CIO: At Kimberly-Clark, how critical is the management of the supply chain function for those executives not on the inside? How much do they care to know about it?

Jamison: Obviously it's critical in many ways, but it is so critical to working collaboratively with your customers on common objectives. Supply chains that have the capability to provide high levels of service for in-stock at retail and on-time delivery, in a cost-effective manner, can be a competitive advantage that can be leveraged to help grow the business.

CIO: You mentioned real-time data. There are some potential downsides to real-time data—for example, making too-quick decisions based on not fully flushed out supply chain information. In addition, the term “real-time data” can mean different things to different companies. What does real-time data entail at Kimberly-Clark?

Jamison: [Real-time data] improves your ability to see what’s going on in the marketplace and to understand, in a very timely manner, what’s happening with the promotions, what’s happening with a product in production. And it enables you to respond, from a supply chain perspective, in a more cost-effective manner, and in a manner that helps you increase your stock levels and keep things on the shelf.

Now that doesn’t mean to us that we that we need real-time data at an hour level. But we certainly want to look at it in eight- to 16-hour buckets so that we do get a very timely read as to what’s happening in the marketplace. (For more on the risks and rewards of real-time data in the supply chain, see Managing the Flow of Real-Time Data.)

CIO: Other supply chain executives that I have spoken with have told me about the "aha" moment when their supply chain users finally got the real-time or more up-to-date data they had always wanted. Did this happen at Kimberly-Clark?

Jamison: It did, when we implemented APO. Now, we won't realize the full benefit of our integration until our order-to-cash is fully implemented, which I mentioned earlier. But when we implemented APO, our production planners saw an immediate improvement to their ability to service promotions because of improved visibility to real-time demand information.

CIO: Kimberly-Clark has been a major driver on RFID adoption. What can you tell me about RFID in 2007 and how you are currently using the technology?

Jamison: The first thing I would tell you is our strategy around RFID has been to focus on business processes and develop repeatable, scalable business processes that are enabled by the technology. The reason I start out with that is you read today a lot about whether companies are getting value from RFID. When we dug deep into those examples, it was because [those companies] really operated in a “slap and ship” mode.