Safety Culture at NAFS23, and in this interview he shares some of the key takeaways from those conversations, as well as offering advice for anyone and everyone engaging in Food Safety and Food Quality work throughout the value chain between farms and forks. Chief among them? “Whatever you put into Food Safety Culture, you get ten times out.” Give this episode a listen!
Continue reading
At North American Food Safety & Quality 2023 we sat down with Deepa Thakar, a Key Accounts Manager of Neogen Analytics, to talk about what the Digital Revolution is bringing to FSQ professionals, and why it is more important than ever to automate repetitive analog tasks and give Food Safety experts insights in real-time into where best to apply their energies and expertise. Whether we are talking about visibility and transparency and compliance, or doing more and better work in the same amount of time, or achieving more without increasing headcount, digitization is the way forward to improving FSQ performance and also keeping the public safe. Give this one a listen!
Continue reading
At North American Food Safety & Quality 2023 we sat down with Louis-Olivier Roy of OPTEL Group to talk about one of the most important challenges and opportunities facing FSQ professional today: Being able to see their products from one end of the value chain to the other. New regulations are coming online that demand Food Safety and Quality teams be able to document everything that happens to the food under their responsibility, but beyond compliance, knowing the quality and quantity of goods at all stages of the journey from farm to fork offer a wide range of advantages and capabilities that generate real ROI. In an evolving regulatory environment where getting data from suppliers is going beyond a best practice to become a requirement, what does treating compliance as the starting point rather than the finish line look like? How can FSQ data collected at this granular level help other parts of the business achieve their goals as well? For all this and more, give this episode a listen!
Continue reading
At North American Food Safety & Quality 2023 we sat down with Liz Salinas of QIMA-WQS about one of the big issues facing FSQ organizations today: A lack of auditors. The current generation of experienced auditors are beginning to age out, and there seems to be a gap behind them where younger FSQ professionals have not opted into auditing as a focus for their careers. Liz points out that there is no auditor school or direct path to become an auditor. The industry educates its own people to have this skillset over the course of their careers, and a very real bottleneck is approaching where there will be more work to be done than there are qualified people to do it. What should FSQ professionals be doing to advance auditing as a specialization among their ranks? How does that fit into larger industry trends senior leaders are already embracing? Give this episode a listen!
Continue reading
At North American Food Safety & Quality 2023 we sat down with Sara Jane Bellocchi of TraceGains to talk about how the next generation of Artificial Intelligence and Automation technologies are opening up new capabilities for Food Safety & Quality professionals. What may surprise some people is that predictive and proactive tools and tactics are already well-established, tried, tested, and true in the Food Safety and Food Quality space, and so the community of leaders working in this space are actually ahead of the curve when it comes to knowing what they want to do and how they will incorporate the latest advances in this space into their existing processes. At the same time, a growing need to address supplier and product compliance is ideally placed to be a major focus for investment and advancement into greater performance without necessarily increasing headcount or time allotments to achieve the additional work. For every FSQ professional looking for ideas of how to apply these powerful new tools to their organization’s current challenges and opportunities. Give it a listen!
Continue reading
At North American Food Safety & Quality 2023 we sat down with Kim Daniels and Cheryl Alesso of RQA to talk about the power of proactivity in Food Supply Chains, some of the big trends food and beverage manufacturers are facing right now when they look at their operations, and what companies can do when they need specific expertise and extra hands in moments of crisis. This is a wide-ranging conversation that touches on everything from supplier relationships to crisis management to auditing and inspections to the importance of after-action remotes to learn lessons that can be applied moving forward. Give this one a listen!
Continue reading
At North American Food Safety & Quality 2023 we sat down with Julie McGill of Trustwell to talk about one of the most exciting tools available to Food Safety and Food Quality professionals: Real-Time Visibility tools that can connect people directly and precisely to produce, products, and goods at any point in the journey from origin point to point of sale to the final customer. Things that would have seemed like science fiction even ten years ago are now everyday tools, and the best is still yet to come. This is creating a revolution in Risk Management, Waste Reduction, Recall Planning, QA/QC, and also connects the FSQ team to other facets of the business to share data and incorporate them into decision-making processes that did not use to include them. Being able to move from reactive to proactive without increasing headcount sounds too good to be true, but it is happening right now thanks to real-time visibility. Give this episode a listen to learn more!
