The power of data, AI and digital transformation in the supply chain

June 19

On the Red Sofa at ALSC Digital Strategies North America 2025, Chandan Trehan, digital supply chains and logistics lead at Bosch USA, shared key insights on leading successful digital transformation initiatives.

Trehan emphasised the importance of starting with a thorough, honest assessment of an organisation’s readiness and motivation for change. He stressed that transformation should not be seen as “just a technology refresh programme,” but a holistic process that requires people-centric planning. To ensure employee engagement, Trihan recommends consistent communication of the “why” behind the change, paired with upskilling initiatives. Bosch implements a “digital fluency programme”, ensuring all employees, regardless of role, gain foundational digital and AI knowledge.

Acknowledging the challenges of digitalisation, Trehan underscored the value of resilience and adaptability. “It is OK to fail, but it is important to fail fast and learn from those mistakes and pivot as and when possible,” he noted. He advocates for breaking the journey into smaller projects, encouraging a culture of openness and learning. For organisations starting out, his advice is clear: “Go bold, go big, set up more audacious goals for transformation.” However, he also urges pragmatism in execution, focusing on quick wins, flexibility, and team encouragement.

This approach, he believes, is key to long-term digital success – watch his full interview below:

June 19

John Godfrey, head of logistics at Pirelli Tire North America, sat down on the Red Sofa to discuss the company’s roadmap for digitalisation, particularly through the evolution of warehouse management (WMS) and transport management systems (TMS). Pirelli is shifting from second- to third-generation WMS, now incorporating barcode scanning and GPS tracking to increase visibility and control over shipments. “We’re looking at solutions both internally and externally to better serve the US market and globally,” Godfrey noted.

Godfrey emphasised the strategic goals behind these digital upgrades, focusing on cost control, improved ROI and predictive capabilities. Ownership and effective use of data were also key themes, as he highlighted the importance of generating and analysing more logistics data to inform better decision-making. As Pirelli enhances digital tools, it is also investing in talent, seeking team members with both technical and strategic skills to drive innovation.

Pirelli’s roadmap includes further transportation efficiencies and a new TMS system, aiming for measurable progress within the next year. “It’s always about the cost reduction, the visibility and the control of the logistics flow,” said Godfrey, summing up the company’s guiding priorities in its digital transformation journey.

Watch the full interview below:

June 13

Christopher Ludwig, chief content officer at Automotive Logistics, took to the Red Sofa again at ALSC Digital Strategies North America – but as an interviewee this time.

He reflected on the industry’s growing need for resilience and digital transformation. He highlighted that supply chain disruptions – ranging from Covid-19 to extreme weather and new tariff – have underscored the need for changes in logistics. “We need better visibility, we need connectivity to map our tier-end supply chain… to make decisions faster,” Ludwig said, emphasising the importance of using real-time data and AI to stay ahead of potential crises.

Watch the full interview for a insightful overview of how the industry has engaged with digitalisation:

June 13

The next Red Sofa from ALSC Digital Strategies North America features Skotti Fietsam, senior vice president, supply chain and CIO, Accuride.

Since her Red Sofa at last year’s event, Fietsam has been appointed CIO at Accuride. This dual role allows her to be a “bridge” between technology and operations, allowing him to better identify priorities and eliminate inefficiencies. “I feel like I am that liaison at a high point,” Fitzum explains, emphasising the importance of understanding both sides of the business.

A key focus has been navigating complex tariff environments and compliance demands. By leveraging tools like AI, Acuride is streamlining data to improve responsiveness and decision-making. Fitzum notes the shift from reactive to proactive planning, saying, “We really need to stop looking backward and start moving forward.”

Watch the full interview below:

June 12

The first Red Sofa from ALSC Digital Strategies North America is now live!

Day one’s Keynote speaker, Gerardo de la Torre, regional senior director of supply chain management at Nissan Group of the Americas, sat down on the Red Sofa to expand on Nissan’s supplier visibility platform.

Answering questions from Christopher Ludwig, chief content officer at Automotive Logistics, he explores how the digital platform offers unprecendented tier-n visibility for the OEM and its partners, including a recent example of how it helped counter a cybersecurity attack.

