Based on sessions at the Warehousing Education and Research Council’s (WERC) Annual Conference, the South Africa Production and Inventory Control Society’s Annual Conference and the APICS International Conference and Symposium, the following observations are provided concerning the current gap in talent availability in the supply chain management field.

As supply chain management continues to morph in the 21st century, new technical skills are required.

Ten years ago no one had considered the concept of an omni-channel approach. Fifteen years ago most of us were still grappling with how to posture our supply chain to support online sales, and no one knew what “big data” even meant.

Lean, Lean Sigma, Six Sigma, sales and operations planning, Design for Six Sigma, and sustainability were all relatively new to the supply chain management world at the turn of the century.

Today these concepts, along with change management and data analytics, are common place in our businesses.

To complicate matters, since it is still a relatively new concept, there is no clear cut career path for new entrants in the supply chain management industry. It is encouraging that several recent CEO hires came from operations and supply chain backgrounds, but even that does not provide a clear path for new hires in supply chain management positions.

The soft-skill talent gap

What skill sets do the new SCM graduates need? One attendee at a session during one of the conferences last year made an observation that:

We seem to be hiring graduates with skill sets, but they can’t play together in the sand box because they are lacking the soft skills.

These soft skills include “problem solving, communications, analytical skills and the ability to work in a team environment.”

Soft skills were an area of discussion, primarily from the industry representatives. The common theme seems to be “we can teach the company-specific areas, but we need employees with people skills.”

Attendees from academia at several of the sessions conducted believed that the graduates from business schools are “being taught too much technical/textbook solutions and not enough real world situations and case study analysis.”

The concern was also stated by many in the industry that graduates (both graduate level and undergraduate level) often leave school without fully understanding inventory management, storage principles or how to optimize the storage and flow of a facility.

How can we solve this at the post-secondary level?

There has to be industry-academia collaboration and partnerships. We are all in this together to forge the future of supply chain management.

What about industry involvement in the education process? The University of Pretoria in South Africa uses site visits to BMW, Woolworth, UTi, Imperial Logistics and Caterpillar to help the students see supply chain and operations management in action to provide real-world lessons.

One solution presented was to use a “Graduate Program with Industry” to help fill the gaps between what students are learning in the classroom with what the students need to know to be successful in the company.

Another solution is to give students group assignments that allow them to work on a company-specific challenge area without having to share “sensitive information” with the students.

This allows the students to research a problem for the company, diagnose the problem and then provide the company with recommendations for solutions. This type of project allows the students to think outside of the classroom while gaining some real world experience in a “consultant” role and getting to know about a company’s operations first hand.

The consensus of the attendees seemed to be that somewhere in the education process, graduates need to acquire some basic people skills and leadership skills so they are prepared to work as group leaders immediately after completing the company orientation.

Understanding “the what” and “why” of industry compliance

College graduates with supply chain or logistics degrees “need to understand compliance.” The discussion following this comment included OSHA, EPA, and pharmaceutical compliance issues, as well as international shipping compliance issues.

“This has to go past simply hearing about it. It has to include ‘the what’ and ‘the why’ for industry compliance.”

Several companies stated that universities and colleges should make the effort to bring industry representatives and case studies into the classrooms to provide real-world context.

While this is done at many of the schools contacted, there is still a gap here that seems to be an easy one to fill to the benefit of industry and students. This process should be linked to the corporate and school recruiting programs.

Focused, hands-on internships

The major companies in the focus groups discussed their internship programs, as it relates to training and finding quality employees to help fill the talent shortfall. One suggestion was to link the internship and recruiting process to succession planning. One company talked about their task-based internship program that ends with an outbrief on intern’s project and produces about a 90% hiring rate for the interns.

Another company detailed one internship project where they had the interns prepare a training video on facility activities, safety and facility signage requirements for use in their orientation programs.

Another program assigns each intern to an advisor/mentor throughout the program in order to ensure that the intern learns as much as possible during the internship.

Building the partnership between industry and academia

In order for education programs to meet the needs of industry and assist in bridging and filling the talent gaps in supply chain management, there has to be a partnership between industry and academia.

This has to be a beneficial, two-way, win-win situation. Industry needs to meet regularly with the academic communities in their area to let academia know where current shortfalls are in graduates.

Industry needs to volunteer to come into the classrooms to discuss what they are doing and how students can prepare for careers in industry operations. Academia has to reach out to local industries to gather information and share research.

It is essential that there be an ongoing collaboration and partnership between academia and industry if we are going to bridge this talent gap issue and keep our companies competitive and thriving.

Supply chain management is about relationships – and this partnership is no different. It is the responsibility of all parties – academia and industry – to work together, forge alliances and build relationships in order to ensure that graduates are prepared to face the realities of 21st century supply chain management jobs. It is key to training the next generation of supply chain leaders, as the current leaders face retirement.

This talent gap can be bridged, but only through joint efforts of industry and academia. What are you waiting for? Reach out to help make our industry better for the future.

