Revving Forward: The 24 Essential Supply Chain Processes

About This Episode

Today we are joined by the hosts of the Auto Supply Chain Prophets podcast, Terry Onica, Director of Automotive at QAD, and Cathy Fisher, Founder and President of Quistem. With over 70 years of combined experience in the automotive industry, Cathy brings unrivaled quality expertise, while Terry excels in the intricate web of supply chain management. Addressing deficits in the industry, together they meticulously reviewed the MMOG/LE and IATF 16949 to formulate a list of 24 Essential Supply Chain Processes to drive automotive excellence. 

Topics Discussed

The U.S. Manufacturing Workforce Transcript

Michele Vincent: Hi, everyone. I'm Michele Vincent, host of the US manufacturing workforce podcast. On today's show, I have the co-hosts of the Auto Supply Chain Prophets podcast, Terry Onica and Cathy Fisher. Together, they share over seventy years of automotive manufacturing supply chain and quality expertise. I invited them on the show today to chat about automotive supply chain education and training for today's workforce. There's been a lot of disruption happening within the automotive industry recently from the COVID-19 pandemic to the semiconductor shortage, and now the transition over to electric vehicles, so I'm really looking forward to their insights. Welcome to the show. Ladies, how are you?

Cathy Fisher: Thank you, Michele. We're doing great.

Terry Onica: Excellent, we're doing great and glad to be here. 

Michele Vincent: Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. I didn't really do any justice there with my intro -- you do way more than just host the Auto Supply Chain Prophets podcast, so why don't you tell us about yourselves and your backgrounds for anyone listening who may not be familiar with you already. 

Cathy Fisher: I'm Cathy Fisher and I am the founder and president of Quistem and we help automotive manufacturers transform their management systems into money-making machines. We're working in the space of systems integration, as well as technical competency development with a lot of the automotive manufacturers from OEMs to Tier 1's all the way down to Tier N's as well. And over the past five years, Terry and I have really been focused on how to amplify supply chain and integrate supply chain as part of let's say, the strategic focus of organizations, especially breaking down silos between quality, supply chain, IT, and other functions in the business.

Terry Onica:  Terry Onica. I have about 35 years in the automotive industry, I currently work for QAD, we're an ERP and supply chain solutions company. In my role there at QED, I spend a large portion of my time actively involved in industry standards, so I go participate and help to develop them. One of the areas that I spend a lot of time in is MMOG/LE, its Materials Management Operations Guideline Logistics Evaluation, and it's the standard that all automotive suppliers have to meet in order to do business with their customers. And so Kathy and I met through AIAG, the Automotive Industry Action Group. And while I'm very knowledgeable in supply chain, Cathy's super knowledgeable in quality and we started working together because we believe these two areas in organizations need to become un-siloed and work together like Kathy and I.

Michele Vincent:  That's great. Well, as I mentioned, in my intro, there's been a lot of disruption happening in automotive lately -- perhaps that's just all the time, but you've both been in the industry for a long time and I know you've seen a lot, you've experienced a lot, so I'd love to hear from you both on which of these disruptions lately is either having or has had the biggest impact on the automotive supply chain over the past few years?

Cathy Fisher: Well, I think we need to go back about 10-15 years. I mean, the automotive supply chain really started shifting from a workforce perspective, definitely after the economic downturn in 2008- 2009. We lost a lot of -- I'm gonna say brain trust -- quite a few people retired out and that was really the start of the baby boomers retiring out. And at the same time, there were a lot of mid-career people that just said, I want to be in a different industry sector that's not as prone to the fluctuations that happened, especially in the economic aspects. From there. I mean, so we already were at a deficit. Let's say that when we started coming back in 2011, fortunately, we started to attract some of the younger generations, but unfortunately, we didn't really have the right perspective in creating workforces that are attractive for the younger generation. Especially leveraging automation, let's say working the way that they like to work, right, you know, they're are a lot more team-oriented, collaborative -- communication is very important to them. They want structure but they also want freedom within that structure. And so COVID, kind of like the next whammy that really took us to our knees and we lost so much of the experience in the industry. A lot of folks that were mid to late baby boomers are, you know, cycling out, retiring. Once again, of course, the industry was front page headlines in terms of its impact, layoffs, organizations closing down, and that scares a lot of the younger generation away from wanting to pursue careers in this particular industry sector. So we're in rebuilding, I think the good news is that because our industry is in such an amazing transformation right now from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles and ultimately to autonomous vehicles, we're attracting a different kind of automotive worker, automotive engineer, and even automotive leadership. So that's really exciting to see how the industry itself is transforming, in a big way, from a workforce perspective, as well as from a technology perspective.

