The first point they make is that for most companies, Excel is not a viable S&OP tool.

• Anyone who has done extensive work in Excel knows that it is a very powerful tool that works best with smaller data sets.  Companies managing a complex supply chain soon find that they are stretching Excel’s boundaries to the breaking point.
• Modern S&OP process have a significant “what-if” component to them.  While it is easy to make high level changes to Excel, understanding what the real impact of these changes are, is simply not possible.  Consider a typical S&OP decision…what-if we were to add a promotion for this product line? A simple question, but a complex answer.  Sure, you can change the forecast quantities in Excel, and that can show change to revenue.  But what-if the product line is constrained?  What is the purchasing spend going to be to support this?  A simple Excel model simply cannot support this level of granularity.
• Excel doesn’t support alerts or lend itself to managing by exception.  Once your S&OP plan is set, you need to monitor performance against it.  Sure, you can see how you’ve performed at the next S&OP meeting, but isn’t that too late?

I’ve gone into some details about how Excel is not the right tool for S&OP (and other things) in other posts, if you are interested, you can find them here;

Is Excel the right tool for S&OP
How are spreadsheets like cockroaches
The endless debate: Is S&OP about technology
When spreadsheets go bad

So, if Excel is not the right tool for S&OP, what is?  Rather than call out a specific tool, let’s look at some criteria that you need to consider when looking for an S&OP application:

• I mentioned that Excel is not a good tool for S&OP is because it doesn’t support “what-if” analysis.  This is obviously something you need to look for in any tool for long range planning.  But simply allowing you to hive off a version of the plan and make a change is not enough.  The “what-if” analysis must provide detailed analysis as to what the impact of a given change will be throughout the supply chain.  A key supplier of low level components was just hit by a flood and won’t be shipping parts for six months – what impact will this have on my production?  What-if demand increases on one of my product lines?  What impact does this have on a constrained resource?… on my contract manufacturers?… on my suppliers?  Only a system with full supply chain analytics can address these questions.

• A related requirement is integration.  If you are going to provide answers to the “what-if” questions above, you will likely need to have detailed information from multiple manufacturing centers around the world. These centers in all likelihood are running a variety of disparate ERP systems, so your tool will need to integrate across all these systems and bring the data in to a single environment.

• As mentioned earlier, the ability to monitor performance against the plan and report on exceptions is key.  A S&OP plan is good.  A S&OP plan that you monitor and react to when underperforming is truly powerful.

There are several other factors that can play into your selection of a system for S&OP, but I think these are key ones.   What tools are you using for S&OP planning?  Are you evaluating new tools?  What factors are you considering?  Comment back and let us know!

More importantly though, I want to explore the difference between product design and supply chain because many of the mobility providers have had a rocky ride over the past 3-4 years, and yet many of them have excellent supply chains, and have been recognized by Gartner in the Gartner/AMR Supply Chain Top 25 over the past years for this excellence.  I have compared the list from 2008 to 2011 to highlight the fortunes of the mobility companies, which are highlighted in red below.  (I’ve excluded Microsoft from the list of mobility providers because of the failure of the Windows phone and because mobility represents such a small portion of their revenue. I’ve included Samsung simply because of the success they are having lately with their Android phone and tablet, but in reality Samsung has a much broader product portfolio than Apple, Nokia, or RIM, making a direct comparison difficult.)

Of course, many people, including me, have criticized the Gartner/AMR Top 25, but it is a consistent methodology that emphasizes both supply chain effectiveness and product innovation. It is in this regard that I want to comment particularly on Nokia and RIM. But the stock market is really the comparison that matters.   According to Google Finance, in the period since Jan 2005 the Dow Jones is up 17%, Apple is up 1213%, Nokia is down 67%, and RIM is down 56%. How I wish I had invested in Apple, even as late as in 2008.

While Apple has been the consistent winner of the Gartner/AMR TOP 25 for the past 4 years, Nokia placed 2^nd in 2008, 6^th in 2009, 19^th in 2010, and dropped off the list in 2011, even though from a stock price perspective Apple was out performing Nokia even in 2008.  Likewise, RIM wasn’t even ranked in 2008 and 2009, leaped into 9^th place in 2010, and up to 4^th in 2011, even as their stock price was taking a beating.  So Nokia and RIM were doing something right in their supply chain if they could be ranked as highly by Gartner in a comparison that includes product innovation.  And they were, both companies showing a lot of innovation in their supply chains.

