Almost any conference in any industry depends on practitioners to deliver presentations that add value to attendees.

That is certainly true in supply chain generally, and clearly the case at CSCMP's conference in San Diego last week, as always. So what companies stepped up at CSCMP to contribute to the 90 or so sessions this year?

SCDigest went through the conference program to see which companies had employees participating either in a panel discussion or giving an actual presentation, as shown in the table below. That data is based on the descriptions of the sessions in the formal program guide, and does ot reflect any possible last minutes changes not in that program, but such changes were few.

The line between panel and presentation is often a fine one, and SCDigest was primarily relying on descriptions from the program guide for most of the sessions besides the relative handful of them we were able to attend personally.

We give an extra "atta boy" to actual presentations, which in our view require more effort on the part of the participant than do panel discussions, and to our mind usual provide more insight into how to improve a supply chain than do what you gain from  a panel, even though such panels are often entertaining. It is also clearly often easier to get corporate permission to be on a panel than to lead a full presentation.

As a side note, in some cases there was a clear panel format that we counted as a presentation because the panel was all from one company giving a case study, such as was presented by Hallmark and Fastenal in separate breakout sessions, or say two companies giving cases studies.

We don't have any real history, but SCDigest's gut feeling based on attendance at every CSCMP conference going back many years is that the number of panels is rising versus say even 5 years ago.

Whether this is a good or negative trend is purely a matter of personal opinion.

We will also note the list below does not include vendors such as 3PLs, technology companies, academics or consultants, as these types of speakers receive a benefit from participation and are generally happy to be asked to speak.

2015 CSCMP Conference Participation by Company

All told, 59 such"end user" companies participated in either a panel or presentation. Four companies participated in three sessions each - HP, Johnson & Johnson, Domino's, and Amwy. HP actually gave three presentations, two as part of the supply chain innovation awards track.

Congratulations to all of those companies.

We found it interesting we had both Starkist and Bumble Bee at this year's event. To the best of our knowledge, there was no tuna salad at any of the lunches.

(Supply Chain Trends and Issues Article - Continued Below)