Terry Onica: And one of the things that I see too, when it comes to the workforce, is just the lack of using automation in the areas of supply chain and quality is really hurting us.  I think a lot of that has to do with people just knowing spreadsheets, they take the easy way out. They don't necessarily learn the solutions, because it's not really top of the agenda for CEO levels and it really should be --  it should be heavily pushed. And when this new generation is coming in, and they come in and they see spreadsheets and black screens, green screens, and they see their companies aren't keeping up with technology.  What do you mean, I keep up with my cell phone every two years? And so we're really paying a lot of penalties for this right now and that's one of my bigger concerns moving forward, is the lack of automation and using tools to really facilitate quality and supply chain.

Cathy Fisher: Yeah, and like you're saying Terry -- we have to rebuild, somebody was saying the other day, the sexiness of the automotive industry. How do we make working in the automotive industry attractive to the younger generation, and the level of technology that they expect to see and also the nature of the work is changing, it's no longer a lot of high manual labor. There's a lot more emphasis on working with automation -- maybe in the processes, mechatronics, those type of things. Software, developers, software programmers in that. And I think the other thing that we've really suffered from a supply chain standpoint, in particular, is that prior to COVID, and this had been going on for 10, maybe even 20 years, you can say a lot of the OEMs and even Tier 1's outsourced a lot of the aspects of their supply chain, whether it was there a physical logistics within their operations, or even in some cases, their procurement and purchasing functions, a lot of that had been outsourced. So we lost the understanding of those processes, and the development of the pipeline of talent to be able to support those processes. And now we're seeing those processes coming back into the OEMs, the Tier 1's and so on, because they realize the importance of supply chain from a strategic perspective. They know they've got to manage that strategy, define the processes, and then populate those processes with people who have the competency to support the strategy that they're trying to achieve.

Michele Vincent: Stepping outside of automotive and kind of speaking to the sexiness of it and the younger generations and getting them interested -- there's a lot of layoffs taking place right now across the tech sector. What are you seeing --are you seeing people now turning to automotive with all these recent changes, as you said to electric vehicles and everything? Are there more people now getting interested? And where are they getting interested? Are they already in the workforce? Or are they coming out of school? Talk to me a little bit about that if that's impacting anything,

Cathy Fisher: Oh, yeah. I think that there's a variety, you know, certainly, young people coming out of school at this point, they're seeing a lot of opportunity because of the growth that's happening, especially from the electric vehicle standpoint. All of these new plants that are being built, the battery plants, so there is quite a bit of opportunity from that standpoint. What I'm afraid of is the trend that I started seeing at the end of last year, but definitely, the first quarter of this year is that we've got a lot of prominent OEMs and a lot of prominent EV startups that are laying people off. And I wonder how the younger generation looks at that, that, you know, let's say 18 months ago, the same organizations were doing everything they possibly could, you know, $10,000, $20,000 sign-on bonuses, and, you know, putt-putt golf, and, free meals to attract them to come to work, and then they're laying folks off. And of course, we all know who gets laid off first -- lowest seniority in most cases, but even some organizations rather than going the route of layoffs have actually done buyouts like General Motors. I mean, they were basically letting go people with only five years of seniority, and you think about that, that was just like a year or two before COVID, those people came into the organization, and now they're being invited to leave. So I wonder what the young people think about that, you know, they are kind of like, well, is that stable enough for me to really build a career? Or should I look elsewhere?

