Puga Sankara is the co-founder of Smart Gladiator LLC. Smart Gladiator designs, builds, and delivers market-leading mobile technology for retailers, distributors, and 3PL service providers. So far, In Command Wearables have been used to ship, receive, and scan more than 5 million boxes. Users love them for the lightweight, easy-to-use soft overlay keyboard and video chatting ability, as well as several other capabilities that were made available to them that they did not have before. Puga is a supply chain technology professional with more than 17 years of experience in deploying capabilities in the logistics and supply chain domain. His prior roles involved managing complicated mission-critical programs driving revenue numbers, rolling out a multitude of capabilities involving more than a dozen systems, and managing a team of 30 to 50 personnel across multiple disciplines and departments in large corporations such as Hewlett Packard. He has deployed WMS for more than 30 distribution centers in his role as a senior manager with Manhattan Associates. He has also performed process analysis walk-throughs for more than 50 distribution centers for WMS process design and performance analysis review, optimizing processes for better productivity and visibility through the supply chain. The size of these DCs varied from 150,000 to 2 million square feet. Sankara has an MBA from Georgia Tech. He can be reached at puga@smartgladiator.com or visit the company at www.in-cmd.com.
You cannot manage what you cannot measure—so if you want to manage something you need to be able to measure it. The average distributor, then, can improve productivity by 7% just by implementing a system that measures labor and publishes a daily report on operator’s performance. It’s all about the psychology of it. When people…
Recently, I travelled to china to meet with one of our vendors. As soon as I set foot in the country, I was impressed with a variety of things that I saw. The Shenzhen airport was big and modern. The familiar Starbucks logo and store were there—so familiar despite the strange surroundings. Shenzhen airport Thirty…
In the summer months, the employment market is flooded with newly minted graduates. In an environment where there are more supply chain, logistics, and related jobs than there are qualified candidates, this can be an opportune season to attract talent. Today, pursing a job at a startup, particularly a high-tech, electronics startup is all the…
Whatever your supply chain network it might be (retail distribution, wholesale distribution, e-com fulfillment, or 3PL), it’s important to remember that not all distributions run the same version of software or even the same programs. For those tasked with the supply chain or fulfillment tasks, this is a conundrum. Consistency is critical to allow for…
Conventional wisdom dictates that a picture is worth a thousand words and stories are worth a thousand pictures. I believe that…and I use stories in my presentation regularly. Of course, picking the right story is critical to making the biggest impact. Sometimes, though, I have an audience that speaks a completely different language. How do…
Block chain has great potential to solve problems and address supply chain problems. Personally, the area that excites me most is track and trace—especially when you consider the possibility of taking these capabilities to the next level. Let us take a step back and look at the current supply chain processes and their evolution. Packing…
I recently visited NASA’s Cape Canaveral Kennedy Space Center. It was a fun and educational trip, especially for my daughter. We spent a lot of time looking at the Space Shuttle Atlantis exhibit. It also brought back memories. During the launch of Space Shuttle Columbia STS-107 in 2003, I was with a bunch of friends…
Anyone who has worked in the high-tech electronics sector for a couple of decades has seen some big changes and been part of some crazy projects. I certainly have. And these are the projects that have taught me the most about how to successfully implement technology—and to understand it sometimes takes more time than anyone…
I recently watched a documentary called 42 Grams. It was a well-made movie about a man with a great love of gastronomy—and showed someone with passion for the arts (food making and movie making) as well as for music (which complimented the story of the food so beautifully). It left me inspired and I couldn’t…
Falcon Heavy rendering. Courtesy: SpaceX The United States is known for its pioneering spirit and its push to innovate. Americans push the limits, dream the impossible, and imagine the improbable. It’s not surprising that the Silicon Valley started here. Or that Elon Musk is there building amazing rockets including the Falcon Heavy and the upcoming…