2005 Pros to Know

In our fifth annual Pros to Know issue, Supply & Demand Chain Executive once again offers our readers a veritable Who's Who of leading executives across a variety of industries and from among the many functional departments that make up an enterprise's supply and demand chain. Some of the names on this year's listing are no doubt well-known, whether from their presentations at industry conferences or from the acclaim that their successes have received in the broader business community. In other cases, it will be our pleasure to introduce our readers to executives equally deserving of note for their accomplishments in the field.

This year we continue our year-old tradition of singling out one executive as our Practitioner of the Year. For 2005, Patricia J. Moser, vice president and chief procurement officer with Rogers Communications, is our top practitioner because of her efforts in promoting the strategic role of procurement and the supply chain within the enterprise, and her commitment to applying technology as an enabling tool to lift the supply chain out of the tactical and transform the function into a value-adding organization in today's dynamic corporation.

As always, it was no easy task this year to whittle the scores of Pros to Know nominations that we received down to this year's list. Our selection committee, comprised of the magazine's editorial staff, with assistance from our editorial advisory board, judged each candidate based on the criteria set forth in the submission forms, including personal efforts at enabling the supply chain or educating colleagues, recognition from the broader supply chain community, and general philosophy regarding the application of technology to enable supply chain processes.

What is the common quality that unites all of this year's Pros to Know? Leadership — whether they are spearheading supply chain transformation initiatives to give their own enterprises a competitive edge, working with other organizations to introduce critical process changes or deploy new technologies, or driving advances in the hardware and software that are enabling new efficiencies in the supply and demand chain. Most important, Pros to Know lead by example, offering other supply and demand chain professionals a rich perspective and progressive attitude toward new and emerging technologies. We are certain that they will continue to lead the industry to new heights in the year ahead.

2005 Practitioner of the Year

Patricia J. Moser, Vice President & CPO, Rogers Communications Inc. In an interview last year with Supply & Demand Chain Executive ("Selling Transformation," June/July 2004), Patricia Moser offered what seemed, at the time, like a bold prediction: "Instead of having chief financial officers or chief information officers or the top marketing people ending up being the CEOs of organizations, you're going to start seeing chief procurement officers moving into those roles." Less than a year later, Moser turns out to have been all too prescient, as Japanese automaker Toyota announced in early February that its top purchasing executive, Katsuaki Watanabe, would take over as the company's president after having racked up a record of achieving $9.45 billion in cost savings over three years.

While clairvoyance would be a handy attribute for any purchasing executive, in this case Moser's prescience more likely stems from her own view of how procurement and supply chain management have evolved in recent years. "When I got into the supply chain profession way too long ago, it just wasn't the sexy place to be," she explains. "But I was drawn by the fact that when you're in operations, materials management and supply chain, you inherently have to understand the organization as a whole. Supply chain requires an understanding of the markets and marketing, of finance, of negotiating. It is a full-scope profession. That's why now you have business schools actually teaching supply chain, as opposed to ignoring it." And why more and more enterprises, Moser believes, will turn to their top supply chain executives to take over the helm as presidents and CEOs.

For her part, Moser's career in materials management and operations spans more than 20 years and includes senior positions at companies in such diverse industry sectors as pharmaceuticals, consumer-packaged goods, health care and technology. She joined Canadian communications giant Rogers Communications in February of last year as vice president and chief procurement officer with a charge, in part, to transform the enterprise's procurement function, which is a shared services organization serving Roger's cable, wireless and media divisions. (Rogers also owns baseball's Toronto Blue Jays.) Officially, Moser's purview is to oversee company-wide procurement activities, including process improvement, negotiations, sourcing and supply management at the $3.7 billion organization, which is headquartered in Toronto, where Moser is based.

Moser's philosophy regarding the use of technology to enable the supply and demand chain: "Technology is a tool, an assistant to transformation, but it is inherently not the transforming entity. Technology gives you all this data and information so that you can go in and do your job — not blindly, with assumptions, but with facts."