If we look at the 2 graphs below we can see why Apple is the clear supply chain leader with much better performance over the past 3 years in measures such as RONA, inventory turns, and DPO/DSO ratio. But Nokia’s and RIM’s performance are very good with inventory turns greater than 15.  Even Nokia’s RONA is very good despite their relatively poor performance against Apple and RIM, which can be explained by the fact that Nokia’s manufacturing is mostly insourced while Apple and RIM have almost 100% outsourced manufacturing. But it is in Cash-to-Cash (C2C) that we can see the real dominance of Apple in terms of supply chain efficiency and effectiveness. They have reduced their C2C from -20 days in 2005 to an astounding -60 days in 2011. At their current cost of goods sold of $25.63B per quarter, the C2C improvement represents an additional $11B of cash released on an annual basis. Assuming a WACC of 10%, that represents a savings of $1B, which can fund an awful lot of product research or marketing.

Apple notwithstanding, because it is really an outlier, RIM and Nokia have posed very good supply chain performance numbers that, when compared with other companies, fully justify their ranking in the Garter/AMR Supply Chain Top 25.

It is when we look at Nokia’s and RIM’s gross margin and operating margin that we can see the net effect of their strained product portfolios.  In a 6 year period Apple has achieved a 10 % improvement in gross margin and a 15% improvement in operating margin, compared with  -15% and -25% for RIM, and -5% and -15% for Nokia. But I’ve got say that I still find the Blackberry more functional from a business use perspective and the Nokia a lot more intuitive from a novice user perspective, although these are the exact product characteristics that are hampering their growth.

I really hope that both Nokia and RIM manage to survive their current reversals in fortune because they are great companies with very efficient supply chains. They have fully justified their prominence in the Gartner/AMR Supply Chain Top 25.

Industrial activities, particularly those in lesser developed areas of the world, rely heavily upon the establishment and maintenance of the supply chain. For example, the first activity when drilling an oil well is the building of a road to the well site. These roads must be able to carry very heavy loads. In Talara, they relied on Caterpillar equipment shipped from the US. Downtime of this equipment was critical, as a one day delay in the completion of a well could have tens of thousands of dollars of negative affect on cash flow (With today’s crude prices, it might be millions of dollars). Any part or component that could be on the maintenance critical path had to be identified and its supply had to be appropriately managed. The difference 40 years ago was that inventories could be bigger and leadtimes were longer. Global competition in recent decades has driven the need for tighter budgets. There is constant pressure to be on time and on budget.

Dad spoke about critical path scheduling, which identifies those activities and resources that dictate and control the completion date. The paths have to be continuously monitored as they change, or as new problems/events take place. One key word here is ‘planned.’ Dad’s experience was that successful project management was based on testing the current plan with the question “what might go wrong” and then conducting reassessments where necessary. The most obvious insurance was to have spares for all the equipment and lots of surplus people to handle any eventuality. This was impractical and lacking the technological tools available today (there was a heavy reliance placed upon experienced personnel). Analysis was performed (pen and paper at that time!) on identifying the critical paths in the project plan, and actions were put in place to reduce their impact on project completion.

Some will argue against having a strong project management focus, using the argument that situations occur that you could never have planned for. When questioned about this, my father’s response was that these “surprise” events strengthen the argument for a strong, resilient planning system. Response Time is the key bottom line in emergencies and having a supply chain management system which uses project planning as a major tool can significantly reduce response time. (I had no idea that my dad was dealing with these responsibilities as I collected baby octopuses in the ocean, put them in a jar, and watched the water turn blue!)

Project management is required in numerous industries from refineries, to cell tower installations, solar farms, and consumer new product introductions. We agreed that it would be very beneficial if there was tighter integration of all dimensions of the project activity including materials, resources, cost projections, and revenue projections.

Thanks for the chat Dad. Ever since I was a kid I always wanted a fast car, an oil well, and an elephant. I have the first but I am not sure that the other two are very likely. At least I have a Dad who worked in the industry and helped me make an oil rig for my science project.

