SCHEDULE

SSCBS 2025 Event Schedule

09:00 AM - 09:30 AM

Accreditation

Delegate credential underlay required.
Seating will be available on a first-come, first-served basis.

09:30 AM - 09:40 AM

Opening Plenary

Opening Speech. Delivered by the President, Society of Independent Business Partners

09:40 AM - 10:20 AM

Conversation 1: Building Resilience in the Supply Chain through Collaboration and Leadership

Solving business challenges often means breaking new ground. When industry works together, we can increase the speed and scale of innovation, and value for all stakeholders. Industry leaders, government regulators, industry associations, solution providers are brought together to not only solve shared industry problems but move industry forward.

10:20 AM - 11:00 AM

Conversation 2: Collaborating with Customers and Partners for a Greener Supply Chain

Supply chain is a team sport, and creating a sustainable supply chain requires even more collaboration from all parties involved. In this session you’ll hear how you can strengthen relationships with suppliers and customers while reducing your collective environmental impact. Panelists will discuss ways to align across stakeholders, build competitive differentiation, analyze network trends and much more.

11:00 AM - 11:40 AM

Conversation 3: Crawl, Walk, Run: Developing Your Framework for Sustainability

The path toward a more sustainable future is unique for every business. Creating a sustainability strategy is always a balance of the potential benefits, costs or resources required, and necessary stakeholder collaboration. In this session, two of the most progressive CPG brands in the world will share insights on how to create a successful sustainability program within your organization.

11:40 AM - 12:30AM

Coffee Break, Networking, Innovation Marketplace

12:30 PM - 01:10 PM

Workshop 1: Sustainability That Works. Practical Lessons From the Carrier Community

In this lively panel discussion you’ll learn the basics that carriers, subcontractors and other logistics services providers must consider when developing their sustainability practices. You’ll hear success stories, as well as lessons learned, as we cover the Whys, Whens and Hows of getting meaningful results and driving value for your business with sustainability.

01:10 PM - 01:50 PM

Workshop 2: State of Sustainability in Supply Chain

In this session, the 3 biggest trends in supply chain sustainability for 2025 will be outlined and the 3 macro drivers behind those trends will be revealed. You’ll also gain insight from Gartner original survey research on the sustainability priorities of supply chain professionals today and learn some tactics Gartner suggests for improving the sustainability of your logistics operations.

01:50 PM - 02:20 PM

Lunch / Coffee Break / Networking

02:20 PM - 03:00 PM

Speed Mentoring- Financing

Executives from some of the biggest names in supply chain tech will come together to discuss what’s now and what’s next in sustainability for this power panel, moderated by Dr. Nick Vyas, Founding Executive Director of USC Marshall’s Global Supply Chain Institute. You’ll hear how digitization and emerging technologies are increasing visibility and collaboration throughout the value chain to promote ethical standards, eliminate waste and reduce carbon emissions. This session is a must see!

03:00 PM - 03:30 PM

Conversation 4: The Road (or Rail, or Ship) to Sustainable Logistics Operations

Transportation is a leading contributor of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, and as such, any steps you take toward reducing the environmental impact of your logistics operations are important ones. From simple network optimization to large-scale equipment upgrades, there are many ways to make a difference. In this session you’ll hear from 3 leading global brands on the near and long-term steps they’re taking to reduce transportation emissions.

03:30 PM - 04:00 PM

Conversation 5: Sustainability at Massive Scale: DHL’s Journey to Net Zero

When the world’s largest logistics provider sets a zero-emissions target, it marks a new era for the industry. With an annual volume of more than 1.6 billion parcels, getting to net zero by 2050 will be no small feat for Deutsche Post DHL Group. In this session you’ll learn about the key components of DPDHL’s strategy and get inspiration from the company’s bold vision to transform logistics in collaboration with its top customers.

04:00 PM - 04:30 PM

Conversation 6: Tools to Help Your Organization Be Competitive

In today's rapidly evolving business landscape, effective supply chain management has become a cornerstone of success. Organizations must continuously adapt and optimize their supply chain processes to remain competitive.