Terry Onica: And to answer your question, are people coming into the auto industry? Are we benefiting from that? At QAD, I'm in vertical marketing, so I have vertical peers in five other verticals and I would say we're all in the same boat. I mean, me and my colleagues can write the exact same script when it comes to workforce issues. It's identical. There's no change, we're all suffering. And I think it's really a manufacturing issue that we're having right now is just getting people back into manufacturing and getting the young generation and people, in general, excited about manufacturing. 

Cathy Fisher: Yeah, and I think that's one of the things we did a disservice to ourselves 20-25 years ago, by turning the younger generations away from pursuing opportunities in manufacturing, portraying manufacturing as dirty, noisy, and ugly -- not the place to be and not stable, and so on. And the other crisis was really the loss of skilled trades. And now we're suffering for that, because I can't go into any manufacturer who is not in crisis, trying to find maintenance, maintenance managers, maintenance technicians, you know, electricians specialists, they're just not out there. It's great for those who are pursuing that, but part of the problem is that there are not even educational programs, in many cases, for those talents to be developed to start building the pipeline that's necessary to support the manufacturing sector.

Michele Vincent: Yeah, it's such an issue, right? For years, we've pushed everybody towards college and everybody was sort of thinking of manufacturing as less than a college education. But right now, the demand is just through the roof for those positions that you just talked about. And at MADICORP, we actually provide staffing for skilled trades and production worker. It's interesting from my perspective, so we do work in automotive, all different manufacturing sub-sectors, but I'll see waves of requests coming in and it's always very interesting. So just recently, there was an influx and everybody was looking for maintenance techs. During the pandemic, there was a time when everybody across the country, they were looking for skilled machinists. When the pandemic started, interestingly enough, there was a big shift - so normally, it was always skilled trades and when the pandemic happened, everybody across the country was calling looking for 50 production workers. They were like, we don't need anybody to be skilled, they don't have to be experienced, we just need the bodies. So it's interesting. The demand for that is going to continue, but I think the responsibility lies with us working in the industry -- how do we repackage everything and make it more attractive to the different generations and make them feel comfortable that they can come into the industry, even if they're seeing layoffs. But that's not an easy feat, I guess. You brought up education. And I want to ask you about that. But before I do, do you have any suggestions or recommendations -- are there things that you are all doing right now to make this more attractive to the younger generations or anybody to get people back into manufacturing?

Cathy Fisher: Well, I think the positive side is that the concerns regarding workforce development for whether it's manufacturing operators or even those skilled trades are well recognized. In fact, we were talking about that before COVID ever kicked it up. So there are definitely programs that we're seeing at the state level, through tech schools, the manufacturing extension partnerships. There's a lot of industry initiatives working with the Labor Workforce Development within the governments, federal as well as local to establish programs where high school students who maybe are in their second, third, or fourth year can actually get credits for going and working in a manufacturing environment, whether it's an apprentice opportunity or just an internship over the summer. So there are definitely opportunities that are out there. There's another side to this though, it's one thing yes, we need to attract the younger generation to manufacturing, and in particular, for us, it's the automotive space, but the other piece of it is what they're going to experience when they come in -- what is the leadership style that's greeting them?  And although there are quite a few people who are coming in to check out the automotive industry and manufacturing in general, there are a lot of people who are leaving. And I think, Terry, you can actually share some statistics on this. But this comes back to, if our leadership is not willing to embrace the younger generation's approach to work, their trust and commitment to technology, and having a voice, a seat at the table, a voice in making a difference in the organization, we're going to continue to suffer the same fate. And we're actually going to turn people away from the industry, which will be very difficult to recover from. Terry, talk a little bit about the statistics that you have.