I got to thinking about this as an analogy for traditional supplier collaboration. Many manufacturing companies have implemented supplier collaboration solutions to pull in data in a more real-time fashion with suppliers. Traditionally, supplier collaboration involves the sharing of information between an OEM and a supplier related to component forecasts, purchase orders, Kanban signals and inventory positions. It’s important to share the information because of its direct impact on the ability to build product. And it’s important to share the information often because events in the supply chain can impact delivery schedules on a day-by-day and hour-by-hour basis. Many companies have implemented EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) and supplier portals to facilitate the systematic, high-frequency sharing of data. The unfortunate reality of traditional approaches to supplier collaboration is that the information that is collected goes into an information ‘dead-zone’ (i.e. ERP system) just like the mail stack. Sure, a buyer knows that a purchase order is going to be late but what is the impact of that? Buyers, on their own, typically don’t have the background nor the tools to understand the relative impact of exceptions (i.e. uncommitted forecast, purchase order receipt variance) on operations. How is a buyer supposed to know that an inability for a supplier to make a full commitment to a forecast could result in significant performance penalties on a large project, or that a partial delivery will mean a high-value order for a key customer will slip beyond a promise date?

What’s needed is the ability to collect the information and provide real-time impact determination and alerting to all roles in the organization including planners, customer service representatives, sales, project teams and executives so they can collaborate to solve problems while there is the opportunity to make a real difference to the business. This is the hallmark of the RapidResponse Control Tower and how using RapidResponse to support supplier collaboration initiatives can help you to achieve superior corporate and operations performance.

Today, time is on the cutting edge. The ways leading companies manage time – in production, in new product development and introduction, in sales and distribution – represent the most powerful new sources of competitive advantage.

Unfortunately Stalk decided to name the book he co-wrote on the topic as “Competing Against Time” which isn’t the point, although the subheading “How time-based competition is reshaping global markets” rescues the concept, which is really about competing against the competition with time.  It is all about being more agile, more responsive, to real conditions. Stalk sets out some Rules of Response very clearly:

• The .05 to 5 Rule
  Across a spectrum of businesses, the amount of time required to execute a service or to order, manufacture, and deliver a product is far less than the actual time the service or product spends in the value-delivery system
• The 3/3 Rule
  During the 95 to 99.95 percent of the time a product or service is not receiving value while in the value-delivery system, the product or service is waiting. (Stalk breaks this out into 3 components of waiting, hence the 3/3.) The amount of time lost is affected very little by working harder. But working smarter has tremendous impact.
• The 1/4-2-20 Rule
  For every quartering of the time interval required to provide a service or product, the productivity of labor and of working capital can often double. These productivity gains result in as much as a 20 percent reduction in costs.
• The 3 x 2 Rule
  Companies that cut the time consumption of their value-delivery systems turn the basis of competitive advantage to their favor. Growth rates of three times the industry average with two times the industry profit margins are exciting – and achievable – targets.

All too often though people get the impression that these rules are only applicable in the short term.  They are not.  The issue of responsiveness in operations is driven by the latency of the information and the time it takes to respond. In other words, the time to detect that something of significance has happened and the time to respond to the change, or correct the discrepancy. Reducing either of these will have a dramatic effect on a company’s competitiveness, whether this is a short term detection of demand change that requires rescheduling manufacturing or a longer term change in technology that requires the purchase of new manufacturing capacity.

Terms such as VUCA – Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity – or PDCA – Plan, Do, Check, Act – don’t excite me because they are focused on removing volatility and complexity, usually promoting ‘stability’ at the cost of responsiveness, whereas Stalk’s concepts are all about being responsive, being agile. To me this is the correct emphasis. While of course there is an overlap in that a decision or manufacturing process that is overly complex will result in longer lead times, it is the overall sentiment of complexity and volatility being ‘bad’ expressed in VUCA and PDCA with which I disagree.  As I wrote in a previous blog from the 2011 Gartner Supply Chain Conference:

I say embrace VUCA. Accept that it is the new norm. Resistance is futile.

Similarly, Deming’s idea of PDCA is all about process improvement, it is about ‘managing’ complexity and ensuring ‘consistent’ processes. Again, I am not saying that these are bad approaches in and of themselves, only that they are insufficient.  Knowing that you are performing a process consistently doesn’t mean that you are performing it well.  It is like assuming that if you throw everyone in jail who has committed a crime that we will live in a crime-free environment.

