With the rise of ESG (environmental, social, and governance) investing strategies, Supply Chain Sustainability now has money attached. This Focus Day will be a mix of sustainability strategies and sustainability tactics – we’ve found from past events that if we’re biased too far towards either end of the spectrum, we don’t deliver sufficient value. The mix of the two gives some direction to the discussion but also provides a long list of immediately actionable activities in place right now (or in pilot stages) at OEMs. This Focus Day will incorporate outside-industry examples from other industries where sustainability may be further developed than in the aftersales business. The Focus Day will also cover data availability, desired metrics, and develop a path to achieve those metrics. The Sustainability Focus Day, as with all Ducker Carlisle sustainability events, is half price – whatever is the price on your Term Sheet for Focus Days, you’ll pay half that for this Focus Day.

Our 2023 Warehouse Automation Focus Day was an enormous success, and one of our key takeaways from it influences the design of this similar (but broader) Focus Day proposed for 2024. We learned that automation systems are an important component of warehouse technology and systems, but a single-minded focus on automation is overly narrow.

With ever-increasing volumes of technology, how are companies handling technology implementation? This seems less problematic in recent years than it was 5-7 years ago – why?

Retail Inventory Management (RIM) is a critical business tool used by most OEMs in the industry – it is key to achieving high dealer off-the-shelf fill and ultimately, end-customer satisfaction. For this reason, the RIM Focus Day is the only one that we conduct on an annual basis, with participants continuing to see significant value in the increasingly detailed discussion. Due to the expansive and detailed nature of the topics covered at this focus day, it takes place over 2 days, as opposed to our normal single day offering. Exact topics vary each year depending on OEM interest levels, but typically cover items such as:

• Overview and updates on each OEM’s system
• Detailed functionality deep-dives
• System demos
• Next generation technologies

Each year, we gather supply chain leaders for two meetings – at the conference in the spring, and then about six months later at this Focus Day. Unlike our traditional Focus Days, this session is a more free-flowing discussion amongst OEM participants, with Ducker Carlisle facilitators guiding the discussion. The scope of this Focus Day is limited to a few key topics, in order to drive deeper discussion and more meaningful, actionable insights. Specific topics for this Focus Day will be driven by executive input following the NAPB conference. This Focus Day answers questions such as:

• What keeps OEM executives up at night
• What are the new “hot topics” that will be impacting our industry in the next several years?
• How are OEMs planning for these impacts?
• How are OEMs handling a world in which there are so few parts out there to sell?