2005 Practitioner Pros to Know

Chris Armbruster, Director of Supply Chain Strategy, Agere Systems At Allentown, Pa.-based Agere, a global leader in semiconductors for storage, wireless data, and public and enterprise networks, Chris Armbruster focuses on designing operations for speed, flexibility and continuity. Anticipating the high-tech industry's movement away from vertical integration, and recognizing that coordination between trading partners has become critical for success in a horizontally integrated supply chain, Armbruster pioneered Agere's multi-tier collaboration processes involving a customer, a supplier and one or more trading partners between them. Armbruster created innovative just-in-time (JIT) fulfillment methodologies, including a chip JIT pull process that has improved response time to customers while postponing 50 percent of product cost, and a centralized multi-partner JIT pull process for customers using multiple electronic manufacturing service (EMS) providers. His collaboration with Lehigh University led to new patents pending in breakthrough demand management and inventory control methodologies that Agere is using to lower inventories, improve customer service and enhance cash flow.

Bill Chapman, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Avnet Inc. Displaying visionary leadership, Bill Chapman led the development of B2B Partner Automation at technology distributor Avnet, which allows all of the company's partners, regardless of size, to connect directly to Avnet's ERP system without requiring significant changes to their business processes or investment in translation technology. The result: Smaller partners can compete with larger companies from a process efficiency standpoint, and Avnet has generated $40 million in new revenue based on new partner recruitment, with another $50 million in the pipeline. Chapman says, “As large companies continue to develop and build electronically-enabled supply chains with their partners, they will find that they can achieve even greater benefits if they are able to connect not only with their largest partners, but with their small and mid-sized partners as well.”

Neal Clute, Director of Procurement, American Italian Pasta Co. For Neal Clute, collaboration is key to working with the supply base at Kansas City, Mo.-based American Italian Pasta Co. “When we think of our customers, we want to sink our claws into them so deeply that they couldn't shake us off if they tried, and we've encouraged our suppliers to find ways to do that with us, because we know that long-term suppliers are going to provide us with the best value,” says Clute, who has overseen AIPC's use of supplier relationship management solutions from Perfect Commerce to help the company get closer to its supply base. Clute's work to maintain a streamlined procurement organization at AIPC have paid off, too: The company has increased its production capacity by a factor of six since Clute joined the organization 10 years ago, but the procurement group has grown by just two full-time buyers.

Jeffrey A. Coe, Vice President, Sourcing and Logistics, and Chief Procurement Officer, DuPont Jeff Coe brings a valuable perspective to the CPO position at DuPont, the $27 billion global company based in Wilmington, Del. Coe started as a shift supervisor with the company in 1974 and subsequently held manufacturing, technical, marketing and sales management positions with several DuPont businesses prior to being named vice president and general manager of DuPont Chemical Solutions Enterprise in 1998. He was named to his current position in September 2003, leading the DuPont sourcing and logistics organization. In steering the transformation of the global purchasing process at DuPont, Coe carries on a tradition of procurement excellence. In 2004, DuPont “centered” its sourcing and logistics organization to enable standardization and leverage. Currently, DuPont is driving initiatives to Web-enable the company's sourcing and logistics processes, enhancing visibility of spend, compliance and efficiency.

Tim Davies, Director, eSourcing and Technology Work Cell, GlaxoSmithKline “If [GlaxoSmithKline] isn't running auctions today, they are losing money,” says Tim Davies; and he should know. Handed a mandate to free up as much funding to continue the development of market-leading pharmaceutical products, Davies and his team implemented a strategic enterprise supply management platform that, in 2003, filtered $3.8 billion through its tools. With change management in mind, Davies has empowered GSK to run online events for just about anything the company purchases. Such measures have earned GSK the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (CIPS) Supply Management Awards for Best Use of Technology. And Davies and his team were awarded the President's Role of Honor for the savings achieved through the supply management's global hotel program.

Mike Duffy, Vice president, North American Value Chain, The Gillette Co. Taking the lead in supply chain transformation, Mike Duffy has ushered manufacturing giant Gillette's “worst-in-class” supply chain into the “best-in-class” category. Using the premise that the value chain begins and ends at the retailer's shelf, Duffy brought the company's customer service levels up by 10 percent, lowered inventories by 25 percent and cut costs by 3 percent. In addition to his work at Gillette, Duffy has been named to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Supply Chain 2020 (SC2020) Project, which is a multi-year research effort to identify and analyze factors that are critical to the success of future supply chains. Currently he is leading a cross-functional team at Gillette to examine how the company re-engineers business processes in order to improve the speed at which it turns data into information.