Watch the full Red Sofa below:

June 10

As the second day of ALSC Digital Strategies North America came to an end, Automotive Logistics’s chief content officer, Christopher Ludwig, took to the Red Sofa to summarise the day’s discussions.

Ludwig outlined how AI, digital control towers, and secure data-sharing are being increasingly integrated into logistics, driven by compliance pressures and the need for real-time visibility. He pointed to presentations from Scott Mabry at Volkswagen Group of America and Eric Elliot at Nissan as being two demonstrations of these transformative ideas in practice.

Watch the recap video below!

June 10

Panel: Managing supply chain compliance for existing and rapidly emerging requirements

Nissan’s Shumake is being joined onstage by Skotti Fietsam, senior vice-president of supply chain and CIO at Accuride; Carrie McConnaughey, regional production control and logistics manager, Americas at Aptiv; and Moe Saleh, president and CEO of Greatway.

Fietsam emphasises the overwhelming burden of compliance surveys and regulations, noting, “If it says something from a customer and they need some compliance, they send it to supply chain.” She touches on the complex layers of Environmental, Social, and Governace (ESG) regulations involved in compliance, and how a centralised platform can help manage compliance data across suppliers and customers. ”Having the information in one place is a starting point, I think, to ensure that compliance. But that’s not enough for our customers because our customers are continuously sending us information. We have to pick and choose out of our database which will identify the red, yellow, greens… and we use that tool to identify those. Then how do we go after them and ensure that we’re satisfying our customers? That’s where the difficulty comes,” she comments.

McConnaughey, meanwhile, spotlights the pitfalls of relying on inaccurate supplier data: “A lot of times our suppliers were answering our surveys with not credible information.” She outlines the financial consequences of noncompliance with tariffs and how her team now engages third-party services to improve accuracy, stating failure ”can mean millions of dollars if you don’t follow the rules of engagement.”

Salah brings the LSP perspective to the panel, adding that “our job is to provide that custom solution for each and every one of our customers to provide the compliance.” He detailed the geographic and agency-specific nuances of cross-border logistics and the critical role a knowledgeable compliance team plays. He adds that these nuances ”incorporate into setting up a compliance team that’s well educated, well informed on what our customer needs and what our government needs as well. Each and every one of our government agencies requires a little extra special niche when it comes to it.”

Shumake expands on this approach to teambuilding. He stresses the value of cross-functional skills in tackling compliance, sharing, “I actually recruited a mathematician… someone that had that strong SQL, Python language… to help me handle the data at scale.”

Together, the panellists reinforce that compliance is no longer a siloed function but a core capability requiring tech-savviness, cross-disciplinary collaboration and proactive supplier engagement.

June 10

Presentation: Turning compliance complexity into supply chain and logistics gains

We’re heading into our final session of ALSC Digital Strategies North America 2025! We’re hearing from Adam Shumake, senior manager of SCM compliance at Nissan Group of Americas, who is talking about how Nissan is developing a strategic approach to ever rising complexity in supply chain compliance, from from managing legal requirements to supplier transparency.

Giving advice on what to do about compliance, Shumake says: “Take that first step, think about what your minimum viable solutions could be.”

He adds that you need to make your data FAIR - findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable - and utilise technology to augment your systems.

Shumake says it’s vital to take accountability and step up to the challenge of compliance, even if the compliance risk is further down the supply chain. “I don’t want to hear: ‘It’s not my job’. If it’s happening somewhere in the supply chain, we can step up and do something about it. Let’s solve this problem,” he says. “Define roles, have an escalation process, have designated leaders who are accountable for engaging suppliers and using performance data to drive meaningful change.”

June 10

Panel: Mitigating supply chain cyber risks by identifying threats early and improving end-to-end digital security

Nissan’s Elliot is now joined by Daniel Pellathy, assistant professor of practice, advanced supply chain collaborative at Global Supply Chain Institute, University of Tennessee. The pair are discussing how to build and maintain a protective fence around supply chains, shielding the software and hardware networks.

Pellathy says that it’s important to change the conversation around risk, reframing it as something that will be a positive, proactive and built-in desire to operate the system properly. He compares it to driving a car - even if there is no oncoming traffic, you will still stop at the stop sign and check both ways.