This panel of industry practitioners will explore some of the latest tools and strategies that can help organizations remain competitive in the market through superior supply chain management. The panelists will discuss tools in the areas of procurement and sourcing, logistics, and inventory management

04:30 PM - 05:00 PM

GenAI in Procurement and Supply Chain

Generative AI (Gen AI) technologies can generate new derived versions of content, strategies, designs, and methods by learning from large repositories of original source content. Gen AI has profound business impacts, including on content discovery, creation, authenticity, and regulations; automation of human work; and customer and employee experiences.

The speaker will lead a discussion on Generative AI and its potential use in sourcing and procurement by automating tasks, predictive analytics, and generating documents. He will share a few specific examples of implementation possibilities for engaging business partners, spend management, functional and risk management.

05:00 PM

Day 1 Ends

09:00 AM - 09:10 AM

Introduction

09:10 AM - 10:00 AM

Conversation 7: Signature Series: Shaping Economic Value for the Supply Chain of the Future

During the past few years of heightened disruption, the focus on, and recognition of, supply chain value increased. This session discusses how high-performing supply chains plan to evolve over the next three to five years to build their credibility and support sustainable growth in their business.

10:00 AM - 10:50 AM

Conversation 8: Predictions for the Healthcare Provider Supply Chain Through 2028

The post-pandemic healthcare supply chain is evolving at a revitalized pace. New supplier risks, increasing scale through mergers and the new digital supply chain frontier are driving changes. This session focuses on five predictions specific to the healthcare supply chain that you need to know and respond to from our research over the next three to five years.

10:50 AM - 11:40 AM

Conversation 9: Without a Human Deal, Your Smart Manufacturing Initiatives Are Doomed

Warren Bennis said, “The factory of the future will have only two employees — a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment.” Today’s reality is much different. More people are needed and the interfaces between humans and machines are morphing. This session will focus on the human. How is the future of work changing in factories and workers are becoming more connected and augmented with new technologies? What can you do now?

11:40 AM - 12:30AM

Coffee Break, Networking, Innovation Marketplace

12:30 PM - 01:10 PM

Workshops 3: Engage Supply Chain Operations via COE to Balance Strategic Objectives & Operational Needs

COE leaders have two contradictory fears — being perceived as an ivory tower detached from operations; and getting drawn into tactical activities detached from supply chain strategy. This session will explore how COEs can walk that tightrope of synergistic engagement with operations while producing deliverables that address strategic objectives.

01:10 PM - 01:50 PM

Workshop 4: Scaling and Sustaining Smart Manufacturing

Pilots are cool and fancy. They stimulate demand from other sites looking to grow capability. Yet, scale is elusive and not a factor of famed "purgatory." It's organizational. It's cost. And often, it's not sustainable due to a lack of change management. This will get people sharing how they've either built new organizational capabilities or learning from one another on how to promote scale and invest for it to happen.

01:50 PM - 02:20 PM

Lunch / Coffee Break / Networking

02:20 PM - 03:00 PM

Hold It! Restructuring Your Supply Chain Isn't Always the Answer

Supply chains are constantly reorganizing, but should we be? The organization chart is but one element that determines how our supply chain operates. Supply chain leaders assessing their organization design should attend this session to understand all the options available to them to improve the functioning of their organization before considering an all-out restructure.

03:00 PM - 03:30 PM

Workshop 5: Composability in Manufacturing Operations: Much More Than Technology

Most software vendors in the manufacturing operations market have sprinkled the term "composable" liberally in their marketing material, and some have produced what could be considered at least partly composable solutions. However, the manufacturer's ability to adopt composability's business process and cultural side is the real key to success.

03:30 PM - 04:00 PM

Workshop 6: Top Trends in Consumer Products Manufacturing Supply Chain Trends Need to Know

Macro factors that impact consumer product supply chains may be unique versus other industries. Snack on the top trends and insights in the industry that will help shape CSCO's strategies. These are the trends you need to know to grow your business, prepare for and predict future risk, and hear what other similar companies have done to transform and mature their digital solutions.