Les Long, Manager, Purchasing and O.S., Whayne Supply Even though Whayne Supply is one of the oldest and largest heavy equipment dealerships in North America, Les Long has ensured the company's supply and demand chain is cutting-edge and competitive. Not only did he establish a company-wide purchasing card program and develop an MRO automated stock inventory to support over 15 stores' daily supply needs, Long was the main designer of Whayne's first automated purchase order system. In fact, Long's work at Whayne, a Caterpillar dealer, so impressed executives at Caterpillar headquarters that they have used Whayne as a model for other dealerships, inviting Long to speak to them about reducing costs and automating purchasing. Long, who is also a Six Sigma Green Belt, has developed an ongoing user training program for Whayne's employees involved with procurement, receiving and payments.

R. David Nelson, Vice President, Global Supply Management, Delphi Corp. A thought-leading supply chain practitioner for more than a decade, Dave Nelson has earned widespread recognition for his accomplishments in advancing the practice of supply chain management and in raising the visibility of the field within Corporate America. Nelson first drew attention for his work at Honda of America Manufacturing, where, as vice president of purchasing (and later as senior vice president of purchasing and corporate affairs), he helped guide the company's procurement division as its staff grew fourfold and as its revenues increased by 10 times. He later co-wrote a book about his experiences in supply management at Honda. After a four-year stint as vice president of worldwide supply management at Deere & Co., Nelson joined Delphi and was named to his current position in February 2002. Continuing to raise supply management's profile in the enterprise, Nelson is also a member of the Delphi Strategy Board, the company's top policy-making group, and he serves as the executive champion for Delphi's Global Supply Management Task Team.

Jan Philbrook, Director of Global Trade Compliance, Tyco Fire & Security Trade compliance may be a hot topic since the September 11 terrorist attacks, but Jan Philbrook has been working on trade-related issues for at least a decade. Philbrook joined Sensormatic (which was acquired and became Tyco Fire & Security in 2001) about 15 years ago, and she took over as distribution and transportation manager at the company in 1995. Since then she has spearheaded the business' efforts to build a trade compliance organization at the company and to ensure compliance throughout the company's global operations. Largely self-educated in the ways of trade compliance, Philbrook has made training for Tyco Fire & Security staff on compliance issues a priority, along with strengthening and standardizing the company's processes around compliance. As a result of these efforts, Philbrook believes that Tyco Fire & Security has been able to provide higher levels of service to its customers, turning compliance into a competitive weapon.

John Quist, Manufacturing Director, Cypress Semiconductor Corp. A frequent speaker on environmentally friendly manufacturing processes, Quist has more than 20 years of semiconductor manufacturing experience and is a recognized lead-free and manufacturing process expert. Over the past three years, he has led the effort with Cypress' manufacturing facilities and customers to implement the conversion to lead-free manufacturing, and he has spoken before industry audiences to educate the sector about the requirements of these looming regulatory requirements. “Green,” Quist says flatly, “is the future.” (See the article “Get the Lead Out!” on page 50 for more of Quist's views on this issue.)

Robert A. Rudzki, Chief Procurement Officer, Bayer Corporate and Business Services LLC With nearly 30 years experience in the supply chain field, Robert Rudzki today is responsible for providing materials management and procurement services to Bayer businesses in the NAFTA region through Bayer Corporate and Business Services (BCBS), a member of the worldwide Bayer Group. Rudzki also is a member of Bayer's global Community Council Procurement, which guides Bayer's global procurement activities. A firm believer in the use of e-sourcing tools, Rudzki has spearheaded the company's strategic sourcing efforts, which have resulted in more than $200 million in savings for the NAFTA region since 2001. In addition, he has led the company's North American procurement organization to market its services to outside clients, turning the procurement function into a bottom-line contributor for Bayer.

