Speaker 1 00:00:05 Welcome to the Clear Impact Podcast, brought to you by P G T I University. Thanks for joining us today. My name is Sherry Connor and I am your host. Good morning. We are here on the Clear Impact Podcast and we are in a series called Executive Updates. And today we have in studio with us returning is Jeff Schellinger. Thank you for coming back, Jeff.
Speaker 2 00:00:29 Thanks for the invite. It's great to be here, Sherry. Yeah,
Speaker 1 00:00:32 It's gonna be a fun conversation. And so for those that may have missed the previous episode that you did with Christie Meadows last summer, can you just briefly share your background and your current role and responsibilities here at PGT Innovations?
Speaker 2 00:00:46 Absolutely delighted. So I have just celebrated my second year anniversary here. So I've been here for two years. Time flies when you're having fun, but prior to that I've got over 20 years of executive supply chain leadership in pretty much every function within supply chain. So production control, planning, sourcing, procurement, warehousing and logistics. And my background in those 20 years has covered everything from large steel manufacturer to retail to consumer product goods.
Speaker 1 00:01:14 Okay. So you're a good fit for the role.
Speaker 2 00:01:16 Yeah. Supply chain is all about getting things from point A to point B. And I always say it, it's, we're agnostic to what it is. It's all about the process and the discipline.
Speaker 1 00:01:24 Right. And so your scope of responsibility is not just for P G T brand, but for like, tell us about that.
Speaker 2 00:01:32 Yeah, so we've really kind of restructured a little bit in terms of what we're trying to do. Kind of creating more of a strategic supply chain role and function within pgt. I, so across my scope of responsibility, we have sourcing also have our center of excellence around supply chain operations that Henry Chris leads and really working to kind of draft those same components for transportation and sales and operations planning as well.
Speaker 1 00:02:00 Well that sounds like you're in the right series and in the right topic. So I know the last couple of years with C O V I D, cuz I came in right in the middle of that sounds kind of like you did too. The supply chain was the thing, right? Everyone was frustrated, everyone had challenges. We couldn't get this, we couldn't get that. And so you and your team had to work through some really extraordinary circumstances. I mean we're in 2023 now. Are things back to normal?
Speaker 2 00:02:27 That's a great question. There's just a ton of debate on that. Is what is the new normal and have we arrived yet? You know when, when I think about what I was doing, this was prior to me being here, but prior to Covid we weren't thinking about anything like, gee, what happens if a pandemic were to hit? Right? None of that crossed our minds. So we weren't using the vernacular of risk. Risk wasn't something that if something happens, what do we do to respond? So the pandemic, you know, one of the good outcomes of that is it really taught us, you know, people in the supply chain industry is really how to be more mindful of that and how to respond a little bit better to it when it happens. If you go back to your question about have we gotten into the new normal, I've got a really, a simple approach to what normal is.
Speaker 2 00:03:13 Normal is really, it's a relative factor. And I always think about it is if you get to a point where your upstream and downstream supply chain disruptions become manageable, then I think you're there. Then that's normal. Right? And the key is manageable. If I go back to last year, we were kind of getting to that point right around September, I thought, oh, this is the new normal, then guess what happened? Ian hit right. Huh? Right. Then uh, we're recovered from that. And then I thought, wow, feels like the new normal. And then we got hit in November with a cyber attack. So all of a sudden again, it becomes this, this new cadence of being able to react and respond. So in my entire career, I've never experienced the levels of disruption, certainly of the magnitude that, you know, have over the last several years.
Speaker 2 00:04:01 And yeah, so for me it's more about, it's a mindset not to be complacent and really making sure that you just don't become happy with the status quo. So how do you respond to things? So, you know, if I think about the definition of a new normal, the new normal is that, you know, disruptions are gonna exist. We know today is the beginning of the hurricane season, right? So we know that things are gonna happen. So based off of that is that the new normal is we're gonna face disruptions, some are gonna be bigger than others, but it's really about how do we respond when those happen,
Speaker 1 00:04:34 Right? And then having those relationships and maintaining that. So if that's the new normal then what have we learned incorporated into the business to be successful in that?
Speaker 2 00:04:44 Great question. So if I think about it, I go back to my high school math teacher. He had Mr. Weber had some wonderful sayings that really stuck with me. And that's the mark of a good teacher by the way. He said that experience is a hard teacher because it gives us the test first and the lesson later. Mm. Think about the last few years, right? As a company we've endured a lot of tests. But the key is that from those lessons we're focusing on different things. Now we're focusing and prioritizing our energy on resilience. So what happens when a disruption occurs? For us, it's all about having that resiliency to know how do we mitigate it so when it does happen, it doesn't become such a dramatic life change for everybody, both internally in our organization and downstream to our customers.
