What courses are essential for an individual going
into the supply chain profession today? Q
A They should take courses on basic business functions uch as accounting, finance, marketing, operations,
purchasing, human resources, and logistics as well as integrative course work in supply chain management.
Q
What advice would you offer a young person considering a career in logistics or supply chain?
A I always tell students to find a job they will enjoy. If you have fun on the job, you will put forth the effort.
If you apply yourself, the rest is taken care of. If you have
fun, success will follow.
Q
A
If you could return to school as a student for a day,
what’s the one course you would take?
Spanish. Unfortunately, in all my trips to Latin
America, I haven’t learned it, so probably a one-day
course wouldn’t be enough to improve my skills.
Angel L. Mendez
ANGEL L. MENDEZ, SENIOR VICE PRESident of customer value chain management at
Cisco Systems Inc., was instrumental in setting up his company’s risk management program to handle disruptions. In particular, he
helped develop the company’s “Resiliency
Index,” which measures the ability to bounce
back quickly from a supply chain disruption.
Mendez joined Cisco in 2005 after working
for such companies as General Electric, Allied
Signal, Citigroup, and Gateway. He currently
leads a global organization that provides customers with a
total quality experience spanning collaborative planning,
product design, manufacturing, product quality, order management, delivery, and customer service.
How did you end up in the supply chain profession? Q
A I studied electrical engineering in college and was con- templating a design engineering career. Then, my last
summer in college, I was lucky enough to get an internship
at a Medtronic pacemaker factory outside of San Juan,
Puerto Rico. That’s when I realized I didn’t want to be in a
lab. I wanted to be making stuff. After college, I was recruited into GE’s manufacturing management program, and I
spent my first working years running manufacturing facilities, operations, and logistics in a variety of places.
risk manag
A Our Resiliency Index is a measure of our ability to recover the revenue produced by a product after the supply chain is
interrupted by an event. It measures how
quickly we’re able to restore the flow of that
product to its pre-event status. We use the
metric of time to recover, or TTR.
We had to invent the index because we
weren’t able to find any pre-existing standards
or metrics that met our needs. The business
driver was to have a sense of priority for our
ement program. Not all products are created
equal, and not all products have the same time to recovery.
The index is applied at the business unit level, helping us
understand the degree of resiliency for the business unit’s
specific products and the corresponding supply chains. A
number of factors are considered, including the time needed for manufacturing, testing, and component sourcing to
recover after a disruption, and whether we have only one or
multiple sources for any components.
With the Resiliency Index, we’re able to measure the current state of resiliency—and address early any areas needing
improvement. It also gives us an easy and intuitive way to
report supply chain resiliency to our top management, as
well as a framework for assigning priorities and making
investment decisions.
What’s your greatest personal accomplishment to
date in the supply chain field? Q
A I’d say it’s the transition we’ve driven at Cisco, which has gone from an organization focused on manufacturing
excellence to one focused on excellence in managing an extended supply chain to one that’s translating the many different
kinds of innovation coming from Cisco into value. Supply
chain at Cisco is no longer seen as a cost center but as a key
innovation driver, contributing to Cisco’s top-line growth.
Q
Can you describe Cisco’s Resiliency Index and why it
was developed?
What’s the biggest challenge that supply chain professionals face today? Q
A Dealing with the disruptive effects of the economy on a worldwide basis. No one is immune. The downturn
will have lasting effects on many industries.
In response to the economic challenges, we’re doing more
than ever to design out rigidity from our supply chain:
eliminating nodes, trying to get fewer touches, and finding
second sources for suppliers. Cisco has invested in having a
strong supply chain risk radar and mitigation system, so we
have better visibility into where we’re headed. We’re also
working more closely than ever with customers and suppliers to spot trends early so we can optimize how we react.