Quentin Samelson, Director, eSupply Strategy, Motorola In 2000, Samelson headed a team at Motorola to explore supplier e-commerce, an area in which the communications technology giant lagged. The result was the development of the Motorola Internet Negotiations Tool (MINT), which has captured savings in excess of $600 million so far — all without disruption to the company's long-standing supplier relationships. Samelson's initiatives with regard to MINT garnered Motorola the 2004 Edelman Award at the Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences (INFORMS) annual meeting. Today Samelson is responsible for leading the Advanced Procurement Technology team at Motorola, which keeps the company abreast of leading-edge technologies and oversees their implementation. He has also shared his experiences and visions for supply management and sourcing at numerous industry conferences worldwide.

Steve Sherman, Vice President of Supply Chain Strategy and Business Simplification, Lucent Technologies The flexibility to change was what Lucent needed to survive the shakeup in the telecom market a few years ago, and that's exactly what Steve Sherman delivered. He transformed Lucent's manufacturing model by shifting 29 unwieldy internal factories to three smaller, focused Systems Integration Centers; reducing inventory levels from over $8 billion to less than $800 million; raising gross margin levels into the 40 percent range; and improving delivery performance by over 50 percent. As part of this undertaking, Sherman promoted a culture change for Lucent's leadership and employees, creating a supply chain network vision and focus that positioned the company as a systems and solution company. He was also an early proponent for fundamental target costing on Lucent's products and solutions, which led to a partnership between the supply chain team and the sales and product management teams to understand customer requirements and build margin-modeling tools.

Scott Singer, Director of Global General Procurement, United Technologies Corp. A 17-year veteran of UTC, Scott Singer stepped into his current role in February 2004, and he now oversees the company's worldwide general procurement initiative, UT500, which is credited with saving hundreds of millions of dollars annually through contract revisions, policy changes, streamlined processes and enhanced technology. So successful has the program been, in fact, that the company increased UT500's overall domestic savings goal to $1 billion by year-end from the original target of $500 million in three years. The program has also spurred a successful European program and an Asian version that will start this year. Formerly a director of procurement and sourcing for UTC division Sikorsky, Singer now reports to UTC Vice President of Supply Management Kent Brittan, himself a pioneer in applying technology to enable the supply chain (and a Pro to Know alum).

2005 Provider Pros to Know

The Supply & Demand Chain Executive Provider Pros to Know is a listing of individuals from supply and demand chain solution providers who exhibit deep domain knowledge and innovative thinking within the industry. Through a dedication to continued improvement in supply chain technology, these individuals have worked to help supply chain management professionals by equipping them with the proper tools. While there are many other individuals contributing to the advancement of supply and demand chain enablement, those included on our 2005 list were selected from among individuals who submitted completed Provider Pros to Know applications and met the requirements set forth in the submissions application.

Jay Baitler, Executive Vice President, Staples Inc. — Strong advocate of “total cost” approach to sourcing and procurement.

Robert Barnes, Founder and CEO, PrimeRevenue Inc. — Calls for extending the benefits of technology into the financial supply chain in a way that benefits both buyers and suppliers.

David Bush, Founder, Iasta — Educates the supply chain community on the use of Web-based tools for supply chain management. Frequent guest speaker on sourcing and supply management themes before industry audiences.

Fadi Chehadé, co-Founder, CEO and Chairman, Viacore — A founder of RosettaNet and a frequent speaker on the competitive advantages to be gained through information sharing, collaboration and integration across enterprise boundaries.

Rob Cissel, Vice President, Customer Development, Frictionless Commerce Inc. — Calls on sourcing organizations to continuously strive to increase the amount of an enterprise's spend under management in order to drive incremental cost savings to the bottom line.

Dr. Morris A. Cohen, Founder and Chairman of the Board, MCA Solutions — Focuses on developing and applying analytical model-based methods derived from real world supply chains, particularly in the area of after-sales service product support.

Joint Award: Sean Devine, Director of Client Services, and Sherry Gordon, Vice President, Supplier Performance Intelligence, Emptoris Inc. — Devine promotes the value of optimization in strategic sourcing, allowing buyers to analyze large quantities of information to create “what if” scenarios to realize the true cost of each purchase. Gordon helped pioneer the field of enabling supplier performance measurement.