Speaker 1 00:05:30 Right. That makes sense.
Speaker 2 00:05:32 Yeah. And you can kind of, if you think about it, yeah, I was looking at it this way. You can't stop a hurricane has not been done yet. Right? But I always look at it as a journey and how we can mitigate that impact through resiliency strategies. You know, some of the things that we've done that it can kind of call out how, you know, give us some good examples, really kind of fall into two core competencies of supply chain. One is sourcing and the other is planning. So on the sourcing side, we've actually done a number of key things that have already kind of building that muscle of resiliency, if you will. We've started really diversifying our supplier network. So we have a higher level of redundancy of supplies. So if we have a trouble with one supplier, we have an alternative to go to.
Speaker 2 00:06:11 We've been really focusing on building stronger relationships with our suppliers. I have a saying I want to be their customer of choice. I want them to want to do business with P G T I versus me kind of forcing my way in. So stronger relationships build a stronger supply chain. And then really kind of aligned to what I had said before is, you know, the word risk never entered into our vocabulary before. And we're really focusing on risk mitigation strategies. So identifying where the vulnerabilities are in our business, who we're working with in terms of our supply base as an example, and really developing response mechanisms so that we can satisfy those if something happens. On the planning side, this is really kind of over the last four months have we started developing these capabilities. So one of the key areas is really getting better demand planning forecasting tools.
Speaker 2 00:07:01 We want to be as an organization, more planful to understand changes when demand is gonna go up and it's gonna go down. But being able to better plan for it and understand what that means to our operations so we can ride through those changes and not disrupt our customers with poor service or poor quality. That's key, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And then, uh, lastly I'm really excited about this. We're launching our sales and operations planning cadence, otherwise known as S N O P. And that main function is really to balance supply and demand and enable continuous improvement through on-time delivery and lead time management. You know, all those things are key benefits, you know, for us to manage the business better and have better service to our customers.
Speaker 1 00:07:43 Be sure to tune in for upcoming episodes to help you understand the fenestration industry, what you need to know when buying windows and doors and other related topics. You can find out more about
[email protected]. You can also find us on Facebook and LinkedIn. Is that kind of the, uh, you know, don't put all your eggs in one basket sort of mentality?
Speaker 2 00:08:06 Yeah, certainly from a supplier standpoint, absolutely. Right?
Speaker 1 00:08:09 Yep. And one of the things that I have shared with customers and dealers as I've had interactions, especially around, you know, lead times and things like that, when we run out of an inner layer, we just can't go get a different inner layer and sub it out. It's not like, oh, target doesn't have the laundry detergent that I usually get. I guess I'm going to Walmart now. Like all of our products have to be tested and certified and approved and we can't just swap out a product. We can't just change it from supplier A to supplier B when we hit a snag. I mean we can, but it's gonna take a while. And so that's something that I think a lot of people were really not understanding about what was happening with delays and with lead times. But I know that's made some tremendous improvements as well. So
Speaker 2 00:08:57 It's a good point, Sherry, because what it is doing, cuz there are circumstances where there aren't alternative supply that make financial sense for us or our customer. So in those cases we're being way more focused on engaging and asking more probing, solid questions to our vendor base. Is that, where is their potential disruptions? Cuz it could be two or three suppliers ahead of them. So really understanding that because it is what it is. And so our job is to plan for what could happen. And so that really bakes us into kind of a strategy around, okay, if there's an upstream challenge that they could be facing, what are we gonna do to help mitigate that or buffer it? So if it happens, it's not an immediate impact to
Speaker 1 00:09:40 Us. Right. That's so smart. And so without giving away any secrets, I mean we've had a lot of acquisitions and organic growth in our enterprise. How does that impact our supply chain? Does it make it better or does it make it more challenging?
Speaker 2 00:09:54 I look at things as a glass half full guy. So to me it's really about, it's giving us a platform to leverage what we're doing in supply chain to the benefit of all of our business units, if you will. So from a strategic supply chain perspective, it's really all about defining best practices and then as we do those best practices, make sure that they're available and enrolled at each of our business units. Take for example, strategic sourcing. If you think about it, pretty much most of our businesses by vinyl or aluminum extrusion for windows and doorframes, right? So as we're working through projects maybe at a particular business unit on one of those commodities, we're mindful of how does this solution that we come could be leveraged and used in advantage at the other business units. So it's more of a holistic approach even though we're focusing on maybe one business unit's challenge overall.