Continue reading
For this special episode of Executive Platforms’ bluEPrint Podcast series we had some of the top speakers from the 2023 edition of the long-running and successful North American Supply Chain Executive Summit series sit down and speak to the challenges and opportunities submitted by attendees of the event as they filled out their delegate profiles, weighted by popularity.
With topics ranging from Digital Transformation and AI, to Forecasting and S&OP, to Procurement, Inventory, Talent, Labor, and more this wide-ranging conversation will see four senior supply chain executives from four very different companies speaking to the issues, ideas, innovations, and inspirations that matter to all of them as prompted by their peers. It is a fantastic deep dive into what is most relevant to supply chain organizations today. Give it a listen!
Continue reading
At the 2023 edition of the North American Supply Chain Executive Summit series we sat down with Derek Bealby, a Vice President of AFMS, LLC about how supply chain leaders can work with their partners to control shipping costs in a world of inflation, rising labor costs, rising fuel costs, and frequent disruptions. Many 3PLs are under intense pressure to pass their costs on to their customers, and negotiating contracts can be a complicated business. How should supply chain executives best approach this situation with both long-term business partners, and also new shippers as they optimize their footprint and build build resiliency into their operations? Where can they get the information they need to have the right conversations the right way? Listen to this interview for more.
Continue reading
At the 2023 edition of the North American Supply Chain Executive Summit series we sat down with Alex Kahsar of ifm Supply Chain to talk about one of the biggest issues supply chain leaders are struggling with right now: Something has happened to forecasting and S&OP accuracy in the post-pandemic business landscape. The tried, tested, and true best practices built up over years are not producing numbers that can be relied upon. How can any company do its best work building upon a fuzzy foundation? At the end of the day, Sales and Operational Planning and Sales and Operational Execution can only work with the numbers they are given, and too often either demand is not being met and money is being left on the table, or too much supply is being carried as inventory. Fortunately, technology and subject matter experts are keeping on top of the changing business realities, and there is a real opportunity for supply chain organizations to upgrade, retool, and rebuild their forecasting capabilities to create numbers that can be acted on with confidence. Give this episode a listen!
Continue reading
At the 2022 edition of the North American Supply Chain Executive Summit series we spoke with Michael Conley, a Technology Consulting Advisor with Wolters Kluwer, on Integrated Business Planning and its growing role in the world of supply chain professionals. How should organizations rethink their decision-making and planning to bring department heads together? How should teams share information and data to have a clear picture of shared objectives and obstacles? How can Finance be moved from a gatekeeper and final arbitrator into an equal partner and collaborator as supply chain leaders work day-to-day and think in the long-term? It is a fascinating and important idea, and it may well be the future of most businesses. Give this episode a listen, and see what you think.
Continue reading
At the 2023 edition of the North American Supply Chain Executive Summit series we sat down with Paul Greifenberger, Logility’s EVP, Americas, to talk about what Generative AI can offer supply chain executives. Earlier iterations of AI were task-oriented and required a lot of supervision. Generative AI works from a foundation of knowledge provided by the user and learns as it performs tasks, eventually building itself to the ability to perform important tasks without hands-on supervision. The democratization of data access, data analysis, and the ability to monetize information that traditionally would have been difficult or time-consuming to identify and action is being unlocked, and it offers supply chain executives powerful new capabilities in areas like forecasting and sustainability performance. Generative AI can give supply chain leaders results faster and in both quantitative and qualitative ways that are going to be revolutionary. To learn more, give this episode al listen!
Continue reading
At the 2023 edition of the North American Supply Chain Executive Summit series we sat down with Dheeraj Prasad to talk about how AI is helping supply chain organizations reduce waste, improve processes, enhance sustainability, and empower workers. From end to end of the value chain, AI-enabled automation is transforming how companies use data and allow their teams to be more productive without increasing headcount by using the right data to create an accurate demand forecast, which improves S&OP, and inventory management, and on and on step-by-step. Throughout the organization, people are freed from mundane repetitive tasks and data analysis to focus on the issues that matter most, which both boosts productivity and job satisfaction. What does training and coaching a workforce to engage with these tools effectively look like? How should supply chain organizations build trust for AI systems that are directing and prioritizing work? Listen to this episode for more!
Continue reading