Steven D. Duket, Solutions Manager, MAPICS Inc. — Evangelizer working to help companies understand both why it is necessary to adopt new collaborative approaches in the supply chain and how these approaches can be applied.

Jason Gilroy, Vice President, Outsourcing, ICG Commerce — Frequent speaker and writer on procurement outsourcing.

Rene Jones, President and CEO, AHN Corp. — Thought-leader on improving warehouse operations, author of the recent book This Place Sucks — What Your Warehouse Employees Think about Your Company and How to Change Their Perceptions!

Dr. Jeff Karrenbauer, President, INSIGHT Inc. — Expert on optimization and simulation models for designing and analyzing complex supply chains and integrated logistics systems.

J. Michael Kilgore, President and CEO, Chainalytics — Early advocate of integrated supply chain planning and the value of incorporating transportation and distribution into the planning process.

George Klaus, President, CEO and Chairman, Epicor Software Corp. — Evangelizer for applying business best practices to supply chain management, including strategies for effectively collaborating with customers, suppliers and partners for improved business results.

John Madrid, Executive Vice President, Strategic Sourcing Services, Procuri Inc. — Believes in establishing fundamental sourcing best practices as the basis for awarding business to produce “total best value” for a company.

Dr. Nissim Ozer, Chief Technology Officer, RF Code Inc. — Featured speaker and expert at industry conferences and symposia on hybrid radio frequency identification (RFID) software and on evolutionary data collection schemes within the modern supply chain.

Joseph Pecoraro, President and CEO, Archimedian Software — Early evangelizer on the benefits of e-sourcing, promoting the adoption of tools and the expansion of new functionality into such areas as optimization and category management.

Dalip Raheja, President and CEO, The Mpower Group — Pioneer in integrating change management techniques in the supply chain management field, and recently has been advancing the thinking around supplier relationship management.

Peter Regen, Vice President, Global Visible Commerce, Unisys Corp. — Leader in promoting the adoption of RFID and other technologies for tracking, tracing and securing goods and assets.

Will Reilly, Solutions Executive, Ascential Software — In the 1990s helped to transform Big Blue's procurement operations from a fragmented group to a cohesive community in the largest deployment of e-procurement technology of its time.

Emily Rodriguez, Vice President, Program Management, eBoomerang Inc. — Evangelizer for improving the customer experience in the reverse logistics portion of supply chain, speaking and writing on the topic to a broad industry audience.

Tom Sanderson, President and Chief Operating Officer, Transplace — Helped create the logistics industry's first optimization-based transportation procurement system. Regular presenter at industry conferences.

Jagadish Turimella, Co-founder, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Technology Officer, Global eProcure — Early promoter of applying e-sourcing and reverse auctions for service categories.

Rajiv Uppal, President, CEO and Founder, NextLinx Corp. — Pioneer in the development of trade compliance solutions and an online database of U.S. export/import and international trade regulations to help streamline the global supply chain.

John West, Chairman, Silver Oak Solutions — Early advocate of applying private sector supply/demand chain management technologies and practices to a statewide government environment.

Jim Wilson, Vice President of Trade Management Consulting, Vastera — Early advocate of taking a global approach to the supply chain. Frequent lecturer on global trade management issues.

2005 Provider Pros — Former Practitioners

Many executives working at solution providers in the supply chain field began their careers on the other side of the equation, as practitioners working to manage the supply chains of brick and mortar companies. This year, Supply & Demand Chain Executive recognizes those Provider Pros who bring this practitioner perspective to their current work at solution providers. While there are many other “former practitioners” in the supply chain enabler community, those included on our 2005 list were selected from among individuals who submitted completed Provider Pros to Know applications and met the requirements set forth in the submissions application.

Greg Baxter, Founder and CEO, Baxter Planning Systems — Applied the concepts of classic inventory control/modeling to the service sector, creating a model in which the cost of a customer stockout is balanced against the cost of carrying inventory to help revolutionize service parts planning at Texas Instruments.