He also explains how OEMs and their partners can optimise cybersecurity. In this space, the best companies ”understand their digital footprint footprint and they maintain, just like in their physical supply chain, an understanding of their inventory and they exit inventory that’s old… They bring in the inventory that’s new. They make sure that that inventory, both digital and in terms of kind of hardware and software inventory, is understood and mapped. They segment the systems in terms of value at risk and then also in terms of the types of threats.”

Both panellists agree that cybersecurity approaches across the industry will require adjustment. “We have to really rethink how we are approaching those kinds of digital environments and the security there,” comments Pellathy, while Elliot alludes to how rapidly the landscape can change: ”You have to be prepared. Covid, chip crisis, tariffs, I mean, what’s next? So having the continuity plans in place to protect yourself and protect your business is very important.”

June 10

Case study: Tools and techniques to assess and reduce cyber risks in the supply chain

Now we’re hearing from Eric Elliot, SCM senior manager, supplier cybersecurity at Nissan Group of Americas, who is speaking about cybersecurity in the automotive supply network, and how Nissan specifically has significantly improved cyber security across the supply chain with a careful and coordinated third party risk assessment across suppliers and logistics providers.

After outlining some of the most common cybersecurity issues facing the automotive industry – including data breaches, ransomware, phishing and connected vehicle vulnerabilities – Elliot explains why proper cybersecurity measures are so important. ” There’s been 47% growth in the frequency and the sophistication of cyber attacks in the Q1 of this year. So January, February, March of this year has grown 47% to an estimated $10.5 trillion industry. So that tells you that nothing is slowing down. This is going to continue to increase, increase and increase. And that’s why we have to continue to keep our guard up,” he comments.

He goes on to explain how cybersecurity resilience at Nissan has developed. ”We started working on the assessments and this is essentially just sending questionnaires out to the suppliers to understand what they’re saying. Then as we grew, we started doing monitoring. We’ve got tools in place that we can actively monitor our suppliers and understand where the risks are, where the problems are, when the alerts come in and then the response.” He expands on these tools, relating them back to the same playbook framework that de la Torre explored in his Keynote on day one, as they act as cross-functional platforms that all teams can access: ”This is one of the first things that we put together as we started to mature our program to be able to understand how to react whenever a cyber event came in, be it something large scale or small scale.”

June 10

A platform for data exchange: how Catena-X can ensure interoperability across the supply chain

Following some lunch in the sun, we’re back and ready to hear about Catena-X, from the pioneers of cross-organisational data transactions and data standards, and how it can ensure secure and sovereign data exchange across OEMs, tier-n and logistics providers.

In this mega-panel we have: Dr Bing Xu, senior director, Catena-X North America Hub and AIAG; Thomas Roesch, CEO, Cofinity-X and member of the board at Catena-X; Dr Chris Schlueter Langdon, internationalisation committee, ecosystem development manager in the US, Catena-X Automotive Network; Pramita Mitra, sustainability digitalisation product lead, supply chain IT at Ford; and Nicole Stevenson, vice-president of business strategy and marketing at Flex Automotive.

Dr Xu opens the panel by setting the scene as to why better data governance is required: ”The automotive supplier base now is actually over [a] quarter million. Now think about it, everywhere in the whole world, the data is. If you look at that, the number [of data points] is a billion per day. Not only in terms of the DNA of every vehicle running in the world… and also the logistics – we’re talking about things coming around. We’re talking about the digital twin and the engineering, CAD, CAE, every part… So adding those things, you can see why that we have so many data per day, we need to do it. But, unfortunately, all the existing systems, all the previously things, cannot work for today’s situation.”

He adds that this is why “we need some system can actually solve the problem, get rid of the silo and making sure the secure data transaction, making sure the ecosystem, the infrastructure is working.”

Dr Langdon expands on this, explaining how Catena-X approaches this problem, creating a three-layer ecosystem that can slot in alongside a company’s cloud and communications software: ”Number one, proper authentication and verification of the authentication of participants. Number two, access control. The third one is… not just a data exchange or data sharing, but it is a proper transaction in its legal sense.”

