Supply Chain - Unfiltered

Supply Chain — Unfiltered, presented by the Institute for Supply Management® (ISM®), is 20-to-30-minutes of everything you want to know about end-to-end supply chain but were afraid to ask. Our podcasts put supply chains front and center where they belong. Supply chains work 24/7 to keep people and places functioning and thriving. Without supply chains’ effectiveness — our world stops. (Remember the 2020 pandemic?) You’ll hear from industry experts sharing elements of the profession and their impact on financial markets, geopolitics and world trade. It’s real, raw and transparent. The more you tune in to Supply Chain — Unfiltered, perspective shifts about how you see the world and the ways you contribute to its livelihood. We invite you to be part of the ISM® community.

Supply Chain - Unfiltered is a business podcast hosted by Institute for Supply Management®, with 81 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Institute for Supply Management® hosts Supply Chain - Unfiltered, a business show with 81 episodes published.

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  Episode #81

  What Supply Chain Automation Feels Like In 2035

  Sep 30, 202626 minS1

  Picture walking into a warehouse, factory, mine site, or solar field in 2035 and realizing the biggest shift is not a single shiny robot, it is the feeling that operations are finally steady. Staffing gaps stop derailing throughput. Dangerous tasks get handled without putting people in harm’s way. And “automation” stops being a pilot and becomes part of how work gets done. We sit down with Leo Ma, founder and CEO of RoboForce, to make that future concrete. Leo shares how his 15-year journey in AI robotics led to building physical AI-powered robot labor, and why the mission is grounded in a simple idea: there are essential jobs that society needs, and many of them should not have to be done by humans when they are dirty, dull, or dangerous. We talk about where robotics can deliver the fastest value across logistics, manufacturing, clean energy, mining, and data centers, and why he believes most businesses will benefit from robot labor by 2035. We also dig into the practical questions leaders are asking right now: how availability reduces the pain of recruiting and training, how efficiency improves with learning over time, and why economies of scale can drive the cost of ownership down as capability rises. Leo responds to calls for caution with a clear stance: be careful, but do progress by design through incremental steps. Plus, we touch on RoboForce’s recent recognition during Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s GTC keynote and what that momentum could mean for adoption. If you’re mapping a supply chain automation strategy, this is a forward-looking but practical listen. Subscribe, share this with an ops leader, and leave a review with your biggest question about robot labor in 2035.

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  Episode #80

  Louisiana’s Port System Shows What Resilience Looks Like

  Sep 16, 202623 minS1

  A single river corridor in Louisiana helps move a staggering share of America’s exports, and when it hiccups, the ripple hits farmers, factories, retailers, and consumers. We sit down with Harrison Crabtree , Executive Director of the World Trade Center New Orleans, to unpack what keeps the South Louisiana port system resilient when trade rules shift and nature refuses to cooperate. We get specific about the forces pressing on port operations and supply chain planning: tariffs and trade barriers, the push toward onshoring and nearshoring, and why “know your supply chain” really means knowing where suppliers are located and what alternate lanes you can activate. Harrison explains how Louisiana’s export-heavy profile and diversified trade lanes can soften geopolitical shocks, then connects the dots to GDP impact and the surge of industrial investment that relies on reliable maritime logistics. Then we move from headlines to hard constraints. Hurricane preparedness and rapid reopening plans are table stakes on the Gulf Coast, but low Mississippi River levels and saltwater intrusion can be just as disruptive, affecting navigation, creating shoaling and unpredictable currents, and even threatening drinking water. We also dig into cybersecurity and cargo theft, why digitization increases the attack surface, and how resilience depends on both prevention and fast recovery. Finally, we tackle the workforce challenge, the role of AI and automation, and policy ideas like the TWICE Act. Subscribe for more real-world supply chain conversations and share this with a colleague who touches logistics or trade.