Terry Onica: Well, one of the things that I want to mention that I think is a bright spot to all of this is there's a collaboration tool, there are workforce collaboration tools, and at QAD, we provide that. And what I find super exciting is it's all on iPads, it allows the floor to communicate with each other, they're communicating directly to management, and they're encouraged to communicate directly to management. And what we find is that the employees are now engaged, and they're not leaving in droves like we saw before. because a lot of people come in, this is'nt exciting, I'm not getting trained, right? I'm out of here. Well, because they can have their voice heard and they can get right to the leadership and tell them, hey, they can take a picture, if they see something going on. With quality, they can let them know something's going on with the shop floor. And that engagement with executives, and the floor is so compelling, and it's keeping people there. I just recently talked to one of our customers, and he said in the last year, they haven't had to hire anybody. They've stayed stable for one year. There are a lot of manufacturing facilities out there that can't say that they've done that. So I have a lot of hope that while it's a little bit dismal, there are solutions that are attracting both young and old, older boomers, maybe like myself, that are keeping them there. We use our iPads every day, why not communicate more quickly? Right, we're getting that information faster. So we've seen tremendous results in employee retention, it's increasing productivity because they can talk about what's going on on the floor now. So I'm really excited about that aspect. I think there's some hope on the way for sure.

Michele Vincent: .That's interesting. What is that called? Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, Kathy, what is that collaboration tool called?

Terry Onica:  It's called Red Zone.

Michele Vincent: You posted about that on LinkedIn, I think. I saw that and was poking around. I thought that was fascinating, and there are QR codes on the machines, right? That you can scan for, micro-content about how to use it, and things like that?

Terry Onica: For the training to your point, they can take a video and they can add that now into there so that the next person can see how to do it or how to fix something. Yeah, I highly recommend going to the website, there are all kinds of testimonies about how it's really revolutionizing manufacturing facilities and employees are just so engaged in there. And they get lines competing against each other now because they can see what's going on. At the end of the shift, they can see clearly everything that went on. So I really am super optimistic, there's some really good help on the way that's attracting all generations in manufacturing.

Michele Vincent: That's what we need, something like that!

Terry Onica: It's simple, it's not that hard to put together within the organization at all.

Cathy Fisher: Yeah, and I think that the really exciting thing, too, is that the young people want to contribute, they want to have a voice, they want to make a difference. They want to add to the value of the organization, which is refreshing, quite honestly. Because early in my career, I started at General Motors in the 1980s, and typically folks were on the shop floor, I think that deep down, they cared but there was so much... kind of,  I don't know, the environment didn't really support for them to have a voice. So there was a tendency to just kind of be there. And you weren't really leveraging the power there, their creativity, their enthusiasm. Where the younger generation is demanding it. And I keep telling them, you need to keep demanding it and don't back down -- don't settle for less because we have to change. We have to change the way that we're leading organizations and allow the younger generation to have that voice.

Terry Onica: And the other thing I see too is with this tool, it's breaking down the barriers between executives at the plant and the workers because the executives are saying 'oh my gosh, these workers are telling us so much good information and they're collaborating. They're working together now and they say we have so much more visibility to what's going on, or we never knew X employee was doing all this work and how amazing they are. So I think that's a really, really excellent thing about using these tools for both management and the employee. It just keeps them both very engaged in the process.

Michele Vincent: That's awesome. So let's talk a little bit about training and tools.  What exists currently out there besides this one in terms of supply chain education, or tools or training to get people up to speed, specifically in automotive, for what they need to know to be successful today?

Terry Onica: When it comes to supply chain, the Automotive Industry Action Group aiag.org offers several different things when it comes to supply chain. So there a class coming out actually, it's based on Cathy and I's 24 Essential Supply Chain Processes that's coming out in July. And what that's designed to do is to teach the basics of supply chain for those brand new hires that get thrown into automotive -- what is it, and what do I need to be concerned about it -- this will go through the baseline of that and really help to get those employees up to date. The second class that I would recommend is the Materials Management Operations Guideline Logistics Evaluation, also at the AIAG. That would be more advanced. Now, now that we understand the basics, we have to go and assess our plan to see how well we're doing. So that would be the next step. AIAG offers a purchasing and supply chain certificate, that's more of an evening program that's available as well, too. So those are some of the things that the industry provides that I think are really great places to start when it comes to understanding supply chain and manufacturing.