04:00 PM - 04:30 PM

Workshop 7: Logistics Benchmarking — the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly:

How many distribution centers does my competitor have? That is the wrong question to ask. It isn't useful, and at worst, it is dangerous. While learning from others is vital, it is essential to ask the right benchmarking questions to ensure that the information is useful, not dangerous. During this session, attendees will discover useful questions for logistics network benchmarking, but also those questions that will provide potentially dangerous insights.

04:30 PM - 05:00 PM

The Future of Customer Fulfillment: Leveraging Advanced Data and Analytics

Organizations that continue to rely on ad-hoc, manual fulfillment decision-making processes risk becoming obsolete quickly. Leading organizations are leveraging advanced analytics and emerging technology to automate critical fulfillment decisions. In this session, we provide insights into specific use cases and how to begin a culture of analytics.

05:00 PM

Day 2 Ends

09:00 AM - 09:10 AM

Plenary Talk

09:10 AM - 09:50 AM

Conversation 10: Digitally-Driven Sustainable Supply Chains

Sustainability investments must be data-driven. However, distributed data sets often hamper decision-making. In this session, we will look at how companies are leveraging technology, including GIS, AI, blockchain and IoT, to advance their sustainability strategies while enhancing value chain accountability. We will show how the right data at the right time can drive impact.

09:50 AM - 10:30 AM

Data Analytics in Procurement: What It Takes to Finally Get Ahead

Sourcing and procurement is rich in data but has struggled for years in its journey to achieve true maturity in data analytics. In this roundtable, we'll set aside the usual suspects (aka resource constraints) to talk about what's really holding procurement back, even as other functions in and out of supply chain have made steady progress.

10:30 AM - 11:20AM

Coffee Break / Networking

11:20 AM - 12:00 PM

Workshop 8: Without a Human Deal, Your Smart Manufacturing Initiatives Are Doomed

Warren Bennis said, “The factory of the future will have only two employees — a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment.” Today’s reality is much different. More people are needed and the interfaces between humans and machines are morphing. This session will focus on the human. How is the future of work changing in factories and workers are becoming more connected and augmented with new technologies? What can you do now?

12:00 PM - 12:40 PM

Workshop 9: Revamp Your Supply Chain Planning Transformation

Only 55% of Supply Chain change initiatives meet their initial goals while 25% of these initiatives are the ones that sustain gains over time. This session provides a clear framework on how to lead successful supply chain planning transformation initiatives.

12:40 PM - 01:20 PM

Workshop 10: Engage Supply Chain Operations via COE to Balance Strategic Objectives & Operational Needs

COE leaders have two contradictory fears — being perceived as an ivory tower detached from operations; and getting drawn into tactical activities detached from supply chain strategy. This session will explore how COEs can walk that tightrope of synergistic engagement with operations while producing deliverables that address strategic objectives.

01:20 PM - 02:00 PM

Lunch / Networking

02:00 PM - 03:00 PM

Maverick: Use IMPACT as the Guiding Principle for Decision Making in Decision-Centric Planning

As companies mature and evolve, supply chain planning toward decision-centric planning, the definition and use of impact becomes paramount. Join this session to learn more about why planning horizons will no longer suffice to divide planning responsibilities and why — and how — impact should be used.

03:00 PM - 04:30 PM

Design the Manufacturing Network of Tomorrow, Not Yesterday

A low-cost network is the network of yesterday. The network of tomorrow must balance many objectives in addition to cost. Objectives include sustainability, resilience, the ability to support the circular economy and mitigating geopolitical risk, to name just a few. This session will discuss the new reality of determining the optimal manufacturing network, ensuring that it is not overfitting to a singular objective, such as cost or derisking, but that it is a balanced network fit for the future.

05:30 PM - 09:00 PM

Gala Dinner / Award Ceremonies and Closing Plenary

09:00 PM

Day 3 Program Ends

10:00 AM - 07:10 PM

Excursion

The conference program ends with a visit to some interesting attraction centers. The places to be visited are listed below.

*The Orlando Eye

*Universal Orlando Resort

*Orlando Science Center


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