thoughtleaders
Joyce Maruniak
A DEGREE IN CHEMICAL ENGINEERING
may not be the usual path to a career in supply chain and logistics management. But
that was the route taken by Joyce Maruniak.
After finishing school, she went to work for
the chemical giant E.I. DuPont de Nemours
and after a time migrated into supply chain
management.
Today, she is vice president of supply
chain development for Advance Auto Parts
Inc., where she is overseeing the design and
implementation of a new network strategy for the automotive aftermarket retailer. She brings to that task more than
two decades of experience in supply chain operations and
quality management, including direct line management,
strategy development, global project leadership, and consulting for major corporations.
Before joining Advance Auto Parts, Maruniak held senior
logistics executive posts with The Sharper Image, Best Buy,
and Sola International. She also spent some time as a senior
partner for Paul F. Politte Consulting LLC.
type of service we wanted to provide, what
we wanted the infrastructure to look like,
what the facilities should do, and what they
should look like internally. We redesigned
operations within the facilities and also went
through optimization and simulation modeling, looking at various business scenarios.
We’re in the first phase of implementation,
opening a new DC in Remington, Ind., that
will be our first location with a new WMS.
QWhat are the project’s goals?
A We are looking for an improvement in operational costs as well as responsiveness to the stores, enabling
increased product availability. We’re expecting a significant
improvement in service levels and shipping accuracy, as
well as in our overall cost structure as a percentage of sales.
QYou recently oversaw development of a new supply chain network strategy for Advance Auto Parts. What
led the company to overhaul its network and what was
involved?
A Over the last few years, Advance has gone through a change in strategy and focus. We’ve become more
focused on the commercial customer, which required looking at a different level of service and availability in order to
be responsive to those customers. Additionally, we were
tight on capacity and needed to make investments in distribution capacity. These were the key drivers behind the new
network strategy.
The strategy development included an evaluation of what
QYou have a degree in chemical engineering. What brought you to logistics and supply chain management?
A I started my career at DuPont and spent quite a while there. Luckily, they took the approach of hiring engineers and chemists and letting them do almost anything.
They gave people the opportunity to move around in different roles in the company and to develop in areas you
might not have considered. I moved into supply chain there
and found that’s what I was really interested in.
QWhat specifically attracted you to it?
A To me, it’s a very interesting and much more analytical field than people might think. I love a challenge, and
there are always opportunities for problem-solving or to do
things better. It is not as routine as people might expect.
John Lanigan
AT BNSF RAILWAY, BEFORE THERE WAS
W.B., there was J.L. John Lanigan joined
BNSF in January 2003 as executive vice president and chief marketing officer after the
company he ran, Logistics.com, was sold to
Manhattan Associates. Since joining BNSF,
Lanigan has been its nonoperational glue,
heading the rail’s sales, marketing, customer
service, economic development, and business unit activities.
His tenure there has been memorable. In 2006, Berkshire
Hathaway Inc., the conglomerate controlled by billionaire
Warren E. Buffett, began accumulating shares of BNSF stock.
Three years later, Buffett went all-in, buying the 78 percent of
BNSF he didn’t own for $26 billion, taking it
private in the biggest deal in Berkshire’s history and one of the most significant transactions
of the past 10 years.
QHow has your job changed as a result of the Berkshire acquisition? And has
the company’s attitude and strategy been
affected by the acquisition and privatization?
A My duties and responsibilities have not changed at all. In fact, I have more time
to spend with customers since I no longer meet with Wall
Street analysts. Very little has changed with how we run the
company since the Berkshire acquisition. We remain highly
