From Production Line to Director of Transportation Strategy: A Supply Chain Journey with Rob Haddock

Freight Nation: A Trucking Podcast

In this episode of Freight Nation: A Trucking Podcast, host Brent Hutto is joined by Rob Haddock, Transportation Consultant for Albedo Logistics.

Join them as they explore:

• How experience on the production line helped to shape Rob’s approach to supply chain management
• What it was like to be in charge of the supply chain for summer Olympic events
• Why shippers need to be more welcoming to drivers
• And much more!

Rob Haddock is a Strategic Senior Business Executive with extensive experience leading supply chain management organizations. He is currently a Transportation Consultant for Albedo Logistics, having recently finished a 40+ year tenure at the Coca-Cola Company, where he was most recently Group Director of Transportation Strategy.

Episode Highlights:

[10:44] In his early career, Rob spent two years working on the production line at the Coca-Cola manufacturing plant. He quickly learned the dynamic nature of the production schedule, which was in constant limbo based on the upstream forecast, the inventory, and the materials coming into the facility. When he moved up into the warehouse, where he spent a decade, he was effectively responsible for every part of the production scheduling, continually adjusting on the fly to parts of the equation dropping out. He has carried this experience throughout his entire supply chain management career.

[21:50] After ten years in the warehousing role, Rob moved further up in The Coca-Cola Company, heading to a larger facility in New Jersey where he did a lot of customer interfacing before being pulled into working on the summer Olympic games in 1996 and 2000. He had to plan inventory, secure products, get trucks, and set up all the supply lines, all with very little technology. He would track inventories at thirty venues, input them into spreadsheets, and manually figure out the replenishment needed, with all products getting where they needed to be on time.

[28:59] Rob strongly believes shippers need to be welcoming to drivers as they are an integral part of logistics. So much energy goes into getting a product to a shipper’s warehouse that people almost forget it’s not yet with the customer. Who is crucial to finishing the journey? Drivers. They work nonstop and just need to be met with a smile and some efficiency. Rob advocates that every place you check in and out at a shipper receiver should essentially be a welcome center for the driver, eventually leading to greater efficiency across the whole transportation industry in the long run.
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