Cathy Fisher: Yeah, and one of the things that we're doing alongside of the 24 Essential Supply Chain Processes is Quistem has a program working with the manufacturers, to then take the results of that assessment that they've done, and build those processes that are missing, establish that supply chain strategy, and most importantly, leverage what already exists from a quality management perspective and breaking down those silos between quality and supply chain so that you can really fulfill the customer's expectations of quality and delivery in a seamless manner.

Terry Onica: And I have to comment that Cathy and I've done this several times, this training, and it's amazing when you get quality and supply chain and it together, that the light bulbs go on and things come out that you weren't even looking for, especially when we talk to a plant manager. One of the examples we had is we were talking about sending the orders out to suppliers for what they need and what we found at the plant, was they were sending purchase orders. Well, in automotive we work in a repetitive environment. So you don't need to do purchase orders for production-type parts. So we uncovered that and we asked well, how much time will this save you by knowing don't do a purchase order, you do a schedule order? And he was like, what did he say, Cathy? Nine days a week? And so you find interesting things. Yeah, so IT shut that screen off for me, right, we find these little nuggets that can help people out so much. So the training she offers is just amazing at bringing everybody together and saying, what can we do to get better? And a lot of times you have it right in your hands and you don't even realize that you can use it.

Cathy Fisher: And I think the bigger picture is by engaging not just the functions, let's say supply chain, quality, IT but also having the leadership the plant leadership involved, were able to help really focus the organization from the supply chain perspective of, hey, that's where I'm making my money. You know, we always talk about money is made on the shop floor, because that's where our value-added processes are well, yeah, but the larger opportunity for making money is the supply chain from start to finish. And when the leaders of the organizations recognize this is a complete game changer, relative to how they think about their business. One of the companies that we went through this training with last year, we basically walked out of spending a day with them, and they had 60-some-odd opportunities for their business, including three different options in redefining their business model, you know, to make money from a supply chains perspective. And that's super powerful. That's kind of the big message that we're trying to get across is that we really have to be looking from an automotive industry perspective at manufacturing as a supply chain, not just the manufacturing processes.

Terry Onica: And because we've lost so many people and we're trying to replace people, we don't necessarily have the skill set. So what Kathy does is we bring everybody back to the basics and make sure again, everybody understands it. And then how do we apply that in our facility because many plants have lost a lot of knowledge, so it really helps to get them back on track again.

Michele Vincent: Can we dig into the 24 essential supply chain processes a little bit more? So as I understand it, the two of you sat down and basically found the intersecting points between MMOG/LE and the IATF 16949 and pulled these core 24 essential supply chain processes together. 'm a complete nerd, so I feel like this is absolutely incredible. Why don't you explain it -- tell me what it is, and how you guys did it, and then I have some questions on it specifically.

Cathy Fisher: We started from the perspective, the 24, Essential Supply Chain Processes are the result of a bigger problem that we were seeing in the industry, long before COVID. So I think, you know, we really kind of spotted this trend, late 2017-2018, that a lot of suppliers were suffering  -- we call them supplier red status, their customers scorecards, not just for quality issues. In fact, it was less about quality and more about delivery issues. But when we looked at how delivery issues were being addressed inside of these organizations, it was like, oh, we'll just expedite something. There wasn't really a deep dive to understand well, what's going on at a systems level that's allowing our organization to miss these delivery dates to our customers.

One area in particular, that we're seeing this in the automotive supply chain, again, long before COVID was having to do with service parts. And that's still a crisis for the industry, that people will take their vehicle into the dealership to have it serviced, especially if it's heavy servicing like you've been in a collision or something. And oh, sorry, you're gonna have to leave your vehicle here for a month, six months, I can't tell you when you're gonna get your vehicle back, maybe go buy a new vehicle, right? Because they can't get the service parts. And a lot of that comes back to the delivery issues that were plaguing the industry for a number of different, let's say, disruption incidents long before the semiconductor issue as well. And so from that perspective, Terry, and I started really looking at okay, what's behind these delivery performance issues? Are we lacking processes? Are we lacking the systems? And we said, well, we've got the system structures in the form of MMOG/LE, and  IATF 16949. But what we were recognizing is that there is definitely an intersection of those two systems from a supply chain and quality management perspective and most organizations are not leveraging it. So we weren't really building the bridge, so to speak, so that we could approach the customer satisfaction perspective, from a holistic perspective or holistic standpoint.

