Ellen Wood: Hello and welcome to Speaking of Supply Chain, where we explore trends, current events, and innovations impacting the logistics and supply chain industries. I'm your host, Ellen Wood. Disruption and resilience are two of the current buzzwords you'll find in nearly every discussion about supply chains in the current climate. Both small scale and global disruptions are symptoms of deeper long-term choices made over the last century, political, economic, and structural.
Modern supply chains require an interdisciplinary mindset that will help the next generation of talent shape more resilient and strategic supply chains of the future. Joining me for today's discussion is Dr. Ayman Omar, professor at American University and associate dean of graduate programs at the School of Business. Welcome, Dr. Omar.
Ayman Omar: Hi, Ellen. Thank you so much and great to be with you today. Looking forward to the conversation.
Wood: I am as well. We've got a lot to talk about today, but first let's get to know each other a little bit better. Our icebreaker question for today is, if I visited your hometown, what local spots would you suggest I see?
Omar: So I'm originally from Cairo, so that's what my hometown is. And it'll probably take you to two spots. One is downtown Cairo, where it's a hustle and bustle of people from all walks of life, including locals and tourists. But also to the, since we were talking about supply chain management today, one of the oldest products of ancient supply chains, which is the pyramids, right? That was 4,500 years ago. And just the presence of being there and trying to comprehend that there were people here thousands of years ago working on this and having a very old supply chain system in place to put this together is breathtaking.
Wood: They are a natural wonder. I've not had the opportunity to visit Egypt yet and it's on my bucket list. One of these days I will get there, but no, I agree. It's breathtaking to stand in front of something so complex and ancient in our mindset that, yes, it can only be seen in instances like that, where you just, you marvel at what was possible back then. And even today to try and replicate it would be incredibly difficult from what I understand. So my hometown is not nearly as exciting as yours. I'm originally from Muncie, Indiana. I've lived in Indiana my entire life. I've spent time in other places, but I live an hour away from where I was born. And there are a lot of nice things to see in my hometown. It's home to Ball State University, which is where my husband and I met when we were in college. It's a beautiful campus. I would say some of the things to see in our small town are also some of the historic buildings downtown. I really love going into the old downtown. It was built up and probably in its heyday in the early twentieth century. So somewhere between the forties and the sixties was where it was really exciting. And yeah, there's some beautiful buildings. There's some beautiful turn of the century houses, but it is really kind of small townish. And that's what I would encourage people to see because that's what you're there for.
Omar: I've never been but would love the chance to come and visit at some point.
Wood: It's really nice this time of year. So let's get into our discussion today. So we are talking about the next generation of talent that is going to be shaping supply chains, the students that you're working with. Let's start by stepping back though. How did the past decades, and I think it really is decades, almost fifty years of political, economic, and operational decision-making contribute to what it is that we're having to deal with today, what we're seeing in global supply chains.
Omar: That's a great topic and issue and it's very relevant. We've seen those conversations take center stage during the pandemic. We've seen it now also accelerate with everything with the discussions about tariffs and all the political discussions that are taking place. But I think we'll have to take a step back and understand why we're going through some of those conversations right now and what we're seeing right now, whether it's the pandemic or the discussion on tariffs. Those are really catalysts to expose some of the concerns and issues that we have in our current supply chains. Whether it's COVID, a ship that was stuck in the Suez Canal, the war in Ukraine, thinking of those as just catalysts, those are things that are flagging out and exposing deep issues. And the reason we have some of those deep issues, and I know you talked about talent and that's one of the gaps we have.