The Power of Partnership: How Zebra Technologies and DHL are Taking Innovation to New Heights

In this episode Deanna Self, Director of Operations, North and Latin America at Zebra Technologies, and Chris Sheedy, Vice President of Operations, Technology at DHL Supply Chain discuss the importance of integrating innovation into your supply chain strategy. Listen to the two share more about how they are working together to achieve Zebra’s growth goals and accelerate digitalization across operations. 

Transcript

Speaker 2 (00:09):

Welcome to All Business No Boundaries, a collection of supply chain stories by DHL Supply Chain, the North American leader in contract logistics. I'm your host, will Hayward. This is a place for in-depth discussions on the supply chain, challenges keeping you up at night. We're breaking beyond the boundaries that are limiting your supply chain. Today's episode is the Power of Partnership, how Zebra Technologies and DHL are taking innovation to new heights. Our guests are Dean of self, director of Operations, north and Latin America, zebra Technologies, and Chris Sheedy, vice President of Operations Technology, DHL Supply Chain. Let's dive in.

Speaker 3 (00:48):

Okay. So welcome Deanna. Welcome Chris, I'm really glad that you're joining us today. Appreciate the time. I'd like to start out, as we always do with just introductions of each of you and I'll start with Dina, if you could tell us who you are, the organization that you work for, your role there, and maybe how long you've been at the company. Sure.

Speaker 4 (01:06):

So I am Deanna Self, Director of Operations, North and Latin America at Zebra Technologies. I have been here coming up on about four years now, but I've been overseeing the distribution center there in Fort Worth. We're supported by DHL for the last couple years.

Speaker 3 (01:24):

Super. Chris, how about you?

Speaker 5 (01:25):

This is Chris Sheedy. I'm Vice President of operations with DHL Supply Chain North America in the technology sector. I've been with DHL for going on 27 years now. I can't believe it, the last 15 within supply chain and since October of 2018 with the technology sector.

Speaker 3 (01:47):

Okay, great, great. So I'm interested in the conversation today. I know we had a chance to talk about a month ago and got a lot of good stuff to come. So Dina, maybe starting out with you, could you describe the relationship between Zebra and DHL?

Speaker 4 (02:02):

Sure. So my relationship, like I said, has been with DHL over the last two years, but Zebra's relationship goes back a little bit further from a relationship standpoint. I would say that over these past couple years it has grown really nicely. Our business, especially during and coming out of the pandemic, fluctuated so much and then you throw on top of that the labor shortage. I think everyone has really been put to the test in terms of being agile. But what really grew out of this for me was strengthening the partnership and that relationship and trust that you have for each other goes a long way. And a lot of that came from seizing on opportunities just for better collaboration and transparency and working together, you know, to continually find ways to improve. And that's a lot of what we've done over these past couple of years to get us where we are today.

Speaker 3 (02:55):

Great. I think we have a bi-directional relationship, if I have it right with DHL being a customer of Zebra as well as a service provider. Yeah,

Speaker 5 (03:04):

We do, certainly, we are a large customer of zebras using their tablets, scanning technology as such throughout the world, not Justine, north America. So it's an interesting dynamic. We really do keep that separate and focus on providing world class service to be and her team out of our facility and they do the same to us.

Speaker 3 (03:28):

And Dina, for the benefit of our listeners, I'm not sure everybody fully understands what Zebra is as a company and the products that you make. So could you tell us a bit about that?

Speaker 4 (03:38):

Sure. So Zebra empowers organizations to thrive in a on-demand economy through our enterprise asset intelligence, which is really all about making every frontline worker and asset visible, connected and fully optimized. We serve customers of all sizes. I believe it's more than 80% of the Fortune 500. We've got a portfolio of hardware, software services and solutions that work to digitize and automate workflows. So I would say most of the listeners have probably seen our devices in everyday life. Everything from scanners at the store, checkout, maybe mobile computers confirming a package delivery on your doorstep or maybe you or a loved one have been in a hospital and while there you saw printers producing the patient wristbands. So most likely in each of these scenarios you saw Zebra products and then probably the products you don't see as much would be more along the lines of our automated mobile robots, our machine vision and artificial intelligence software.

Speaker 3 (04:40):

Got it. Dina, in your role, you obviously use a third party DHL and perhaps others. Generally speaking, what do you look for from a 3PL?

Speaker 4 (04:51):

So maybe some of the top things that stand out would be an organization who shares and embodies the same principles as we do. You know, DHL has similar expectations and behavior and output and culture as those that we would expect from our own company. Essentially we want a three PL to be an extension of Zebra and operate in a one team type of mindset where you know, we win together, we lose together. The other thing I would say is the technology, the innovation and the experience that they can bring to the table that's gonna ensure that we meet our commitment, that we can rise to the challenges and provide overall customer satisfaction to us and our customers.

