May 2024 Insights: Supply Chain Academy, Robots & Safety

This month, we delve into the Oklahoma Manufacturing Supply Chain Summit, the confluence of safety & automation, a dive into American manufacturing productivity and more.

Oklahoma Manufacturing Alliance: supply chain academy

Above: panel discussion featuring Dr. Sharon Harrison, Dave Rowland, Shane Barber, Dr. Rajesh Krishnamurthy, Bryan Gauger, Ruslan Illyshenko and Dr. Sunderesh Heragu

The state of Oklahoma is seeing “tremendous growth” in its manufacturing base, according to the Oklahoma Department of Commerce. As part of its efforts to The Oklahoma Manufacturing Alliance conducted its first supply chain academy on May 1, 2024 in Claremore, Oklahoma. During the event, insights into supply chain management were extensively covered by the alliance, its panelists, presenters and keynote speakers.

The event also featured tours of Oklahoma’s advanced manufacturing center and an overview of the OMA’s Connex program.

Keynotes, breakout sessions and panel discussions

• Keynote: Supply Chain and Logistics Trends – Dr. Sunderesh Heragu, Oklahoma Manufacturing Alliance/Oklahoma State University
• Breakout Session: AI and Demand Inventory Management – Brien Wood, OMA Technical Services
• Breakout Session: Building a resilient, agile supply chain in response to global disruptions – Doug McKnight, supply chain expert
• Breakout Session: Reshoring, nearshoring and friendshoring – Amanda Miller, Cisco-Eagle Systems Integration Group

Above: Cisco-Eagle’s Amanda Miller presented on Reshoring, Nearshoring and Friendshoring at the Supply Chain Academy

The alliance’s mission is to assist Oklahoma manufacturers in their efforts to grow and evolve by helping them optimize operations. The alliance has a broad range of state and national resources that allows it to provide manufacturers with the resources they need to grow.

The alliance is conducting another of these events on June 12 in Ardmore, Oklahoma.

Can robots improve workforce safety?

In this article, EHS Today poses a fundamental question for order fulfillment and manufacturing operations working to automate their processes: does it make people safer? The common sense answer is that it does. Anything that can remove people from dangerous operations tends to make them safer.

What are the caveats?

• Various types of robots have different functions and different ways they interact with people. A cobot palletizer inherently works closely with people, while a fully automated robotic arm works without human presence.
• Robots that move (like AMRs and AGVs) have fundamentally different safety questions relating to pedestrian traffic and equipment.
• Robots that can replace people in dangerous situations (like working at height, around shock hazards or near hazardous materials) hace higher safety values.
• When robotic systems reduce ergonomic stresses, they tend to make operations safer.
• All of these solutions have challenges in terms of traiining, planning and implementation.

U.S. Manufacturing productivity: a thread

US manufacturing has a massive fundamental problem—it hasn’t seen productivity growth in 17 years

That makes it increasingly impossible for the US to compete in key areas, and the recent industrial policy push will fail unless it can end that stagnation🧵https://t.co/TgnGRUxqjC

— Joey Politano 🏳️‍🌈 (@JosephPolitano) May 14, 2024

Quick hits

• Reuters: US manufacturing sector regresses in April; prices paid near two-year high. American manufacturing contracted in April as orders declined. At the same time, the cost of manufacturing inputs surged, putting further pressure on the sector. The good news? Delivery performance from suppliers has greatly improved.
• Reshoring & Sustainability: A Sensible Solution on the Reshoring Institute blog, covers the relationship between sustainability and the current wave of reshoring. By simply manufacturing things where we consume them, supply chains become more sustainable, simpler and economically viable.
• Amid the slowdown in manufacturing, however, new construction continues to grow. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, private manufacturing construction jumped 2% in December 2023 to $224.2 billion in January 2024. That’s an increase of almost 37% year-over-year and 130.6% over the last two years.

Scott Stone is Cisco-Eagle's Vice President of Marketing with more than thirty years of experience in material handling, warehousing and industrial operations. His work is published in multiple industry journals an websites on a variety of warehousing topics. He writes about automation, warehousing, safety, manufacturing and other areas of concern for industrial operations and those who operate them.