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  Episode #79

  Closing the Procurement and Production Gap

  Sep 2, 202630 minS1

  The next supply chain disruption will not wait for your dashboard to refresh, and it definitely will not wait for a two-year implementation plan. We sit down with Antonio Gonzalez, CEO and co-founder of Vallor, to talk about a problem procurement teams feel every day but rarely name out loud: the answers to “what are our options?” are often already negotiated into our contracts, yet the data is not visible when it matters most. We unpack why vendor management modernization keeps stalling even though everyone agrees it is needed. Antonio shares his controversial take on how SaaS tools pushed teams to reshape their work around software, not the other way around, and why adoption quietly slides back to email, Word, and Excel. From his frontline experience at Anheuser-Busch and strategic sourcing at Microsoft during the peak COVID-era chaos, he explains how high-quality data enables real procurement strategy and upstream supply chain resilience. Then we get practical on AI-powered contract management and contract lifecycle management that actually gets used. Antonio breaks down how AI agents can review supplier terms, extract metadata, rate risk, generate negotiation reports, and deliver results right where teams live in Teams and inboxes. We also dig into real outcomes like major reductions in contract review cycle time and a rapid response playbook during a food safety outbreak by instantly finding impacted suppliers and the right clauses. If you want to move from contract to cargo with more speed, less guesswork, and better risk mitigation, hit play. Subscribe, share this with a procurement leader, and leave a review with the biggest contract visibility gap you want to solve.

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  Episode #78

  How To Build A High-Trust Procurement Data Organization

  Aug 19, 202630 minS1

  Your procurement team can’t automate what it can’t trust. When supplier names duplicate, dashboards sit unopened, and every “simple” request turns into an Excel fire drill, AI doesn’t fix the problem, it exposes it. We sit down with Laura Beth ("LB") Hirt-Sharpe, Data Offerings Leader for IBM Procurement and an IBM Outstanding Technical Achievement Award recipient, to get specific about what a strong procurement data organization looks like in the real world. We dig into why many teams hit the end of their “AI runway” after a few proofs of concept, how the rapidly changing procurement technology landscape can scatter priorities, and why rebuilding focus is now part of the job for modern procurement leaders. Along the way, we talk about the trust gap created when data access is controlled by a few gatekeepers, and how to map your data flow so requests stop bouncing around the org. We also get into the surprising upside of data analytics maturity: keeping great people. When teams have democratized spend analytics, usable supplier master data, and faster self-service reporting, they make better sourcing decisions and they stay. LB shares practical ways to gauge progress, including the CEO data test and the idea that timeliness is a measure of trust. If you’re looking for a grounded approach to procurement data governance, data cleansing, and AI in procurement that actually sticks, this conversation is for you. Subscribe for more, share this with a teammate who lives in spreadsheets, and leave a review with the one data problem you want fixed first.

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  Episode #77

  3PL’s Gray Area, From Planning to Implementation

  Aug 5, 202632 minS1

  The supply chain doesn’t break in the obvious places, it breaks in the gray areas: the assumptions inside contracts, the handoffs between shipper and 3PL, and the gaps between a plan and the real world. We sit down with Sandy Hodes , Senior Vice President and Chief Procurement and Corporate Development Officer at Ryder System, to unpack how third-party logistics providers navigate supply chain volatility while still delivering service, controlling cost, and protecting relationships. We get specific about supply chain regionalization in North America, why nearshoring and onshoring decisions are inherently multi-year, and how tariff uncertainty can pause even well-funded moves. Sandy also shares why Ryder shifted away from a global 3PL model years ago and leaned into a “port-to-door” approach built around regional customer needs, stronger synergies, and clearer execution. If you manage procurement, logistics sourcing, or supply chain strategy, you’ll hear practical guidance on what should be black-and-white in an agreement versus what needs to stay flexible for change. From there, we dive into modern contract work and operations: AI for first-pass contract review, pulling KPIs and obligations from messy contract databases, and the real risks of AI hallucinations without human oversight. We also explore warehouse automation and robotics, including goods-to-person systems and ASRS, with a clear message that automation only works when ROI, volume, and standardization support it. Finally, we talk electric trucks and EV fleet adoption, why charging infrastructure and range still block scale, and what 2035 could look like with more automation, shifting labor markets, and bigger demands for strategic supplier relationships. If this sparked ideas for your next logistics RFP, contract renewal, or automation roadmap, subscribe, share this with a colleague, and leave a review so more supply chain leaders can find the show.

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