CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--DSC Logistics has announced the 2012 recipients of the Thinkers & Movers Award. They are Stephan Haeckel, business consultant and executive educator/coach who pioneered the Sense and Respond managerial principles of adaptive enterprise design, and David Simchi-Levi, professor of Engineering Systems at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, author, entrepreneur, and consultant in the field of operations strategy.
As one of the nation’s leading supply chain management companies, DSC Logistics, headquartered in Des Plaines, Illinois, developed the Thinkers & Movers Award in 2009 to recognize individuals and companies whose innovative leadership has resulted in ground-breaking supply chain understanding and practices. According to DSC CEO Ann Drake, both Haeckel and Simchi-Levi have had a tremendous impact on the development of DSC’s model for supply chain management, as well as influencing many other businesses and professionals in a variety of fields. Their selection for the Thinkers & Movers Award is timely because Drake is being honored by the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals as the 2012 recipient of the Distinguished Service Award.
Drake met Haeckel and Simchi-Levi in the early 1990s after she joined DSC’s parent company, Dry Storage Corporation, as vice president of strategy and culture. She became aware of Haeckel’s adaptive enterprise principles around the time he published an article in the 1993 issue of Harvard Business Review introducing the term Sense and Respond. At that time, he was also with IBM in a career that included being corporate futurist, Director of Advanced Market Development and Director of Strategic Studies. Drake wanted to learn more about sense and respond, so she attended sessions Haeckel led at the Marketing Science Institute and IBM’s Advanced Business Institute. Drake adopted sense and respond principles in leading DSC through a transformation from warehousing and trucking provider to supply chain partner focusing on customers’ ever-changing needs. Haeckel is also the author of the book Adaptive Enterprise: Creating and Leading Sense and Respond Organizations, in which he includes a chapter featuring DSC Logistics.
Haeckel is now President of Adaptive Business Designs, an executive education and coaching firm. He is past Chairman of the Marketing Science Institute and his work has been published in numerous magazines and journals. He created www.senseandrespond.com, a repository for additions to Sense and Respond intellectual capital and he is an international authority on customer-value growth strategies.
Drake’s introduction to the thinking and leadership of Simchi-Levi occurred at industry conferences and also when he was teaching executive education programs for the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Drake earned her MBA from Kellogg and currently serves as Vice Chairman of the Business Advisory Council of Northwestern’s Transportation Center. She describes Simchi-Levi’s teaching as being “straight forward and extraordinarily clear in explaining complex supply chain issues.”
Simchi-Levi is the author of several books on the supply chain, including his most recent Operations Rules: Delivering customer value through flexible operations. Prior to joining the faculty at Northwestern University he was on the faculty at Columbia University. He joined the faculty of MIT in 2000. In addition to his accomplishments as an author and educator, Simchi-Levi was the co-founder and Chairman of LogicTools, now part of IBM, that provides software solutions for supply chain optimization. His research currently focuses on developing and implementing robust and efficient techniques for manufacturing and supply chains.
Presentation of the Thinkers & Movers Award will be held at a special event in conjunction with the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) Global Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, on October 1. Drake will receive the Distinguished Service Award at the opening session of the conference earlier that day.
Previous recipients of the Thinkers & Movers Award include:
2009 - Ralph Drayer, former chief logistics officer of Procter & Gamble, and Dr. Nancy Nix, executive director of the EMBA program and associate professor, supply chain practice in the Neeley School of Business at Texas Christian University.
2010 - Daan Delen, president and CEO of Reynolds American, Inc, and Nicholas LaHowchic, author and former logistics executive for Limited Brands and Becton Dickinson.
2011 – Dr. Donald Bowersox (in memorium), longtime professor of logistics and supply chain management at Michigan State University and well-known author, speaker, and industry leader; Ed Bowersox, senior director – Global Product Supply for Kimberly-Clark Professional; and John Bowersox, manager – Customer Service Operations for Kohler Co.
About DSC Logistics
DSC Logistics, a leading supply chain management company, focuses on designing, integrating, managing, and adapting supply chain solutions. DSC capabilities as a Lead Logistics Partner (LLP) and third-party provider (3PL) include supply chain analysis and design, network optimization and management, Logistics Center management, transportation management and consolidation, business process integration, supply chain visibility, and value-added services. In today’s environment, filled with rapid and unpredictable change, DSC helps customers achieve their goals by being ready for anything!