The other side of it is that many organizations in automotive, they've done a great job of addressing quality and safety through quality standards, like IATF 16949. Even though MMOG/LE has been out there for 20 some odd years, most organizations will kind of fill the holes with oh, I need ...maybe a procedure for this, a procedure for that, but again, back to the point that many organizations have been outsourcing at least part if not all of their supply chain activities, they don't feel like it's their issue that they don't have to worry about it. So they're not really focused on building the processes, and then collectively the systems and integrating them into business. So exactly what you said was we sat down with the standards and mapped them, we said, where's the intersection? Where are the points that we need to really amplify in the quality realm to recognize that delivery is part of the customer satisfaction equation, which is what quality is all about. It's not just quality of the product, it's also about delivery, and it shows up on the customer scorecards in that way as well. And so that's where the 24 Essential Supply Chain Processes came from. As a result of that mapping, we kind of filtered through and said, okay, of all these intersection points, where are the pain points? What are the, let's say, root causes at the operational level that are leading to these delivery performance issues, and that's what the 24 Essential Supply Chain Processes represent.

Terry Onica: And one interesting thing is we wrote these based on automotive standards for quality and and delivery and when Cathy and I started hitting the road to talk about this, we get all kinds of interests from industrial consumer products, life sciences, all verticals that I see at least that the QAD supports really gravitate to it. And I will say, do we need to change anything for you? Oh, no, you've hit them all, you may have slightly different verbiage on them, but we know what you're talking about and yes, we can completely understand them. We'd like to use the 24 processes and challenge companies, what are your top three issues? You know, a lot of companies say the whole thing, but the most astounding thing to Kathy and I is how much all verticals and manufacturing really gravitate to them and understand and think they're super helpful.

Cathy Fisher: Yeah, it starts to give organizations visualization of what a supply chain system, supply chain management system looks like -- I always like to say it's a through line to cash, right? That's where the money's coming from in the business. I mean, I come from the quality side, but the truth of the matter is, quality is a piece of the supply chain. Manufacturing is a piece of the supply chain, like everything is a piece of supply chain. And so the bigger consideration for the organization's to be successful is about supply chain. As we were doing our research and doing this mapping back in 2018, 2019, we're looking at Amazon. I think what was the last year, Amazon -- $34,000 per second, per second, $34,000 per second is what that organization generated. So you tell me there's no money made in the supply chain, and like I can't, it's trillions of dollars, that they made just incredible, the amount of money and all they are is a supply chain organization, but it's not all that they are I mean, that's where the money is. And for the automotive industry, in particular, to survive going forward and thrive, we have to be looking through that lens of supply chain. You can have the most amazing technology, new ideas and innovations, but if you're not getting those technologies and innovations in the hands of the customer in the right place at the right time, then there's no money... no money to be made.

Michele Vincent: True. So these help other verticals, as Terry just said. Do these just work for traditional automotive suppliers? Or do these processes work for new EV startups and companies just entering the space?

Cathy Fisher: Yeah, absolutely. In fact, a couple of projects that we were involved in last year, and we've got quite a few lined up for this year as well, are working with some of these emerging EV OEMs and battery suppliers, as well as raw material suppliers, who are stepping into the automotive side, whether they're existing and had supplied industrial or other industry sectors, or they're like Green startups, the 24 Essential Supply Chain Processes are a boon for them. Because they're like, where do we start? And if you look at a lot of the startups in particular, they're coming into the marketplace with a great idea, great innovation, but they haven't really thought about the supply chain. And the supply chain, quite honestly, for automotive is very different. And it's emerging to become much more, let's say, I'm gonna say collaborative. In fact, we were talking last week about the fact that you can't really call supply chain a chain anymore, it's more of an ecosystem, because of the different players that are now involved -- besides just physical material and parts, you know, now you've got software, you've got apps, you've got, over the air updates, you've got telematics, telemetrics, and all that. So there's a bunch of other players that are necessary in this emerging ecosystem. And that means that we need to think differently about how we are constructing our supply chain processes and how we're working with those other players as well.

