As a senior supply chain executive at forest products leader Georgia-Pacific, Bill Oliver is committed to applying latest technologies and forging mutually beneficial relationships with an objective of thrilling customers each day.
Oliver, who joined Atlanta-based Georgia-Pacific in 1994, currently serves as senior director of global supply chain across multiple sectors, from fluff pulp to pine chemicals to fiber recycling.
Whatever the product, Oliver believes innovation-driven supply chain efficiencies combined with trusted partnerships can create significant value, as he shares with readers of AJOT.
How has the forest products supply chain evolved over the course of your more than 25 years with Georgia-Pacific, and how are you responding in terms of ocean and landside shipping practices?
Looking back to 15 or more years ago, the supply chain functions – that is transportation and logistics – were, for many companies, largely an afterthought or merely a cost of doing business, often with relatively little focus.
Within the last 10 years, we’ve seen much more focus on improving our supply chain with our business leaders recognizing that we can create significant value to our customers and within our businesses by being more efficient, with our supply chain network managing our costs.
Most recently, we are seeing a laser focus now on not only cost management but designing and implementing proactive, predictive and, to a degree, prescriptive networks deploying technologies and digitalizing the supply chain. We believe this can be an advantage for those companies that are on the leading edge of creating and managing a digital supply chains, again bringing greater value to our customers.
We are using a much more data-driven approach to all our decision-making. From simple spreadsheets in the earlier years, we have now transitioned to a more forward-thinking, predictive model of going to market, anticipating as much as possible what headwinds to be wary of, what tailwinds to capture and to have a measured response to every possible scenario we might encounter. We cannot plan or predict every supply chain disruption or shock, but we can be better prepared to limit them as they occur, thereby mitigating potential disruption to our customers.
We are also much more focused on long-term relationships and building trust with our partners. We believe that good things happen when there is a level of trust where both parties feel like they are mutually benefitting from the relationship. Our vision is to create virtuous cycles of mutual benefit between our customers, service providers and ourselves.
We are investing in better freight forwarding tools, predictive analytics models, real-time tracking and traceability plus technology in our mill logistics operations to reduce errors, increase safety, improve consistency and also give us a level of insight into the supply chain that simply was not possible before.
How is Georgia-Pacific taking the lead in implementation of technology, and what role do you see Georgia-Pacific’s recently opened supply chain innovation center playing?
In 2018, Point A formed around the common belief that no one company can innovate alone. With digital transformation disrupting long-held practices and infrastructures at a rapid pace, companies may not realize that the answers to their greatest supply chain challenges could already exist.
Point A is an action-oriented, friction-free solution environment where leading global companies, start-ups and academic institutions come together to solve complex supply chain challenges. Through this unique partnership of members, Point A fuels the collaboration to develop practical, near-term solutions to problems, and ultimately test and launch innovative technologies in realistic settings with measurable results.
Georgia-Pacific spearheaded the effort and is now joined by 30 leading supply chain organizations in a connected, agile ecosystem that co-creates solutions together. Furthermore, there is a lot of transformation happening inside the company to meet the challenges of new markets and changing customer needs, so we need to prepare and evolve constantly to stay competitive in the markets we serve and improve our customers’ experience with us.
We aim to thrill our customers every day. A quality dynamic yet reliable supply chain is an essential part of doing just that.
With technology infiltrating supply chain networks at light speed, we believe that further investments in technology to support our internal processes will be key to maintaining competitive advantages at the corporate and manufacturing levels. This is the wave of the future and is not a question of if we will invest but when and how fast.
Many of our partners are working to keep pace with – and stay ahead of – the rest of the supply chain world by implementing new technologies like blockchain. Our industry will benefit by greater data accuracy, tracking and traceability, documentation improvements and standardization.
We are also a more intelligent supply chain that is constantly reviewing new technologies being used in forest products, such as RFID [radio-frequency identification]. We look forward to rapid adoption of these digital technologies improving every part of our supply chain and enhancing our customers’ experience.
What are the most significant supply chain challenges you face, and how are you addressing them?
The ongoing digitization of the shipping world could not come faster. We are affected by inefficiencies in carrier documentation, space visibility and service consistency and believe that digitization of all parts of the supply chain from port operations to carrier space to documentation will benefit us and make for a more efficient industry.
At the same time, infrastructure is lagging behind in many parts of the globe, including right here in the United States, which exacerbates problems like vessel delays, congestion and speed to market.
On the technology front, there are many new and different areas that we can focus on. Therefore, we have to be deliberate in focusing on specific areas that will lead to rapid improvements for our customers. Building further on the formation of Point A is consistent with such objectives.
Who do you see as your professional and personal role models, and why?
I’m not one of those individuals who had a specific role model, but rather I draw from many different experiences or examples from people both personally and professionally.
In my personal life, I have a hugely supportive wife, family and friends, all of whom I am grateful to for their unwavering support.
There are people I have had the privilege to work with over the years who taught me different things – whether those individuals simply inspired me through leadership or taught me how to work through difficult situations. Some taught me the importance of taking care of our people, while others exhibited integrity and respect in the face of significant challenges, which, for me, is highly motivating.
I’m also drawn to those individuals who had the odds stacked against them yet had the fortitude and vision to do great things. Over the years, I’ve learned to be on the lookout for little things that have a significant impact on me – these might be a hallway conversation, a phone call with a colleague, or a simple gesture.
What do you enjoy doing for fun and relaxation when you’re not at work?
I have a very active personal life. We have two boys – one in high school and one at college – and we spend a lot of time with both. We love to spend time at the lake with family and friends.
I enjoy home remodeling projects and, in the fall, dedicate time to college football. I’m a big fan of Auburn, where I graduated from the college of business. War Eagle!