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Based on sessions at the Warehousing Education and Research Council’s (WERC) Annual Conference, the South Africa Production and Inventory Control Society’s Annual Conference and the APICS International Conference and Symposium, the following observations are provided concerning the current gap in talent availability in the supply chain management field.

It is difficult to pick up a trade magazine without finding an article or commentary on the “Supply Chain Management Talent Gap.” One estimate from a session at the APICS 2015 Conference placed the requirement for skilled workers at around two million by 2025.

Another attendee stated that his company was facing the reality of over 40% of his supply chain workforce reaching retirement age in the next “few years.”

Facing the “Perfect Storm” in supply chain recruitment

Couple this with the continued realization that competitiveness in today’s business environment depends on a responsive, agile supply chain, and it starts to become obvious that the talent gap is a reality.

Adding to this shortfall of talent is the difficulty that Supply Chain Management Programs at some institutions are having with attracting faculty to meet the growth requirements for teaching Supply Chain Management.

There are also fewer PhD’s coming out of the programs, and they are graduating into the job market at too slow a rate to backfill retirees. It would appear that we may be facing the “perfect storm” in the supply chain management talent acquisition and retention.

What the schools are teaching graduate students has to be different from what we are teaching undergraduates.

This point was agreed upon by both the academics and industry representatives in all the sessions conducted.

Understanding the “big picture” of supply chain management

One concern was that MBA students need to have a better understanding of the end-to-end supply chain and the ability to think from a systems perspective when viewing supply chain issues. They need to understand the relationships between the other aspects of industry and the supply chain.

Another concern from industry is that graduates of a Supply Chain Management program should have some knowledge of scheduling and engineering in order to understand facility layout and facility design. That understanding, they argue, is necessary to enable them to solve flow issues in facilities.

This sentiment was echoed by another industry representative, who suggested that an in-depth understanding of some basic engineering practices and Material Requirements Planning would allow   graduates to be more like generalists and of a greater benefit to the company.

Industry attendees said what they need in graduates are specialists in supply chain management: “This should be the focus of Supply Chain Management programs.”

Industry professionals want graduates that understand the “big picture and where they are in the picture.” According to them, schools need to get graduates “away from silo thinking, and to have communication skills that cut across cultures, people differences, while understanding how to optimize a facility or operation.”

Focus on relevant, up to date case studies

A primary requirement identified by the attendees at all of the sessions was relevancy. What are the students learning and how current and relevant are the course materials? One anecdotal story in the discussion concerned a decades old case study being used to discuss supply chain IT.

The concern of the members of the session centered on the relevancy of such an old case study for supply chain management or IT. Case studies should be used, but they have to be current and relevant if the students are going to learn from them.

Another area of concern is the ability to think critically.

Can the students coming out to the respective supply chain/logistics programs analyze a situation and be able to relate the cases, lectures, and discussions to the projects that they are assigned to?

There was a discussion of the ability to apply Lean concepts and Six Sigma to supply chain and logistics operations, as well as the need for project management skills. Several companies represented in the sessions explained the need to understand Six Sigma and have at least a cursory understanding of Lean and Six Sigma early in a career.

The consensus of the attendees was that there should be a working knowledge of both Six Sigma and Lean principles in the formal education process, in order to allow new graduates to be prepared to assume the roles of project leadership.

The same holds true for the Theory of Constraints. Attendees expressed the belief that graduates should arrive at their new company with a basic understanding of TOC from their operations management and supply chain courses.

Determining “the What” and “the Why” of big data

An area of consensus was the graduates of supply chain and logistics programs need to be able to determine “the what” and “the why” of supply chain data, and be able to format the data so that it is expandable, exportable and useable to convert into meaningful information.

Another aspect of “soft skills” discussed was the need for college graduates to have basic finance and accounting skills, to include budgeting and personal finance skills.

Here is a great example of what can be implemented in academia to help prepare graduates. Schools should establish classes on basic “soft skills” to prepare students to be more competitive during the interview process.

Making decisions on risk assessment and inventory management

Risk analysis skills are also critical. This is crucial from a safety perspective, as well as from a business risk analysis perspective.

Students need to be exposed to business risk analysis as part of their formal education process.

Risk assessment is considered a skill set that future leaders and managers need exposure to while still in school.  As one corporate attendee pointed out, this needs to be both training and education.

Other critical aspects that need to be included in supply chain programs, according to the industry participants in the sessions, are warehouse/DC layout design, basic supply chain systems such as ERP/WMS/TMS/Inventory Management knowledge, and how to use the outputs from the systems to make decision.

There was also concern for the lack of instruction on shipping/shipper coalitions and their impacts. Several companies mentioned the need to have students more than just aware of these topics and the link between our industry and sustainability measures and practices.

Continuing to discuss global supply chain competencies and the needs and shortfalls in the education system for our future workforce will help all of us to educate, train, attract and hire quality employees and begin to close the widening gap in supply chain talent.

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