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Research Advisory Board

ChainLink’s research advisory board includes leading innovators in their field, thought leaders, and seasoned executives who have established track records in supply chain consulting, software and operations. The advisory board guides the company’s research topics and editorial calendar.

Robert Bruce - Retail Supply Chain Management
Paul E. Miller - Operations Executive
Dave Turbide - CSCP, CFPIM, CMfgE, CIRM - Consultant, Analyst, Specialized Writer - Production Solutions
Debby Turbide - Vice President / General Manager - Productions Solutions


Robert Bruce
- Retail Supply Chain Management

As the leader and driving force behind the transformation of Wal-Mart's supply chain during the 80's and 90's, Robert Bruce brings unrivaled experience and knowledge to ChainLink's retail team. Mr. Bruce is a 25-year veteran and industry leading authority on retail demand and supply integration, optimization and collaboration. Best known as Wal-Mart's Vice-President for Corporate Supply Chain Strategies and Inventory Management and Replenishment for Wal-Mart Stores and SuperCenters, Mr. Bruce helped design and implement Wal-Mart's inventory management, forecasting and supply chain business strategy, recognized as a model worldwide. Through this model, Mr. Bruce defined Wal-Mart’s present business strategies, demand-supply chain opportunities, process integration, optimization and collaborative applications including Collaborative Planning, Forecasting, and Replenishment (CPFR) by working with leaders in the retailer/CPG industry segment, thereby laying the foundation and migration path to total supply chain collaboration.

Before joining ChainLink, Mr. Bruce founded Value Chain Collaboration Associates Inc. (“VCC Associates, Inc.”), to further the understanding, implementation and adoptions of key transformational strategies and initiatives with industry leading executive teams in retailing and manufacturing. Prior to founding VCC Associates, Inc., Mr. Bruce served as Partner focused on retail/CPG industry segment at Surgency, Inc., now known as Benchmarking Partners. There he contributed to Surgency’s cross industry knowledge capital and methodology, defining key applications for business multi-tier collaboration internally and externally within organizations, manufacturers and their suppliers, to enhance the total customer/consumer-based value proposition.

Earlier in his career, Mr. Bruce led a variety of initiatives in marketing, store operations, buying, replenishment and distribution for a subsidiary of Target Stores, primarily focused on designing, implementing, and managing centralized basic replenishment and fashion apparel programs.

Mr. Bruce also served as the original Chairman of the VICS Subcommittee as part of the Dynamic Information Sharing/Merchants Issues Committee, setting an industry standard for CPFR. In this role, he drove industry definition and guidelines for CPFR, standards and enabling technology that were the basis for the VICS/CPFR guidelines.

Mr. Bruce often speaks and writes on emerging best practices in demand planning, forecasting and integrated collaborative value chains. He also was chosen as an outside expert advisor to Alan Greenspan and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System on Inventory Management. He is a member of the Northwest Arkansas Council of Logistics Management and was asked to join the Board of Directors of the Supply Chain Management Research Center at the University of Arkansas prior to retiring from Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. He has been selected and referenced in Marquis’s Who’s Who in America since 1994.

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Paul E. Miller
- Operations Executive

Mr. Miller is a Sr. Consultant with experience as an operations executive with many Fortune 100 companies such as General Electric, Hamilton Beach/Scovill, Timex, and American Cyanamid, and with past positions ranging from shop floor foreman and plant manager to executive vice president of material. As a Partner with Computer Science Corporation, he managed the complete life cycle of a client engagement.

Mr. Miller has lead consulting engagements with both small and large organizations. The largest being the Department of Defense Logistics and Transportation. Command (Transcom) and the Army's Materiel Command. These engagements had a worldwide focus and are the largest logistics and transportation systems in the world. Mr. Miller has also managed a successful turnaround of a small company, under $50 million, in the automotive aftermarket.

