Resilient Networks - Redesigning Global Supply Chains for Field Service Excellence

Supply Chain Management is critical for field serviceengineers. Global politics, trade wars, real wars, and conflicts, allimpact the ability of service and installation operations to function successfully.  We recently interviewed Matthew GuyGallardo who is a Global Spare Parts Planner at CooperSurgical on The Field EngineerPodcast.   In 2024 Charlie Apps interviewed RosemaryCoates for The Field Engineer Podcast to discuss global supply chains, SCM, reshoring, and the aftermath of the Covid pandemic. Two years on global supply chains are being challenged even more than they were in 2024. So, The Field Engineer asked Rosemary Coates to meet with us again and share her insights on the current state of the Global Supply Chain for field services, installations, and after-market management. Caroline Gregory of The Field Engineer speaks to Rosemary Coates about Global Supply Chains and Field Service Excellence. Rosemary Coates has an MBA and started her career in logistics for HP. She then built an extensive career in global supply chain. Rosemary is an author and has written books about manufacturing, including 42 rules for superior field service. She is an experienced speaker and serves as an expert witness globally. Rosemary was named as one of the hundred most influential women in Silicon Valley in 2024. Reshoring Institute. In 2014 we started the Reshoring Institute which is a research institute but we also help companies think through their global manufacturing strategy and help them determine if they can can re-establish any kind of manufacturing in the US or to rethink their global strategy. And that's really important these days because of the geopolitics. So you have to I mean companies have to be nimble and able to sort of turn on a dime when there's some geopolitical situation that forces them to make different sourcing decisions and you know different operational decisions. The importance of field service I always start with the context that field service doesn't get enough attention in most organizations. you know it can be a fairly significant amount of revenue that's generated through field service and yet the field service organizations do not normally report into the very senior levels in an organization. They're usually a level or two down and and even though they're representing not only a significant revenue stream but they're really the voice of the customer. I mean the field service people are out there talking to customers every day and we should be listening to what they're saying, what feedback they're getting and so forth that would help drive you know the product development marketing you know there's all sorts of parts of the organization that would benefit from the information that’s gathered through field service. So I always start with that context that field service is really important to most organizations and is not getting enough attention and we need to drive the awareness of field service organizations to a more senior level.So the field service engineers are speaking directly to the people who are feeling the pain I suppose.Seniority of Supply Chain within an organisationAlso you know what we're seeing now is a lot of reorganization creating and elevating supply chain management to more senior levels in organizations so it's no longer just a back office function a lot of a lot of promotion I mean today it's not unusual to see chief supply chain officers that are sitting in the C Suite and run an organization from a supply chain perspective.