Speaker 1 00:10:45 So that makes sense though because we're a larger organization and so we can, like you said, leverage our buying power to maybe strike better deals or have better delivery times or whatever those things are, have better offerings, have just more clout. Yes.
Speaker 2 00:11:01 Remember what I just said about being the customer of choice, right? To our vendor community that's all part of that web. We're weaving
Speaker 1 00:11:07 Nice. And so how do these changes affect our capacities as we continue to grow and serve our dealers?
Speaker 2 00:11:15 So for me it's really about developing capabilities within our business that will really help our customer base in the end. Similar to what I mentioned in terms of our work with building stronger relationships with our vendors upstream we have that same focus on building stronger relationships. Downstreams, it's through collaboration and partnerships to drive mutual success. That's the benefit of it. A couple of ways that we're already trying to do this and work through opportunities with customers. Right now, last year when I was here, I described our R F I D project in the warehouse, which is basically a passive tag that gets applied to every item that's manufactured with the PGT brand. So we use that tracking information so we can have better inventory control through our facility. Well that same tag is on the product when it gets to the customer, when it goes through their facility, when it goes on their truck, and what goes to all the way through to the install till the product's on wrap.
Speaker 2 00:12:08 So we're now working to be able to provide the technology, the tools to our customers so that they have that same opportunity to leverage that technology as we are. So they can either use it similar to what we are, do a 15 minute walkthrough in your warehouse and have a complete inventory taken, use it as uh, kind of a geiger counter if you will, to go find a specific item in the warehouse. So the scanner will tell you when you're getting hotter or, or when you're getting closer we, you know, hotter or cold game, right? Right. So being able to use those tools, you know, helping our customers to be able to run their business better. Another way is really, uh, ties back to our supply chain planning function. We're really starting to work out as we build out our demand planning and our s and O P process that I mentioned earlier. We're really not doing this in a vacuum. This is a process that's meant to be collaborative as well. And so we're working with our sales team and then in conjunction with our customers to really be able to understand what's going on in their business so that we can develop more robust demand plans through our S N O P process that really are based on direct customer input and with a better demand plan we can actually execute better. And that's a benefit to the customer as well.
Speaker 1 00:13:21 Anything else that you would like our customers to know regarding supply chain and all those things?
Speaker 2 00:13:27 Yeah, I think, you know, reflecting on it, you know, we've really learned and grown a lot over the last couple years as we've kind of walked through the pandemic and the other disruptions that I've mentioned earlier. But you know, I think as I mentioned, resiliency or I think there's another key term that is becoming part of our vernacular now and that's agility. Both of these are really important. We've talked about, you know, the resiliency, that's the ability to adapt and recover from and thrive actually in the face of challenges. So that was the lessons learned that we've been deploying. But for us it's really now it's a function of shifting a little bit more to agility, which is really our ability to respond swiftly, um, and effectively to what's happening in the marketplace, right? Customer needs or as technology changes like R F I D and competitive pressures.
Speaker 2 00:14:14 It's really about being proactive and innovative. And if you think about there's that word innovative again, and now you know, this is part of our DNA at PGT innovation, so how could agility not be important to us from a supply chain perspective? So that's really key from us. And what I do know, I guess if you think about everything that's happened, we always know there's gonna be some challenges, disruptions, or changes in the marketplace that are gonna impact all of us in the future. We know that's gonna happen. So it, from a supply chain perspective at pgt, we're really focusing on continuing to develop that resiliency and the agility capabilities so that we ultimately can serve our customers in any environment of what's happening.
Speaker 1 00:14:55 All right, well this was a jam packed session. This is great stuff because I know supply chain was kind of the scapegoat for everything, right? How come I can't get my, oh, it's supply chain, supply chain, supply chain. So we can't do that anymore. Things are becoming more normal and and back to baseline, right? Yes, I would agree. Well, this has been a great conversation, Jeff. Thank you so much for your time today. Thank
Speaker 2 00:15:16 You. Great for being here.
Speaker 1 00:15:17 Yeah, enjoy. Take care. Yep.
Speaker 2 00:15:19 Bye-bye.
Speaker 1 00:15:20 P G T I University is the customer education team for an entire family of brands. We began with the original Easy Breeze, porch enclosure line then became P G T, America's leading brand of impact-resistant windows and doors. We then added cgi, C G I C window, Western Windows Systems, new South Windows, echo windows and doors, and lend windows and doors. And our latest acquisition Martin garage doors. We create products built to withstand major storms, keeping people safe, secure, and prepared. Our exceptional brands give you the protection you need without compromising design or functionality. P G T I University is here to educate you, our listener, so that you can be a more informed consumer of window and door products.