His operation management background allows him to truly understand the clients' problems and gives him a perspective that quickly gains clients' confidence. His industry knowledge in electronics, paper, steel, electromechanical consumer products, and chemical industries is another factor that greatly enhances his success in engagements.

Mr. Miller is an acknowledged expert on the philosophy and the use of the Constraint Theory in designing and implementing business processes and the supporting technology to manage the dynamic business problems of today and the near future.

Mr. Miller's Operation experience not only entailed managing units at all levels of an organization, but has been the architect of organization and business processes for both fortune 500 and the government. He has successfully managed organizations to achieve their corporate goals. He understands the real world of management and the effects of business process design and technology on achieving business goals.

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Dave Turbide
- CSCP, CFPIM, CMfgE, CIRM
Consultant, Analyst, Specialized Writer - Production Solutions

Dave is a Supply Chain subject matter expert who has unique qualifications as an independent consultant, analyst and writer who has served both the developers and the users of software and systems for manufacturers for over thirty five years:

  • Author of a number of reports for major analyst firms including Benchmarking Partners/Surgency, the Yankee Group, Industry Directions, Mr. Turbide is especially attuned to the needs and challenges of the mid-sized manufacturer. He was a subject matter expert for the education material supporting the APICS Certified Supply Chain Professional program
  • Considered one of the industry's leading SMB experts, Mr. Turbide has helped hundreds of users of manufacturing systems to select, implement, educate and get better results from their systems
  • Mr. Turbide has performed analysis, written white papers and case studies, and advised the software developers to help them improve their supply chain / enterprise system products and market positioning
  • Author of the books Computers in Manufacturing, MRP+, Why Systems Fail, among others, Mr. Turbide has contributed hundreds of articles for various trade publications and currently writes the Enterprise Insights column for APICS the Magazine, and the Lean + Green Manufacturing blog
  • Mr. Turbide and a partner launched Midrange ERP magazine (later renamed Midrange Enterprise) in 1996, an information and education resource for the small to medium sized manufacturing community
  • A frequent speaker at regional and national conferences and seminars, he can be heard in-person and on the web

Mr. Turbide is a certified manufacturing engineer and is certified by APICS as a Supply Chain Professional, at the fellow level in Production and Inventory Management and in Integrated Resource Management. More information can be found at www.daveturbide.com

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Debby Turbide
- Vice President / General Manager - Productions Solutions

With over thirty five years of combined marketing, sales, and business management experience, Ms. Turbide has a strong entrepreneurial background with skills in media, event management, systems engineering, and operations management. As a highly organized planner she has conceptualized, organized and executed dozens of new programs, products and multidisciplinary events. Her background provides unique capabilities that serve Chainlink Research in many ways:

  • As co-founder and Vice President / General Manager of Productions Solutions, she is currently responsible for all business development and operational efforts and has worked in the manufacturing industry segment for over twenty five years.
  • She co-founded MFG Publishing, Inc. and was publisher of Midrange ERP and APS: Advanced Planning & Scheduling magazines where she was responsible for publishing, production, marketing, employee relations and event management.
  • After the publications were sold to Penton Media, Inc. she continued as publisher and launched the Midrange ERP Expo. After she was promoted to Director of Internet Services for the Supply Chain Media Group, she was responsible for budgeting and operations and developed the New Media policies and integrated marketing strategy for the group's publications. She designed and managed the TotalSupplyChain portal, associated online events, trade shows, email newsletters and Internet marketing products.
  • In partnership with Technology Evaluation, she designed, managed, marketed, recruited partners and hosted educational events for the TEC Learned Center, an online education resource for manufacturing professionals.
  • At ARINC Research and Rexnord, she was project engineer for several large consulting engineering projects for the DOD in the CIM / Factory of the Future.
  • Formerly with an IBM subsidiary, and prior to that Hewlett-Packard, she sold systems to small businesses and manufacturing companies and organized and managed dozens of seminars, conferences and trade shows

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