Terry Onica: And I just want to emphasize a point that Cathy made, these are critical more than ever for EV startups, or any kind of startup. And the reason is -- they're so good at their innovation, and they spend a lot of time with that, but if you look at why a lot of these startups are failing, it's because they underestimated mass production. So, you know, Cathy and I like to bring these in as soon as we can, because you need to start thinking about mass production, it's easy, or probably not so difficult to build a part or two. But when you start building volume, that becomes really difficult. And so for us, we completely agree. Any kind of startup should stop immediately at the 24 Processes and make sure they understand them and way before they start mass production. They need to be thinking about that early on and I think it could help shape what they're going to have to do. So hopefully they don't have these bankruptcies or these challenges with you know, with money, when they get into mass production like we see today.

Cathy Fisher: Yeah, and it's interesting when we listen to the different startups, you know, Tesla in their production, and Rivian, talking about their production, like all of them are tight. And there's a tendency within the industry, and I'm not sure probably even outside the industry, people are thinking about the factory, the shop floor. But when you really listen to what they're saying is the triggers behind their issues in production -- i's not the shop floor, it's the parts. It's the suppliers being ready. It's having secured a consistent and reliable pipeline of materials and parts, and so on, and so forth. That's all supply chain. And so this is one of the things that we find, especially when we talk to some of the new startups, and the ones that are smart and say -- hey, come and talk to us early on, so that we architect our supply chain strategy for what we're trying to accomplish in growth of the business, then they're able to scale with a lot more ease, because they have worked out those processes, and it becomes an integral part of their operations. Unfortunately, the traditional automotive mindset is to focus on the shop floor and the rest will take care of itself.

Terry Onica: But having said that, on the opposite side, where startups could have a great advantage is that the traditional suppliers have all these legacy systems, right, they have legacy processes and sometimes it's hard for them to think out of the box to do something different. When you're a startup, if you engage at the right time, you can get software that does all of this, you don't have to hopefully invest in a lot of legacy systems,  you can get best of breed or best of complete solutions. And so that's where they can really gain and leap ahead of traditional suppliers if they think about that early on in the process.

Cathy Fisher: And it's a good point that Terry's making, that we see a struggle with the incumbent OEMs. And you've noticed that several of them have kind of like divided their businesses, oh, we've got the EV side, we've got the ICE side and that. But at the end of the day, when you look at how their supply chain is being managed, it's still old school. And that's a problem. Because if we stay in that mindset of supply chain is not value ad and we're outsourcing a lot of the key aspects of supply chain, then we're still back in that same issue of where's our talent? Where's the talent pipeline for the future? And are we really going to be successful at delivering on the promise of delivery?

Michele: Vincent So we are almost running out of time, but I want to throw out a question for you because I believe the MMOG/LE version six just came out in April and that has some new components, so I think that that's important and I'd love to hear from you. What's new in there? What do people need to be thinking about with version six?

Terry Onica:  When I looked at version six, I participated in developing the standard, and I looked just the other day as I was presenting what are the key things and when you look at it, it's risk planning, managing your suppliers, training, and obviously inventory. But some of the new things that I think we did is put a bigger emphasis on training to your point, we need to make sure that people at plant facilities have plans in place on how they're going to train people, whether it's backup, new hires or relief. I think the other super big area is in managing your suppliers. So in automotive, we always like to push the requirements down. So things like ESG, which is also now included in the standard, making sure you do EDI or web EDI with your suppliers making sure your suppliers have risk management and contingency planning. We continue to pass more and more things down the supply chain. So we have to be able to really manage all the things we're asking them to do. As well as supplier mapping. That's another big part, right? With all of these disruptions, we need to see where our suppliers are at. And again, a lot in risk management, contingency planning, and business continuity. I think those were the biggest themes this year when we released version six,