Ford’s Mitra explains how such an in-depth ecosystem has helped Ford future-proof its supply chain emissions reporting. She states that, ”Tomorrow we want to move to a future where we are reporting at the instance level with billions of data points in and there we want to be primary data driven, which means that we want to collect verified data from our traceability scans through supply chain goods in and goods out and through the verification of transactions, we are going to have very accurate and verified product carbon footprint calculation. So it’s pretty easy to imagine that, for handling that kind of massive volume of sensitive and compliance relevant data, we need to build scalability and trust among our supply chain partners. And this is where we believe Catena X comes in to help build that kind of scalability and trust with standardization, interoperability and data sovereignty.”

June 10

Logistics and IT, together: collaborative teams to help scale digital solutions

Now we’re hearing from a panel of speakers including: Paule Tchiegne Wandji, associate director of logistics COE process and governance at International Motors; Vianney Ramirez, senior procurement and supply chain specialist, Scout Motors; and Todd Morley, director of distribution North America, Henkel.

Wandji begins the discussion by outlining the importance of leadership commitment to digital strategies, as this commitment will “drive accountability, sustain the moment, and champion the cultural and mindset shift”. She also describes how important involving all stakeholders is to the success of digital transformations: “We need to involve them early, to build a strong coalition of digital champions that will drive ownership and advocacy throughout the transformation journey.” The role of the team also needs to be considered, explaining that “transformation is not about the tool, it’s about the people. We need to equip people with the skills and the confidence that they need for data-driven digital environments”. ”These three pillars are the foundation for effective supply chain management,” she concludes.

Morley expands on this by pointing to a common problem that occurs in collaborative projects. “One of the biggest things we’ve seen issues with is the terminology, the lexicon that they use”, he comments. “The operations team does not always have the terminology that the IT teams do… That jargon overload can be a big bog down for [projects] starting so just getting a common terminology, common language, really helps a lot,” he adds.

Later in the discussion, Ramirez explains that “Cross-functional relations in work are very important in every company, internally and externally. Working across all the teams internally improves communication and results, but also working the same with potential vendor and current vendors is very important. In the end, you’re looking to have the best solution or the best product in the market, how are you going to get that? Having the best communication you can internally so everybody is aware of what we are developing, what we need, what is the problem, and sharing that with suppliers is very important.”

June 10

Finished vehicle logistics digitalisation

Now, Mabry is joined by a panel including: Manoj Tiwary, chief information officer, Subaru Canada; Mike Ueland, general manager, Cognosos; and Jason Blood, global sales director, Sphere Global.

Subaru Canada’s Tiwary says the OEM is taking a very similar approach to VW Group in its digitalisation process in FVL – with the small difference of calling its tool a data hub, rather than a control tower. “The challenges are very similar. Getting the visibility and the buy in from everyone, trying to make sure that we’re able to source the right data points as well, and also trying to make sure that what we’re doing is right,” Tiwary says. “We definitely got some help from the supply chain, from our logistics team, who come and verify and validate the data. But that’s the common challenge, I think. A lot of IT teams don’t have the expertise to validate the outcomes of any of the [data] projects they do.”

Expanding on the topic of visibility, Blood similarly points to the importance of standardising inputs from different sources and outlines the role that technology can play in that endeavour: ”OEMs use the same railroads, the same LSPs, but I dont think’s there’s any common ground. It just needs to be directed, and driving that from a technical point of view and also from an OEM point of view as well,” he comments. Ueland adds that there “could be some interesting standardisation options” available to the industry, including digital VINs.

June 10

Case study: Gaining better control and visibility in cross-border vehicle logistics

After a quick coffee break, we’re back and hearing from Scott Mabry, manager of cross border logistics at Volkswagen Group of America. Mabry is talking about how VW Group’s digital control tower is helping the OEM to improve vehicle flows and manage tariff-related changes in the network.

Mabry says that the VW Group in North America, across its divisions, is moving to consolidate as a region through the control tower and gain improved visibility overall of all vehicle logistics operations and flows. This started with a single dashboard that was, at first, manually updated, but is now beginning to be automated. Another key focus, as mentioned throughout the conference, was looking at how people within the group communicate and integrate that with digital tools.

