Transforming Supply Chains: Aludyne’s People-First, Tech-Driven Approach

Auto Supply Chain Prophets

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In this episode of Auto Supply Chain Prophets, hosts Terry Onica and Jan Griffiths sat down with Alan Shevela, Global VP of Supply Chain and Quality at Aludyne, to talk about the company's push to innovate and how they're breaking new ground with digitization in the die-casting industry—all while keeping a strong focus on people.

Alan talks through the three challenges he's facing: developing people, embracing digitization, and building strong partnerships. With a hands-on leadership style, he's all about making sure everyone on the team feels connected to the bigger picture. For Alan, success comes down to one thing—building people-first teams that focus on the same goal.

Aludyne's project to streamline indirect spending has been a game-changer, helping them tighten operations across global sites. By letting the data do the talking and focusing on quick wins, Alan shares how they got the buy-in from the C-suite to drive their digitization efforts forward. It's not just about throwing tech at a problem—it's about showing the impact and making things happen.

Regarding supplier partnerships, transparency is the name of the game. Alan believes in keeping the lines of communication open, even when the news isn't what people want to hear. This approach has helped him build strong, resilient relationships that can weather the industry's inevitable disruptions.

When asked for one piece of advice for supply chain leaders facing industry transformation, Alan's advice is clear: Every interaction should aim to leave a positive impact, no matter how tough the situation gets.

Tune in to listen to Alan's insights on balancing the human side of leadership with the drive for digitization in the evolving automotive industry

Themes discussed in this episode:

• Focusing on nurturing and advancing team members to drive overall success and adapt to industry changes
• How digitization initiatives will lead to measurable returns on investment, highlighting cost savings and efficiency gains
• Strategies to effectively manage and reduce indirect costs, which often go unnoticed but can significantly impact the bottom line
• Identifying and addressing the most pressing issues in procurement and supply chain management to drive meaningful improvements
• Leading the charge in adopting innovative practices and technologies to enhance operational effectiveness and achieve long-term business goals
• Alan's approach to building and maintaining strong relationships with suppliers, focusing on constant communication and collaboration
• The importance of maintaining a constructive attitude and making a positive impact in all professional interactions, regardless of challenges.

Featured on this episode:

Name: Alan Shevela

Title: Vice President, Global Supply Chain and Quality at Aludyne

About: Alan Shevela brings over 27 years of expertise in global procurement and supply chain management. Since 2020, he has led Aludyne's Global Supply Chain Operations, overseeing global procurement, direct and indirect material purchasing, capital equipment, tooling, trade compliance, and logistics. Aludyne, a global leader in aluminum knuckles and critical chassis components for the automotive industry, benefits from Alan’s strategic leadership.

Alan's academic background includes an MBA with a concentration in Supply Chain from Michigan State University and a BBA from Western Michigan University, which have been the foundation of his career. Prior to joining Aludyne, he served on Executive Leadership Teams at Hella, TI Automotive, and Asahi.

Beyond his professional accomplishments, Alan is dedicated to his community. He serves on the Howell Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors and the Lake Chemung Boat Committee and coaches his daughters' basketball teams.

Connect: LinkedIn

Episode Highlights:

[04:12] Top Three Challenges: Alan dives into the three biggest challenges he’s facing at Aludyne as the company pushes toward innovation in the rapidly evolving automotive industry.

[05:01] People-first Approach: Success isn’t just about tools and systems; for Alan, it’s about developing people. He makes it a priority to connect with every layer of the organization, ensuring everyone is aligned and clear on what’s needed to win.

[08:39] Managing Indirect Spending: With support from the top executives, Alundyne launched the project to centralize spending, drive efficiency, and connect the dots between all their sites. The result? A more streamlined process that’s already delivering success.

[10:35] Say Goodbye to Spreadsheets: Alan shares how to break free from spreadsheets by showing how automation can transform efficiency. By proving the long-term ROI of new tools, he convinces the C-suite to ditch outdated practices and embrace smarter, more efficient solutions.

[13:23] Why Focus on Indirect Spend? Focusing on indirect spend like MRO services and capital tooling has led to significant savings at Aludyne. By proving the ROI of these investments, Alan has successfully gained buy-in from finance, showcasing that indirect spending can indeed impact the bottom line.

[18:21] Supplier Partnership: Real partnerships with suppliers mean staying in constant, honest communication, as Alan explains, to keep everyone aligned and adaptable even when things don’t go as planned.

[19:59] Based on Impact: When prioritizing supplier relationships, Alan adjusts his focus based on their impact and immediate needs, like addressing disruptions such as a rail strike affecting Canadian suppliers.

[22:29] Advice for Supply Chain Leaders: Alan’s advice is to make every interaction positive and impactful—regardless of challenges, a strong attitude and effort can turn situations around and inspire optimism.

Top Quotes:

[05:07] Alan: “My core focus is always on people. We can have all great tools, great systems, great everything, but if we don't have great people, we're not going to be successful. So, at my core, one of my priorities is always developing people. I read a quote a while back about how you're not truly a leader unless you've developed another leader who's developed another leader. And what that means is you can't stop just at one level below you because as we all have a lot of layers in all of our large global organizations, I personally make a point to touch every layer within the organization, within every function of the organization, making sure that everybody is very clear on our goals, our key performance indicators, and what it's going to take for us to be successful.”

[10:07] Alan: “Speak with data. Here's how much we spend in this area. Here's how much we can save if we drive synergies and commonize suppliers. We have 16 North American sites, and prior to 2020, the sites were managing the spending at a site level. Now that we're managing it across the region, the savings are significant, and we're really excited about where we're going with this project and the successes we're going to see moving forward with this project.”

[00:00] Alan: “I work very closely here at Aludyne with our head of IT because sometimes, from a procurement or supply chain perspective, we can be very creative and think, hey, I really need this tool and that tool. And it's not always conducive to what we currently have. So, working closely to really figure out on the front and what can we do and what's going to be really, really hard to implement and trying to get some of those quick, easy wins, really that snowball effect to help us continue to move forward toward gravitating away from spreadsheets and to more digitization.”

[19:01] Alan: “From my perspective, driving partnerships is so vitally important to our success. The constant communication. So, things, as both of you know, don't always go right and typically don't go as we plan in the automotive supply chain, specifically at the Tier One level. So, my idea of a partnership is being transparent and having constant communication, even when the information is not what the other side wants to hear. At least if we are proactively communicating, we're giving our supplier partners a chance to react to that and a chance to adjust to that and really having that constant communication.”

[22:52] Alan: “Every interaction that you have, focus on making a positive impact. And what I mean by that is there's so much of our lives, professionally and personally, that is out of our control. We do the best we can to deal with every situation and every circumstance, but we do control our attitude, how we treat people and our effort. We can make the choice no matter what the situation, no matter what the challenging circumstances are. We can choose to make a positive impact, and I know that sounds at times soft and fluffy, but it is something that we control that we can try to make a positive impact on people, on the situation, on every element of our lives.”