Far more interesting to me is the OODA – Observe, Orient, Decide, Act – idea from the US military strategist Colonel John Boyd.

The steps of the OODA loop are:

• Observation: the collection of data by means of the senses
• Orientation: the analysis and synthesis of data to form one’s current mental perspective
• Decision: the determination of a course of action based on one’s current mental perspective
• Action: the physical playing-out of decisions

While at first this may seem to be very similar to VUCA and PDCA, the key point to the OODA loop is that:

Time is the dominant parameter. The pilot who goes through the OODA cycle in the shortest time prevails because his opponent is caught responding to situations that have already changed.

In other words reduce the time to detect and the time to respond.  To put this into supply chain speak, it is all about:

• Visibility – having access to the state of the supply chain across a wide span of operations, especially in outsourced environments, in order to detect misalignments
• Alerting – knowing or calculating the impact of misalignments on key financial and operational metrics in order to understand the severity of the issue
• “What-If” – working with others in the supply chain to come up with alternatives and evaluating these quickly
• Collaboration – to reach a consensus on the best course of action that reduces risk while increasing performance

Another absolutely key concept expressed by Boyd is the need for ‘human judgment’, for the system to act as an organic whole to adapt to situations as they unfold at the location at which they unfold.  Having long chains of command that force front line people to get approval from HQ is antithical to this idea:

… large organizations such as corporations, governments, or militaries possessed a hierarchy of OODA loops at tactical, grand-tactical (operational art), and strategic levels. In addition, he stated that most effective organizations have a highly decentralized chain of command that utilizes objective-driven orders, or directive control, rather than method-driven orders in order to harness the mental capacity and creative abilities of individual commanders at each level. In 2003, this power to the edge concept took the form of a DOD publication “Power to the Edge: Command…Control…in the Information Age” by Dr. David S. Alberts and Richard E. Hayes. Boyd argued that such a structure creates a flexible “organic whole” that is quicker to adapt to rapidly changing situations. He noted, however, that any such highly decentralized organization would necessitate a high degree of mutual trust and a common outlook that came from prior shared experiences. Headquarters needs to know that the troops are perfectly capable of forming a good plan for taking a specific objective, and the troops need to know that Headquarters does not direct them to achieve certain objectives without good reason.

These are key concepts we at Kinaxis have been promoting for a long time.  Every second that we waste in making a decision is a minute less that we have available to actually respond to situation.  In sports, reaction time is a well recognized competitive advantage.  Reaction time is coupled with the ability to ‘read the game’ and, for example, to call audibles at the line of scrimmage in American football. (I have always felt more comfortable with ‘European’ sports, such as soccer, that are a lot less structured and orchestrated precisely because the players have a lot more decision making power.) So in the end perhaps Stalk’s title “Competing Against Time” was correct, but this is a process efficiency perspective.  I still prefer the OODA concept of competing with time because this is about process effectiveness.

Well, to jump to the punch line, the answer is likely “both” – depending on how one defines the terms.

A significant problem that exists in organizations today is that too many decisions get made without considerations of the impact on profitability or the feasibility of the decision given the impact that it will have on the employees in the organization.  There are numerous reasons why this is the case, but most of them come down to lack of integration –

• Integration between the processes within different departments, divisions and trading partners;
• People working within individual silo;
• Lack of integration within enterprise software products.

In this blog, I will stick to the last point, lack of integration within enterprise software products.  And … using the word “within” and not “between” is very deliberate.

Let’s first address the “distinct application” side of the answer.  The answer is a pragmatic one.  My firm belief is that distinct applications make sense if they are supporting distinct people and processes.  Financial statement reporting is an example of a profitability application that falls into this category.  The process is typically contained within finance, and it is a very specific process of reporting “closed” financial information to shareholders.

Where it makes no sense to have distinct products to handle issues such as profitability and human resource management is where these have a direct impact on decisions in business operations (so, basically in every business process).

By way of a real business example, if we reference the recent post by John Westerveld, it makes a ton of sense to integrate project management (product delivery) with supply chain.  But “how” do we assess the best possible scenarios to make changes?  We do it by taking in availability of materials (supply chain), availability of people (human resources) and deciding which option makes the most sense financially (profitability management).