Bob Calderoni, CEO, Ariba — Early proponent of expanding e-procurement to encompass the broader concept of enterprise spend management, helping win acceptance of electronic purchasing tools among chief financial officers. Former CFO for Avery Dennison, corporate controller for Apple Computer and CFO for IBM's $8 billion Storage Systems Division.

Chuck Irwin, President, e4score.com — A thought-leader in the North American logistics marketplace, Chuck Irwin's passion is transportation collaboration between shipper and carrier, a topic on which he frequently writes and is often quoted. A veteran of Unilever, where the last position in his 22-year career with the company was Director of Transportation.

Tim McEneny, President and CEO, PurchasingNet Inc. — Credited with creating the first commercially available PC-based purchasing system in 1982, and the first ever Web-based purchasing system in 1996. As a practitioner from 1970 to 1981, implemented ERP systems at companies such as Singer, IBM and Sara Lee.

Jim Neikirk, President, Perfect Commerce — Long-time supply chain practitioner, former chief procurement officer (with Entergy), and champion for the “professionalization” of the supply chain, elevating the supply organization from a staff function to a strategic business contributor.

Terry Onica, Director, Automotive Marketing, QAD Inc. — Early pioneer in implementing electronic data interchange while a practitioner at Ford Motor Co. and Johnson Controls Inc. Co-chaired the development of the automotive industry's first standard for the interoperability of inventory visibility applications, a significant milestone on the path to connecting every tier of the supply chain.

2005 Provider Pros — On Demand Evangelizers

The movement to offer software as a service has been an important trend in the enterprise solution marketplace, allowing many companies to use supply chain solutions on an “on demand” basis. This year, Supply & Demand Chain Executive recognizes the significance of this trend by singling out a group of Provider Pros who have made contributions to evangelizing the broader use of “on demand” solutions for supply and demand chain enablement. While there are many other “evangelizers” of the on demand model, those included on our 2005 list were selected from among individuals who submitted completed Provider Pros to Know applications and met the requirements set forth in the submissions application.

Nate Lentz, President and CEO, Verticalnet — Believes that on demand applications are easier to use and thus more broadly adopted across supply management organizations, as well as easier to manage.

John Raeder, President and CEO, IQNavigator — Helped pioneer the application of e-sourcing tools and the “software as service” model to help enterprises manage all aspects of the services delivery lifecycle.

Steve Savignano, CEO, Ketera Technologies — Early evangelizer for the on demand model and for applying modularized, Web-based software to the challenges of enterprise spend management, as well as bringing e-procurement tools to mid-market companies.

Kevin Hart, President and Chief Operating Officer, Optum — Applied the concept of on demand to supply chain execution and warehouse management systems, with an eye toward improving order fill-rates and service level agreement compliance.

Dan Dershem, President, LeanLogistics — Pioneer in applying the “software as service” model to the logistics field and transportation management systems to manage information between trading partners, including suppliers, consignees, shippers, carriers and 3PLs.

Kurt Cavano, Chairman and CEO, TradeCard — Applied the on demand approach to the financial supply chain to help buyers and their suppliers manage international trade transactions over the Internet.

Tom Glassanos, President and CEO, Xign Corp. — Recognized for his efforts in inventing the concept of buyer-side settlement automation, and in promoting the use of Web-based solutions for payment processes in the supply chain.

2005 Consultant Pros to Know

The 2005 Consultant Pros to Know list recognizes individuals from consulting companies (or consulting divisions of larger companies) who have exhibited deep domain knowledge and innovative thinking within the industry, and who have a demonstrated track-record in assisting brick-and-mortar enterprises in enabling their supply and demand chains for competitive advantage. While there are many other individuals contributing to the advancement of supply and demand chain enablement, those included on our 2005 list were selected from among individuals who submitted the appropriate applications and met the requirements set forth in the submissions application.

Monica Isbell, Founder, Starboard Alliance Co. — Formerly director of corporate logistics and trade with Columbia Sportswear, and manager of purchasing and inventory control at Asics Tiger Corp. during her 20-plus year career as an international logistician. Isbell today is a leading authority on international trade processes and a frequent speaker on logistics issues and supply chain security before industry audiences.

