[moufestaphio]

My current position is involved in Supply Chain, and this hits the nail on the head. There are so many different departments with fragmented knowledge of the supply chain that isn't shared or sometimes even documented. One of the senior people trying to fix this specifically mentioned Walmart as an example of having their supply chain being a competitive advantage because they focused on it so much. I think Apple was also one of the ones we discussed.

[jcims]

WalMart turned their supply chain into a competitive advantage 30-40 years ago. I saw it as an employee first, their inventory control in the store was ridiculous back in the 80's. Then I saw it again working with an EDI shop (Sterling Commerce) in the 90's. Everything was electronic. We'd get these little mom and pop shops calling in trying to get their bisync modems working so they could upload their ANSI X12 810's.

The only reason there's any question who's the richest person in the world is that Sam Walton is dead.

[implements]

Sterling Commerce - that’s a name I haven’t heard in a •long• time. Do you by any chance remember a company called “EDES” (Electronic Data Exchange Service)?

[jcims]

There's a tickle in a neuron but it could be self-induced. What was the relationship?

[implements]

They bought EDES in 1998 - it was a company I’d done a bit of contract work for.

(Trivia) EDES was one of the few users of RPL (RapidGen Programming Language) - Decision Table based, and running on PDP11s and later MicroVaxs.

https://www.cbronline.com/news/sterling_commerce_buys_into_u...

[jcims]

Hmmm I was there in 98, probably just a hole in my memory.