In his post, John speaks of a scenario of installing a piece of medical equipment at a hospital where the equipment is going to be late and the power of putting the supply chain information in the project manager’s hands.  Let’s drill down on how this scenario would likely play out.  The project management would work with his equipment supplier.  They could evaluate the impact of the equipment being late and whether or not the supplier could still make the date if he found another supplier of the subcomponent which has become delayed.  What additional questions would they ask to determine if it would be worthwhile?

Will the delay cost us revenue?  Will any additional cost we incur be offset by the revenue gained? (profitability)

If the equipment comes on a different date, will contractors be available to install it?  Will it the inspector be available?  (human resource impacts)

If the financial (cost and revenue drivers) and human resource (rates, skills) information is only available in niche, departmental solutions, how can the company expect to make profitable and realistic decisions when projects don’t go according to plan?  Answer … they can’t.  Thus, integrated capabilities in a single application are needed for integrated planning, monitoring and response management.

In other words, profitability and human resource management are key to a Control Tower application.

I thought that from a supply chain perspective, the quake in Japan was bad.  Really bad. Until, that is, I came across this post from the @risk blog.  The post highlights a study from commercial/industrial insurance company FM Global.  The study examines how reliant the companies involved in the study were on China for some or all of their manufacturing and supply.  Some interesting points from the study;

• 86 percent of companies surveyed are more reliant on China than Japan for key product lines
• 83 percent of companies surveyed think supply chain disruption is a moderate or higher risk to the financial wellbeing of their companies
• 94 percent of companies surveyed are concerned about natural disasters in China as a result of the Japan earthquake
• Over 60 percent of companies surveyed are evaluating their supply chain risk in China as a result of the Japan earthquake

The study goes on to suggest you assess your resiliency to a disaster in China by asking the following questions;

1. Does your senior management view resiliency as a competitive advantage and has it made the necessary commitment?
2. Has your organization examined how it can mitigate risk within its products and processes?
3. How well does your company collaborate with its suppliers to assess and mitigate risk?
4. Does your corporation have appropriate business continuity and disaster recovery plans for supply chain disruptions emanating from emerging markets such as China?

A significant earthquake in China is going to happen.  China shares many Geologic features with Japan and a quick Google search shows significant seismic activity including earthquakes over the last several years (2011, 2010, 2009). So, the question is when (not if) will an earthquake hit a major manufacturing center?  When this happens, it doesn’t take a doctorate in supply chain to see that the impact to unprepared businesses will be devastating.  Do you agree this is a concern? What steps are you taking to mitigate the impact of an event like this?  Comment back and let us know.

Here’s the webcast abstract:

To rise above the competition today, companies need to better understand the impact their planning and decision-making patterns have on their organization, and the extended supply chain. To transform their organizations, executives have to revisit the underlying processes and the supporting technology that enable the business transformation. However, the often forgotten element in the equation is the human capital of the organization. People and relationships are the core of this transformation change. This webinar will address how achieving break-through results requires companies to fully embrace and execute cross-functional and cross-organization collaboration.

Integrated Reconciliation (IR), created by Andy Coldrick and Dick Ling in the 1990’s, is at the heart of successful S&OP. The best IR processes are those where participants have business acumen and behave cross-functionally.

Identify the maestros in your business and liberate them!

Presenters:
Andy Coldrick, President, Ling-Coldrick
Kirk Munroe, VP of Product, Kinaxis,

Download the webcast here: http://www.kinaxis.com/campaign/on-demand-orchestrating-success-in-SOP/

So, what does this have to do with supply chain you ask?  Many companies have major installation projects required to recognize revenue for their products; solar farms, cell phone towers, major equipment installation, etc.  They don’t receive full payment until the project is complete and running.  Typically, these companies will have a system that manages their supply chain and another system for project management. What is surprising is that these systems will often run independently of one another. If information flows between these systems, it is a manual update performed by the project manager or master scheduler depending of which way the information is flowing.

But isn’t there a relationship between the supply chain and the project that drives the requirements?  If a project moves out by six months, doesn’t that impact the supply chain?  If a major component on the critical path for the project is going to be late, doesn’t that impact the project? Project managers and supply chain managers are like those people in the commercial; walking along, doing their thing, eating their chocolate and peanut not realizing that there is a better way.

Let’s imagine the following scenario; you are a project manager managing the installation of a large piece of medical equipment at a hospital.  The contract has been signed, and the project plan has been approved.  But all is not rosy.  The schedule is aggressive and there are significant penalties if the project comes in late.