James D. Kiser, Vice President of Operations, ADR International — Kiser's work as an e-procurement analyst has helped advance the use of online technologies at the major U.S. automotive companies, leading to the development of new, efficient procurement processes to speed transactions and provide real-time access to critical purchasing data.

Roland Roberts, Senior Managing Consultant, Procurement, EDS — Roberts developed and maintained a “Spend Analysis for Varied Environments Information Tool” (SAVE-IT) that extracts accounts payable data from differing financial systems and programmatically rearranges it to produce purchasing spend information. This spend information is currently used by EDS' international purchasing department personnel to determine areas that need oversight, helping to lower unit expenses.

2005 Practitioner Pros to Know Group Award: Exelon Corp.

When Philadelphia-based PECO Energy and Chicago's Unicom Corp. merged in October 2000, the union created a $15 billion energy giant serving customers in Illinois and Pennsylvania. But the merger left the joined company's decentralized supply chain largely intact until 2002, when Exelon brought its supply chain leads together to discuss options for transforming the company's approach to supply management. The group came up with a plan for consolidating all the company's supply chains within Exelon's Business Services Company (BSC), which also includes information technology (IT), human resources, finance and legal.

The task of managing this transformation fell initially to Bridget Reidy, who was named the company's first chief supply officer in 2003 to head up the initiative. In addition to streamlining Exelon's supply chains, the three-year consolidation plan called for revisiting all the company's spend categories from an enterprise-wide perspective and re-sourcing categories using a total cost of ownership (TCO) approach; standardizing supply chain practices and processes; and maintaining or improving supply chain service levels. The timeline and goals for what became known as the Supply Chain Transformation Initiative (SCTI) were ambitious: bring the new supply organization together, unify the company's supply staff in a new reporting structure and begin acting as an enterprise-wide supply chain in just four months, and then achieve $200 million in savings over the three-year life of the project, including $120 million in the first year.

Reidy was promoted in July 2004 to senior vice president for customer and marketing services with the Exelon Energy Delivery business, and Craig Adams took over as senior vice president and chief supply officer (CSO) with Exelon. Other key executives on the SCTI team include Krista Robinson, vice president of supply strategic sourcing; David O'Brien, vice president of supply operations; and Delia Stroud, vice president of supply business operations and governance.

Individually, each of these executives has overseen significant transformation in Exelon's supply chain. On the strategic sourcing side, Exelon reorganized its sourcing specialists around spending portfolios and gave category managers responsibility for all the operational issues involved in their spend categories, and Exelon developed a database to allow the company to view its spend enterprise-wide. Meanwhile, the Supply Operations group has focused on achieving staffing efficiencies by streamlining processes and eliminating redundancies, including by standardizing on best practices consistently across Exelon.

Business Operations and Governance, a new department within the consolidated Supply organization, was formed to optimize the effectiveness of Supply's strategic and tactical arms by standardizing processes, applying consistent business planning, driving new automation opportunities, coordinating internal and external communications, and developing cross-functional approaches to provide business solutions. The group leads Exelon's Supplier Diversity program to interject more diversity suppliers into the procurement process, drives Supply's projects and programs, provides direction and support for e-business and systems administration and governance and coordination of key metrics, business processes and planning.

Working together, this team has already achieved significant results and was on track to hit the first year savings target. But Reidy says that an equally important accomplishment has been the new strategic partnership that the SCTI team has forged between the business units and the supply organization, a relationship that will be critical as Exelon continues its drive to eliminate supply chain costs.

Read more about the Exelon Team's story in “Come Together” from the December 2004/January 2005 issue of Supply & Demand Chain Executive.

Editor's Note: Supply & Demand Chain Executive recognizes that there are "Pros to Know" that exist beyond this list, and we may have inadvertently missed some innovative candidates. We encourage readers to nominate candidates during the submissions period in November and December each year. To be placed on a list to be notified when the submission criteria for the 2006 list are released, please e-mail your request to Andrew K. Reese, editor of Supply & Demand Chain Executive, at [email protected].