“We now work together, not in parallel, but as a team,” he says. “There’s a clear linkage of the KPIs. I now know what the Mexican teams are trying to achieve, they know what the US team is trying to do, and you have a production push and a sales pull and sometimes they’re not completely in sync and that’s where the control tower gets really interesting in helping us guide the stewardship. Now, the strength of the team has become regular meetings, regular discussions, looking at the same dashboards, sharing information.”

Outside influences and uncertainties in the supply chain will always impact on the usage of digital tools, as Mabry says: “Of course, in the middle of this, life happens.”

Speaking about the recent tariffs announced by Trump and their many changes, he says: “When you’re on the phone with someone and they say, ‘Wait a second, the government just made an announcement, there’s a tariff,’ we’ve dealt with tariffs before, but then they say, ‘Oh wait, they just changed their mind,’ now we can deal with that too. Before we had the control tower, it would have probably taken us days to figure out what’s going on, with the close cooperation of our teams. Even though we’re not at the point where we have machine learning doing things, we’ve seen a benefit and that is that we can respond quickly.”

June 10

Preparing for digital transformation: getting the basics rights and not being part of the 70% who fail

Next, Chandan Trehan, lead of digital supply chains and logistics at Bosch North America, and Jennifer Coulter-Lissman, CEO and president of NTG Supply Chain Solutions, are taking to the stage to discuss how to prepare and sustain a digital transformation journey, ensuring management buy-in and employee adoption.

Trehan and Lissman say that organisations must conduct an honest assessment of their readiness for digital transformation before embarking on that journey, focusing on both technical and cultural aspects.

“I think the basic thing is to do an honest assessment on if you, as an organisation, are truly ready for the transformation at hand,” Lissman says. “We’ve heard throughout the conference how important the human element is to that transformation. So, when you’re doing that assessment, it’s not just about, you know, is it the system assessment, but it’s also about whether the organisation ready, if the culture is ready for the transformation, is the executive team ready to commit to the resources of the transformation? Because the journey is not short, right. Depending on the transformation, it can be one to three years, and leaders tend to be impatient and want results quickly. Having that honest assessment, having open lines of communication, looking at who’s going to be impacted, visualising what the transformation is going to look like for your organisation into the future, I think is so important.”

Similarly, Trehan says open communication about digital growth must be had with your upstream and downstream partners. “There have to be discussions that you have with them where you explain what your transformation programme is, and try to see how they can also align to your transformation,” he says. “At the end of the day, you do not want to have a state of the art system built in your organisation only to get data that comes from your supplier which cannot be used for any practical purposes. You need to make sure that each and every person is a part of the transformation journey and not just your organisation alone.”

June 10

Adding an intelligence layer: How AI/ML and genAI can optimise operations, automate processes and mitigate real-time risks

Now, Mazda’s John Rich is joined onstage by Neil Holt, director of product innovation at Airspace, to discuss how AI-powered supply chains can provide better visibility, break down silos, lower operating costs and build long-term resiliency.

They are stressing the importance of strong data governance and quality to leverage AI effectively. “You hear people all the time say garbage data in, garbage data out,” says Rich. “Understanding AI is just that. When you think about how artificial intelligence operates, say chatGPT for instance, it is building a database of 70 billion parameters or more, depending on the model that you’re using. And the data points that you put into your prompt affects the quality of the output that you get from that model. When you put in a couple sentences of broken English and say, give me something and it gives you a poor response and you wonder, oh, this thing’s trash. Well, it’s actually what you put into it first that resulted in that. If you spend a lot of time training, grounding, adding different data sources to an AI agent that you train, you’re going to get better results.”

Holt agrees: “AI is good at very simple tasks, but it doesn’t have all the information. The data is absolutely critical. And until we can give it everything, we have to have that human layer to kind of shepherd it. It has to be the copilot.”

While AI might not have reached its full potential yet, there are ways to practice use cases for new AI tools and test them out in a secure way.

Rich says that at Mazda, they settled on a few key pieces of technology to try, including using Microsoft’s Azure. “We wanted to build a data platform that could support both the business needs of today and the needs of tomorrow, while making it as simple as possible for our current IT infrastructure and security teams,” Rich says. “So when we looked at how can we keep an Azure-based data platform and leverage the most cutting edge tools, we looked at Azure Databricks, Microsoft Fabric, along with Microsoft Purview, and others for data governance including Lineage Observability and Unity Catalog is another piece of that. Right now, what we’re leveraging is Azure Databricks.”

