Mr. Supply Chain®

The CSCMP Global Learning Challenge is live! And, it's 100% FREE! I am thrilled to announce the launch of the CSCMP Global Learning Challenge, an exciting opportunity for supply chain professionals, students, and educators around the world to grow their skills, test their knowledge, and connect with the global supply chain community. The challenge runs through December 31, 2025. To participate, you just need to complete the CSCMP Supply Chain Foundations Professional Certificates on LinkedIn Learning. The more certificates you earn, the more rewards you unlock. ▶ Personalized certificates recognizing your participation in the Global Challenge ▶ Discounts on CSCMP - Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals membership ▶ Discounts on SCPro Fundamentals courses and SCPro Level 1 certification ▶ Discounts on registration for the CSCMP EDGE Conference in Nashville There is no cost to participate. LinkedIn and CSCMP have generously made all ten learning paths free through the end of the year. If you have already earned some of the certificates, you have a headstart. Just create an account at https://lnkd.in/eQS2BctB and upload your certificates for verification. Since this partnership began, we have already awarded 27,000 certificates. But we are not stopping there. Our goal is 50,000 certificates by the end of the year. You can compete as an individual, as part of your company, your roundtable, or even on behalf of your country. One lucky participant who completes all ten certificates will win a free registration to the CSCMP’s EDGE Supply Chain Conference & Exhibition™ in Nashville, TN including a room at the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center. There are ten certificates included in the challenge: ▶ CSCMP Supply Chain Foundations: The Essentials Professional Certificate ▶ CSCMP Supply Chain Foundations: Demand Planning Professional Certificate ▶ CSCMP Supply Chain Foundations: Procurement Professional Certificate ▶ CSCMP Supply Chain Foundations: Inventory Management Professional Certificate ▶ CSCMP Supply Chain Foundations: Warehousing Operations Professional Certificate ▶ CSCMP Supply Chain Foundations: Manufacturing and Service Operations Professional Certificate ▶ CSCMP Supply Chain Foundations: Transportation Professional Certificate ▶ CSCMP Supply Chain Foundations: Customer Relationship Management Professional Certificate ▶ Project Management for Supply Chain Professional Certificate by CSCMP ▶ Generative AI for Supply Chain by CSCMP This is an incredible opportunity to learn, grow, and connect while advancing your career and contributing to the future of our profession. ▶ Join the challenge: https://lnkd.in/eQS2BctB ▶ Explore the certificates: https://lnkd.in/gA-_EzUU ▶ Share it with your network and encourage your colleagues to participate Join the competition and become a Global Champion! Together, we can make this the biggest global learning event in supply chain history. #CSCMP #SupplyChain #AlwaysBeLearning

Good news from ASCM… sort of. First, thank you to everyone who spoke up in the past few weeks! The pressure worked, and the Association for Supply Chain Management (ASCM) has finally clarified which open access license they have adopted for the Supply Chain Operations Reference – Digital Standard (SCOR-DS). The CEO sent us all an email yesterday afternoon explaining that the license is Creative Commons BY-NC-ND. https://lnkd.in/e8Hc5KtQ Credit to Abe Eshkenazi and the ASCM staff for listening, and being more transparent. While this is better than no license, I really wish they had chosen a ShareAlike license instead, because their BY-NC-ND license is… problematic. I’m not a lawyer, but here’s my read: ► Companies Internal training may be fine. Consulting, software, or publications? Probably “commercial use.” No adaptations allowed. ► Universities Teaching the unmodified model is okay. Derivative frameworks, case studies, or teaching aids? Maybe not. Industry-funded research sits in a gray zone. ► The big problem NoDerivatives kills innovation. SCOR’s value has always been in adapting it. That’s now prohibited. ► Translations None. SCOR is English-only because ASCM does not have a translations process. Global model, local language barrier. ► Versioning No clarity if the license applies to previous versions of SCOR. Please let me know in the comments if you see it differently. If you have plans to work with SCOR-DS in any of your future work, I've been told you should submit your request to marketingandbrandmanagement@ascm.org. If you've got a deadline for your project, you may want to submit that request ASAP, because my experience has been that the turnaround is rather slow. Meanwhile, companies and schools already using SCOR should probably check with their intellectual property lawyers to confirm compliance. (I am happy to refer you to my favorite IP law firm, if you need help from outside counsel.) It’s a shame, because I think this non-commercial license will inhibit use in exactly the places SCOR is needed most. I don't think this was most people's understanding of what "open access" would mean for a tax-exempt organization like ASCM. Clarity is welcome. The restrictions are not. Now is the time to press for change. If you care about SCOR’s future, I encourage you to continue (respectfully) sharing your concerns with the ASCM Staff and the Board. We all need to remember that their job is to serve our community. ~Mr. Supply Chain® #AlwaysBeLearning #SupplyChain #FreeSCOR P.S. As Abe was sending out the email to all ASCM members, the administrator of the 90,000-member ASCM Group on LinkedIn blocked me from the group. To be honest, I was expecting that to happen much sooner. No worries. More to come about that in a future post...

“What we have here is a failure to communicate.” (Strother Martin, playing the Captain in "Cool Hand Luke") The Association for Supply Chain Management (ASCM) advertises on their website that the Supply Chain Operations Reference Model – Digital Standard (SCOR-DS) is open access. Yet the staff continues to insist on licensing terms that are too restrictive for publishers to actually use. The language on their website seems to be clear: ▶ "(SCOR-DS) is the only comprehensive, universally accepted and open-access supply chain standard used by companies large and small." (https://lnkd.in/eqaXqtcW) Yet we've just concluded another unproductive round in the months-long back and forth saga between the lawyers at ASCM and my publisher. To their credit, the ASCM lawyers worked through the weekend and even sent over a new draft on Sunday night. But the bottom line is that nothing has really changed. This is not just about me, or my new book about the future of Supply Chain Management. It is about credibility and clarity for the whole SCM community. ▶ If SCOR DS is open access, then there should be no need to negotiate a license. They could simply adopt a license like Creative Commons ShareAlike. ▶ If SCOR DS is restrictive, then ASCM has been misleading our community (and perhaps themselves) by calling it open access. For context, Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that provides free, standardized licenses that make it easy for creators and organizations to share their work openly. The ShareAlike license allows others to use, adapt, and build upon a work, including for commercial purposes, as long as they credit the source and license their new creations under the same terms. This approach is relatively new, but has been widely adopted. Especially by non-profit organizations and government organization. For example: ▶ Wikipedia uses a Creative Commons ShareAlike license for its articles ▶ MIT OpenCourseWare makes its teaching materials available under Creative Commons ▶ The OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) uses Creative Commons licensing for much of its content These examples show that open access can be managed with a simple, well-recognized license that balances openness with fairness. And importantly, it does not interfere with ASCM’s ability to make money. On the contrary, it makes it easier for others to use the model, which will raise awareness and expand the market for ASCM’s official products and services. Please like, comment, and share to raise awareness. Please also reach out to ASCM staff and the board of directors to share your perspective. I know they are listening, but they have not quite gotten the message. Maybe this discussion will encourage them to adopt a simple, standard open access license for SCOR so that we can all move on to using it rather than debating whether and when we can use it. ~Mr. Supply Chain® #AlwaysBeLearning #FreeSCOR