60 seconds with Daniel Stanton, MHI

Daniel Stanton
Title: Vice president, education and professional development, MHI  
Location: Charlotte, N.C.
Experience: Supply chain management in the military and heavy industrial manufacturing
Primary Focus: Help the industry develop and implement effective strategies to combat the supply chain talent crisis.

Modern: Daniel, welcome to the materials handling industry. Prior to joining MHI, what were you doing?
Stanton: I like to say I have a broad range of interests and a short attention span. At one point, I was on track to become an engineer. Then I joined the Navy, where I was introduced to logistics. After the Navy, I completed my engineering studies, went into private industry as a manager and earned an MBA. At that point in my career, I discovered supply chain management, and it was an epiphany because it brought together all of my interests. From there, I earned a master’s degree in supply chain management at MIT and went to work for Caterpillar, where I spent six years before joining MHI.

Modern: How did you develop an interest in education and professional development?
Stanton: Back in 2010, when I was at Caterpillar, we put together a growth strategy as business began to pick up. The one thing that was going to prevent us from executing our business plan was that we didn’t have the people. That coincided with the publication of a study at MIT on the supply chain talent crisis. Given my connection to MIT, I was asked to help human resources develop a recruiting strategy, and I discovered I had a passion for education. I spent two years working with colleges, sponsoring student projects and recruiting on college campuses so that CAT Logistics was an employer of choice. That’s important because there really aren’t enough people coming into the industry and all of the major companies are going after the same candidates. The only way that’s going to improve is through a grassroots movement to get more supply chain professionals into the field. That’s really what we’re doing at MHI.

Modern: What I find interesting is that you refer to this as a supply chain issue and not a materials handling issue.
Stanton: I think that’s because materials handling, logistics, procurement and operations are all part of the supply chain; but as an industry, we’ve done a terrible job of defining just what the supply chain is and outlining the roles that the various players play. I think we’re all beginning to realize that procurement, logistics, operations and materials handling are linked: Optimizing one does not optimize the whole system. You have to link the three. MHI realizes that. When I was brought in, they weren’t bringing in a materials handling guy, they were bringing in a supply chain guy. And, I think our end customers realize that because they’re talking about supply chain problems.

Modern: As you look at your role, what kind of initiatives will you be working on?
Stanton: I believe you’ll see us working in a variety of areas. The industry needs supply chain managers – people who understand business, finance, contracts, marketing and environmental sustainability. But, we also need people who understand material properties who can engineer solutions that work. Next, there are jobs that don’t require four-year degrees, but do require skills to maintain automated systems. For now, we’re calling those supply chain technicians, and we want to define that as a career. Last, we have the blue and grey collar jobs associated with working in DCs and transportation departments that don’t require a four-year degree, such as warehouse supervisor or traffic expediter. The goal from the industry standpoint is to define these in a way that makes sense to our target candidates so they have an education path that allows them to get that job. We want to see what’s already being done now so we don’t duplicate efforts and identify the gaps that we can fill.