He says that these sorts of models can be used in a secure environment in the cloud, where you can add your data and train it into a small language model which essentially becomes an AI agent. “You can do that multiple times,” he says, leading to proofs of concepts. “It took actually doing a demo to our executive team to understand that they don’t need to go outside and get new talent to do this. I’ve got data scientists and data engineers who have done this type of work just in different ways. Now they can do it faster with AI, they can learn, and they can iterate. I can use my data team in house today and I can use open source tools and frameworks, and I can gain some pretty quick wins with AI in the environment that I already operate in.”

June 10

Welcome to day two of ALSC Digital Strategies North America 2025

Welcome to day two of ALSC Digital Strategies North America here in Nashville! The sun is shining ahead of a packed day of insights and panel discussions with experts in digitalisation in the automotive logistics industry!

After a welcome from Christopher Ludwig, chief content officer, Automotive Logistics, we’re starting off with a case study in using hyperautomation within digital supply chains to meet the needs of complex demand forecasting. John Rich, manager of data analytics and AI programmes at Mazda North American Operations is speaking about the importance of organisational chance and upskilling teams to adapt to AI and technology advances. This upskilling, Rich says, can help improve employees’ understanding of the use cases and benefits of digital tools like AI, while also easing fears and push back against its adoption.

“A lot of people are fearful of AI because they see it as something that can take away jobs. I want to be clear here, AI can do automation of repetitive tasks, but it allows your team to do work where they’re needed most,” he says. “Not necessarily eliminate their job, but eliminate the inefficiencies of the job they do today and allow them to be in a more productive role and perform different functions in the future.”

He adds that this resistance to change is a significant barrier, but addressing cultural barriers and talent gaps is essential for successful AI implementation. Focusing on small, iterative wins rather than large-scale launches can also help encourage usage of digital tools and demonstrate AI’s value.

June 9

With day one drawing to a close, Christopher Ludwig, chief content officer at Automotive Logistics, sat down to recap the day’s events.

He comments that the conference’s theme of digitalisation in the face of uncertainty has run throughout the day’s presentations, pointing to the potential and possibilities surrounding AI and automation discussed by speakers from Ford, Nissan and more.

Watch the full wrap-up below:

June 9

Interactive workshops

We’re now splitting into groups for some interactive workshops, where experts will lead discussions on data as a differentiator, using digital technologies to reduce the supply chain carbon footprint, AI for business leaders, process mining with AI and the digital supply chain, and optimising finished vehicle logistics through digital solutions.

Manoj Tiwary, chief information officer, Subaru Canada lead the interactive workshop on optimising finished vehicle logistics through digital solutions. He says that leveraging new technologies such as telematics or AI to get more accuracte predicions of ETA is vital, as well as using digital tools to predict damage and find out causes of damage. “It’s all about working with the business, leveraging the new technologies, but the data is the key,” he says. “You have to surface up the data just so it’s visible to the business teams too, so that they’re able to make a decision based on that.”

John Rich, manager of data analytics and AI programs, Mazda North American Operations says that his workshop, which focused on AI for business leaders, found that AI should be looked at in a different way. He says AI is “not some magic fix”, but it can be used as a lever for success. “You’ve got a lot of interesting things that you can do, whether it be route optimisation, demand forecasting, anomaly detection, all of these different things that you can unleash AI on,” Rich says, “but it’s very important to understand that your data must be in a really solid place before you can leverage AI to take action on that.”

Speaking about the gaps in AI within the supply chain, he says: “I find a lot of companies these days are looking for AI-specific talent to come in, maybe someone who has AI already in their job description or in their title, and in my opinion I think that’s an oversight. I think you need to go to your data and analytics teams, and you need to talk to your data engineers, your data scientists, because you have talent already on your teams that are doing the underlying technology that is AI. When we talk about data analysis, we talk about machine learning and statistical modelling. All of those pieces of technology that make up AI you already have. I guarantee you, you already have people who are talented in those.”