Speaker 3 (05:32):

I'll come back to innovation in a minute, but Chris, you've been around the business a long time as you told us, and worked with a lot of different customers. What would you say is unique about the relationship that you have with Zebra?

Speaker 5 (05:45):

I think he hit on it a little bit earlier, but the level of collaboration that's needed to make their business successful and Zebra is willing to engage in is world plots. She had mentioned going back to the pandemic and coming out of it and everyone had their challenges and I'm sure some of the challenges that we experienced are <inaudible>. However, both being able to satisfy their end customer playing the game of knowing when product would become available with very little notice how to process that product and do, as Venus sometimes says, we, we learned together how to do difficult very well and we as DHL certainly couldn't have done that by ourselves. So as our levels of elaboration and teamwork roads between the two organizations, the output just continued to improve to record setting outbound revenue attainment in some of the most challenging times that we've been through. I also certainly appreciate data and team's willingness to engage and thank our team and that's not myself and the director that runs the business. That's down to the board level associate participating in celebrations, coming in and buying lunch slash dinner for the Ta d and Zebra know that we strive to be an employer of choice, we are a great place to work and they really help reinforce that with our associates and that just drives the relationship to a very high level.

Speaker 3 (07:25):

That's great. Can you describe the operation itself? How big is it, square footage wise, how many associates? What does that look like? We're

Speaker 5 (07:33):

In a facility just under 400,000 square feet in Fort Worth. The headcount moves we've been as high as 360 or so. We've been at levels of 150 or so. And a lot of that is based on demand on the Zebra side, product lines, their ever changing business. So Dee mentioned earlier as well, flexibility, we have over the years in this building opened been 2017 and in that time the one thing that I can tell you is the headcount has ever been constant. Somebody told me a long time ago business, it's never the same size, it's either growing or shrinking and I never think of it as shrinking. I think of it as right sizing and we've seen that a number of times over the years. So anywhere from 150 to 350, 360 in a relatively large, so.

Speaker 3 (08:32):

Got it. And Dina, what facilities service, what geographies in the world?

Speaker 4 (08:37):

We've got items going over to amea, apac, down to Latin America. Those are our primary location.

Speaker 3 (08:46):

Yeah, us as well.

Speaker 4 (08:48):

Primarily I would say the bulk of it is here in North America. We do about 60% of our business in North America.

Speaker 3 (08:55):

Got it, got it. When we talked a month ago or so, both of you mentioned something that I think you started to touch on with the relationship, but the word was culture and I wondered if each of you could kind of talk about how you see the concept of culture between the two businesses and how it contributes to success in your every day. Dina, you can go first.

Speaker 4 (09:18):

Culture for me is people and the employee's needs have changed and it's important that, you know, we are creating positive workplaces where people can be seen, they can be heard that the work that they do is valued. And Chris said, you know that you're an employer of choice, right? We want people to wanna come to work and do a great job. And culture plays a really big part into that in terms of how we treat each other and how we reward each other and listen to each other and just a number of different things. So just listening to the feedback of the employees is very important. And then, you know, taking the right actions and providing the right trainings too where necessary to make sure that we're all fostering an environment that supports all of these needs.

Speaker 3 (10:13):

Chris, can you think of some examples of that?

Speaker 5 (10:16):

Yeah, so will we focus on Ted Var guts at DHL supply chain and leadership that the liberty kinda output we wanna see within the technology sector as well. We look at attitude, which we define as our culture in action. And a few of those points jump to mind when, when I think of the relationship with Zebra and how we've been successful, one specific is we strive every day to treat our team members like we would want our family to be treated at work. You know, I think of that, I've now got a couple kids that are able to work. One does so willingly, one is not so excited about doing that and you, you know, I I think about if they were working in a BC and get ready to punch out on Friday evening, if there were a tough message and there was maybe work that needed to be done on overtime or the next day, I wouldn't want them to find out about that as they were clocking out at that time.

(11:13):

We wanna communicate early and Zebra is able to help us do that by working with us on forecast, letting us know what's coming our way so we can communicate. And even if it's a little bit of a difficult message, you know, we, we can communicate early and and make that something where we have compassion and caring for the associates. Let them know what's on the horizon and they can make adjustments as necessary. We also talk a lot about confronting the brutal facts, right? As part of our culture raise issues early and show urgency and dressing up and began working together, we're able to do that. So the collaboration, the transparency between the two companies really allows us to not just have culture as a sign on a wall with some points, but you know, really live it on the floor, in the conference room on calls between the two organizations. So it's very important.

Speaker 3 (12:13):

That's interesting, Chris. 'cause You know, in supply chain we like to think everything goes right all the time, but that's certainly not the case and how you deal with those one-offs is important. Dina, how do you see the DHL team working with yours in terms of identifying issues and resolving them? Is it you're hitting the ball across the net and one team sort of deals with the problem, brings a solution and they evaluate it? Or is it more arm in arm?