So, a few weeks have gone by, and things are progressing well; the supply chain has gone to work building the equipment and work has started at the hospital to prepare the site.  Then, one of the suppliers several levels down in the supply chain has pushed out their delivery date on a key component that goes into a critical piece of equipment needed for the project.  This lateness is propagated up through the supply chain and is now reflected in the delivery date of this assembly.  Traditionally, the project manager might never be made aware of this critical shortage, because traditionally, the project manager doesn’t have visibility into the supply chain.

In this new world, however, supply chain and project management are both part of the same system and are linked together. So, when the project manager comes in, he immediately gets an alert that the project is going to miss its date including the impact on revenues and additional penalty costs.  A few clicks later, the project manager sees that the lateness is due to a late assembly coming from the supply chain. With this information, he project manager can collaborate with the supply chain to resolve the issue.

Integrating supply chain with project management is like sticking chocolate in peanut butter.  Once you put it together, you realize that they are better together than on their own.   If you’ve been following posts in this blog about Control Tower, you may have realized that this is just one of the ways that Kinaxis is bringing various aspects of the company together into an integrated new way to solve problems across the enterprise.  However, you might not have thought about some of the practical applications of what we are proposing.   Do you manage projects as a regular part of your business?  How do you tie the project plan back to the realities of the supply chain?  Comment back and let us know!

The pessimist said worse. This answer feels like a self fulfilling prophecy. Let’s eat more and move less since it doesn’t matter anyway, at least our prediction will be right.

The optimist said better. One more binge of turkey and eggnog and then we’ll eat less, move more, and with a hope and a prayer the world will be a better place. From a supply chain perspective the optimist may have some incremental improvement strategies in place, especially after the disruptions of 2011, but deep down there is still an element of hope and prayer with the optimistic view (with all due respect to hope and prayer, they are good things!).

Taking a supply chain view, let’s look at the realist’s answer. The realist will agree with the optimist but with a few additional actions to ensure their prediction will come true. First, the realist will study the events of 2011. In a blog post from November 2011, “Trends I am Watching”, Lora Cecere calls out significant trends of 2011. For example, Lora highlighted the supply chain disruptions of 2011, the biggest of these being the results of natural disasters. There are two takeaways for supply chain leaders: The first is redesigning the supply chain to be “resilient” to change. According to Lora this requires the ability to sense change, have control tower analytics, and “what-if” analysis to understand and respond to change. The second takeaway it to think about where else the disruptions will come from. The supply chain has never been more politically, environmentally, and obviously economically intertwined. As an example, Occupy Wall Street protesters were planning to block ports along the West coast. For Swiss watch manufacturers, many of their components are supplied by Swatch, “a competitive supplier.” When Swatch was looking at a strategy to stop providing their components to ensure they could supply their own product in growing markets such as China, the other manufacturers where looking for help in a nationally regulated industry where mechanical parts must be manufactured in Switzerland in order for their watches to claim “Swiss movement.” One thing is for sure, there will be supply chain disruptions, but the causes may be different. The realist will reflect back on 2011, including the ones Lora highlights to understand how best to prepare for 2012. There is a great SupplyChainBrain Interview with Joe McBeth, vice president of supply chain for Jabil, from our Kinexions conference that speaks to this issue (free registration to view, but well worth it!)

Lora also highlights significant trends to watch for in 2012 in the same blog post. The other action the realist will take is to reach out to gather this type of information from the folks who watch supply chains for a living. It will help take the guess work out of preparing for 2012 and beyond. For example, Lora talks about “big data supply chains.”  New data sources and types of data are exploding, global partners are expanding and new product introductions come and go faster than our New Year’s resolutions. Supply Chain leaders need to stay on top of the curve when it comes to managing the “big data supply chain.”  As with the trends of 2011, the 2012 supply chain predictions will drive strategies to ensure 2012 is better than 2011. Lora’s other predictions for 2012 are well worth checking out.

So will 2012 be better or worse than 2011? I would be interested to hear your thoughts and any other resolutions! In the meantime let’s all eat less, move more, reflect on the past and keep our eyes and ears open to make 2012 an exciting time for supply chain. And for all you optimists out there, we’ll throw hope and prayer into the mix too! Happy New Year.