June 9

We now go into our first networking and refreshment break, where delegates now have the opportunity to connect further and explore exhibitions.

Conversations are being had around the room on the day’s presentations, with takeaways being shared and discussed. Ahead of the afternoon’s interactive sessions, the mood is energetic and engaged.

June 9

Special supply chain partnership announcement: Catena-X and AIAG

What we’ve heard consistently is that, for digital transformations to work, partnerships and collaboration must be encouraged.

Fittingly, Kevin Piotrowski, chief transformation officer, Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG) has taken to the stage for a ceremonial handshake with Jon Jacobson, executive board member of Catena-X to mark their collaboration.

June 9

Panel: Turning logistics transparency into strategic gains

Ford’s York is being joined on stage by Grecia Luna, manager, SCM Innovation, data and analytics, Nissan Group of Americas, and John Godfrey, senior director, logistics operations, Pirelli Tire North America, to discuss how OEMs are capturing intelligence across logistics stages, from suppliers to plant yards to final delivery, in digital control towers layered with data analytics.

When increasingly integrating advanced technologies like TMS, WMS and YMS systems to enhance logistics operations and visibility, collaboration between IT and business sides is crucial for successful digital transformation. “It’s now no longer this side of the business on the left hand talking to the right hand side,” says York.

Future goals include achieving more seamless integration across systems and leveraging AI for operational decision-making, but of course, this means more training and ongoing upskilling of teams is necessary to adapt to new technologies and improve operational efficiency. “You need people with strong IT skills that can learn an application quickly and put it to use,” says Godfrey. “If you just have people that are just doing the job and not looking for the next solution, it’s always going to be a problem. You’re never going to advance.”

June 9

Case study: Ford’s Phil York on digital strategy for asset tracking

Ford has been advancing its yard management system (YMS) to enhance supply chain efficiency, integrating real-time location services for better asset tracking. A key strategy for the OEM is an emphasis on continuous improvement and leveraging digital twin data to drive down costs.

Phil York, inbound logistics product lead, supply chain IT, Ford explains: “We started with a YMS1 solution in 2005 and it was all based on our normal use case scenarios, getting rid of our pen and paper and recording it, which was like keeping track of things in a spreadsheet but with a database. YMS2 replaced it with a new platform, with a different user interface, different look and feel to it, but everything else was essentially the same, all the data was the same. And miraculously we came up with YMS3. With this, we introduced RTLS, which is a real time location service that gave us the ability to put tags on our trailers and also locate those tags by driving around our yards and reading the tag’s GPS location. And I love this because this is where the rubber meets the road.”

He adds: “We have a vendor infrastructure that is capable of not just locating trailers which we use for yard management, but also containers, tools and communication to other systems. More importantly, we have a pipe coming back into our own system, our own platform where we control the data, we remove the linear data flow, bring everything in centrally, and now we can control what we do next with that data.”

June 9

Panel: A digital network with greater speed, predictability and agility

Christoph CJ Schettler, supply chain specialist, North America, Celonis is now joining the stage with De la Torre to discuss reimagining the supply chain.

“The key to being more proactive really sits in the data that organisations have today, and there are many ways that you can approach that. But what I see as the key to unlocking that data is taking a perspective of the process,” says Schettler. ”Supply chains are a series of very interconnected processes that are trying to achieve a common goal. The challenge is that these processes and teams, while they share the same goal, ultimately are not connected and understanding each other in the way that they could. Bringing that connection together I think unlocks that proactive change.”

He adds that a challenge in bringing teams together, particularly across different regions and countries, is working in different languages in enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. “The challenge that I most commonly see from a technology perspective is first that how do I optimise my global supply chain if my ERP in Brazil is running in a different language with different processes and slightly different operations to my North American ERP,” he says. “Yet, they share potentially the same kind of parts and potentials for optimisation across that. So I think that the first step really, from a technology perspective is how do you introduce a data layer, a semantic layer that unifies that across the entire geography and the entire system landscape? And you typically start in one area and slowly expand. But when we think about a digital supply or supply chain, digital twin, I think it has to include all of those systems.”