Speaker 4 (12:39):

I would say it's more arm in arm. I mean obviously DHL, they're there on the floor constantly. They're seeing more and managing more of everything that's going on. So typically from that standpoint, they're surfacing the opportunities to us and that becomes an opportunity where we can then collaborate and try to determine what might be the best approach to pivot however we need to. Right. Got

Speaker 3 (13:04):

It. Okay. So switching gears a little bit to innovation. I heard that Zebra got a high ranking from Fast Company as the number one large company to work for, for innovators. Maybe let's unpack that a a little bit, Dina, what does that mean to you guys?

Speaker 4 (13:22):

So innovation is, it's important to us because we want to ensure our customer success and that requires us to stay ahead of what's happening. We've gotta listen, we've gotta understand what's happening in the market, what the customer pain points are, and just ultimately how can we make the lives of frontline workers easier so that they can focus on tasks that really matter. And as technology continues to evolve, it opens the doors for us to revisit and address those opportunities. I think for me coming into Zebra, like I said, I've only been there for about four years now, but I think one of the, the biggest things that I noticed right off the bat is the listing that people do. They wanna hear what people have to say, they're bringing in people who think differently. And I think that this really plays into, you know, a, an innovative workspace that they've created.

Speaker 3 (14:18):

So there's obviously a market facing aspect to that for product development and all. But I wonder, do you apply the same rigor on the supply chain operations side and, and if the answer is yes, which I think it is, how do you bring that to life?

Speaker 4 (14:31):

So we have an operational excellence culture and we actually have a very targeted focus right now around that as well. But in general, just being operationally focused, continuing to challenge the status quo, we've got different things set up within our organization that focus people excellence and operational excellence and programs where people can submit ideas to bring innovation to life and tackle those pain points that we may be filling. So, you know, we're doing a lot of things internally to just help make that a part of our everyday culture where if we see something, we say something and we start taking action on it. If it's embedded in you as a person, as you're working with other people. So in my example, I'm working back with DHL, right? We're probably gonna be having the, the same discussions of something's happened, okay, well what did we find out? Why did it happen? How can we not make it happen again? Or you know, let's look at the people process, technology aspect of it and figure out what are some good next steps forward.

Speaker 3 (15:39):

Are you piloting new devices with supply chain operation?

Speaker 4 (15:42):

So Zebra has obviously a a plethora of solutions, but we try to target those things that we know would work best for a warehouse operations. And what we do is if we feel like it fits our business needs and we can prove that there would be value in obviously doing it, then we would partner up with DHL and look to explore to test or pilot that application. I think even most recently we're testing, and this is not a Zebra solution, but it's another solution that we came across where it would help the configuration process of the devices that DHL is configuring for us. So instead of doing one at a time, they could do multiple at a time. So that's just another example. But when we come across opportunities that we feel would be a good fit within the operation, then we have that exploration conversation and once we start holding hands and we move forward and just we try to prove it out and if it works well, great, let's implement it. If it doesn't, no harm, no loss there, we've learned from it and we can see maybe other areas where it could help. So Zebra going back to other customers that may be a better fit or DHL taking that back to some of their other customers that may be a better fit.

Speaker 3 (16:53):

Yeah, that was right where I was going. Chris had, there have been examples where Zebra technology we've trial run, have gone out into other DHL businesses.

Speaker 5 (17:03):

It's hard for me to see where the Zebra begins and ends. Well, I know that we have Zebra technology throughout supply chain, working market and globally. I do know that Zebra collaborates with a MR companies as well and that has moved on. So I'm talking about things like FET for robotics that we might have used in our site and moved elsewhere.

Speaker 3 (17:25):

Okay, good, good. Yeah, but it is an interesting relationship where you do have sort of the Sandbox test bed that's actually supporting a live operation with a customer service provider. So that's pretty unique.

Speaker 4 (17:37):

I think that that's one of the biggest benefits of partnering with a three pl to be honest with you, because just as an individual company, your sandbox is never gonna be that big to play in. But when a company like DHL, just the massive amount of customers that you do have and the differences that they all have, your sandbox is very big in terms of the innovation that you're bringing to the table. And so it gives a lot more to customers like us in terms of what opportunity could be in many different areas that we don't play in ourselves.

Speaker 3 (18:10):

Well that's a really interesting point and I think a good way to end today. I want to thank you both for telling us a little bit about the Zebra DHL story and wish you both the best of luck for the rest of the year. Thank

Speaker 4 (18:21):

You Will, and thank you. Yeah. Yep. Thanks for the partnership. Chris.

Speaker 3 (18:26):

You enjoyed today's episode. Be sure to rate us and subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. You can also re-listen to our entire library of episodes on our website, dhl.com/amb podcast. See you next time.