June 9

Keynote: Gerardo de la Torre, Nissan on the OEM’s strategy for resilience and digital supply chain transformation

Nissan Group of Americas’ regional senior director of Supply Chain Management (SCM), Gerardo de la Torre, is delivering his keynote speech on digital transformation within the OEM in an era of uncertainty and trade turmoil.

He says that the carmaker has been focusing in recent years on how it can be more proactive and resilient across its supply chain network in North America, and is looking to scale this approach using its SCM playbook across Latin America. The playbook includes people strategy, data and analytics strategy, regional systems, and risk sensing. De la Torre adds that transforming SCM to a highly proactive organisation involves continuous and disciplined monitoring to identify risks before impact, as well as quick action to alert appropriate manufacturing locations, and well coordinated communication between Nissan and suppliers to mitigate risk.

“The playbook for us, when we have a cyber attack or a tornado risk, should be like the Formula 1 pits,” he says. “When the car enters the exit line and comes to the Formula 1 pits, everyone is ready, everyone knows what to do. That is the mindset. If we are dealing with a cyber attack, we have the teams fully aware in the region to immediately react, and I’m so proud of the results.”

As a result of Nissan’s SCM playbook, he says: “10% of alerts we received required Nissan reaction, and 90% of impacts were mitigated with zero financial loss.”

June 9

Welcome to day one of ALSC Digital Strategies North America 2025

Christopher Ludwig, chief content officer, Automotive Logistics is taking to the stage in Nashville to welcome delegates to the second ever Automotive Logistics & Supply Chain Digital Strategies North America conference.

Kicking off a jam-packed two days of insights and information on digital tools and strategies, and the challenges and opportunities they present, Ludwig said: ”This is, as ever, an interesting and important time to come together and talk about this topic, especially in the context of our highly uncertain, fast-changing market and trade landscape, it’s only emphasising more why so many of the things we’re going to be sharing with you over the next day and a half are so important.

“If you have real-time accurate visibility of either side of the border of a tier-n supply chain, you’re in a much better position to get ahead, whether that’s getting on top of rare earth shortages or tariffs that were there, not there, and there again.”

June 6

Two of ALSC Digital Strategies North America’s expert speakers recently took part in our Data: Silos, security & sovereignty livestream.

John Rich, manager of data analytics and AI programmes at Mazda North American Operations, and Skotti Fietsam, senior vice president, supply chain and CIO at Accuride, joined the Automotive Logistics team to discuss the role of data in logistics. The conversation covered everything from proper data usage to security and sharing, as well as examining how best teams can future-proof operations as processes become increasingly automated.

At ALSC Digital Strategies North America, Fietsam will be joining the “Managing supply chain compliance for existing and rapidly emerging requirements” panel on Day 2, while Rich will be presenting a case study on hyperautomation. Rich will also be leading an interactive workshop on Day 1 focusing on AI’s potential in decision-making.

Watch the livestream to prepare for all three digital-focused sessions.

June 5

Ahead of his Keynote session on Day 1, Gerardo de la Torre sat down with the Automotive Logistics team to discuss how compliance, collaboration, increased digitalisation and more are influencing Nissan’s supply chain management (SCM).

In his role as regional senior director of SCM for Nissan Group of Americas, he leads the SCM Innovation department. The department has developed a strategic playbook that uses cross-functional and digital approaches “to anticipate, react with information and stay ahead together as one team.” The playbook better equips the carmarker to optimise network designs and operations, and deal with unexpected disruptions.

Read the exclusive interview for a preview of what to expect at his Keynote next week.

June 4

Welcome to the countdown for Automotive Logistics & Supply Chain Digital Strategies North America 2025, happening at the Country Music Hall of Fame, Nashville, TN on June 9-10!

This year’s event is all about moving from strategy to action. As supply chains grow increasingly complex, OEMs, suppliers and logistics leaders are tapping into the power of data, AI, automation and real-time visibility to build smarter, more agile operations.

Throughout the event, sessions will delve into the digital frontiers transforming North American logistics. Industry experts will share insights on building intelligent, data-driven logistics networks; scaling AI and automation to mitigate risk and enhance service; ensuring supply chain compliance; enabling control towers for real-time decision-making; harmonising data governance and quality across partners - and much more.

There’s still time to register if you haven’t already - join us in person or tune in online to be part of the event.