Donald Hicks

Donald A. Hicks
Nationality American
Alma mater United States Military Academy
University of Michigan
Occupation Entrepreneur
Employer LLamasoft (CEO)[1]
Known for Supply chain management algorithms
Notable work Supply Chain Guru[2]

Donald A. Hicks is an American businessman, author, and expert in supply chain management.[3] He is the president and CEO of LLamasoft, Inc., a supply chain design software company. Hicks is the lead supply chain consultant for the World Bank,[4] analyzing supply methods to reach the most poverty stricken parts of Kenya, a study to be published later in 2014.[5]

Early life and education

Donald graduated from United States Military Academy in 1990, and from Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan in 1996. He left the army in 1993 and began working on computer simulation and modeling algorithms for manufacturing and logistics applications.

Career

Hicks founded Decision Sciences Inc. in 1995, and LLamasoft, Inc. in 1998. His hand-coded application was marketed as an add-on modeling tool for software used for supply chain network optimization, a discipline used by medium and large companies to reduce costs and improve supply chains.

Hicks has held various roles at DNA Software during 2000 to 2010, including COO and CEO. He was replaced as CEO in 2010 by Dr John SantaLucia (founder/partner).[6] Hicks faced a lawsuit from his business partner at DNA Software, towards the end of his tenure, due to alleged conflicts of interest arising from the way Hicks was running the two companies (DNA Software and LLamasoft). This case was later settled out of court.

Prior to LLamasoft, Hicks worked for ProModel Corporation (Senior Vice President prior to and during 1998 [7]). While at ProModel, Hicks was involved in developing Supply Chain Guru with Leonard Yip (Director of Development for Simulation, ProModel) and external IBM-consultant Dr. Nejat Karabakal who developed the initial optimisation model. The key idea behind Supply Chain Guru was a shared data model representation that could feed part of the data into separate input models for optimisation and simulation engines.

At LLamasoft, Hicks purchased Supply Chain Guru from ProModel Corporation (who were unsuccessful with this product) and started to look for new customers. At this time, Supply Chain Guru was an innovative product but poorly understood by the market and in need of a commercial sponsor to further develop the concept. Hicks almost gave up on several occasions until a breakthrough came in 2003 when two of Unilever's senior supply chain design consultants decided to take a gamble on LLamasoft. One of the Unilever consultants (an expert in supply chain optimisation and simulation) worked for almost two years directly with Hicks and his team (during 2003-2004) to dramatically improve the quality, design and features of Supply Chain Guru and reshape this into a commercially viable application. Hicks has often credited the Unilever consultants as being the most important event that changed LLamasoft's future.[8]

In September 2012, Hicks became a director of LLamasoft Europe Ltd, at the same time investing around half a million GBP into this company.[9] LLamasoft Europe Ltd was formed by renaming an existing company Advanced Planning Solutions Ltd (previously known as Logistech Ltd) which was run by Peter Bryan Gordon and Philip James Gibbs. APS Ltd had previously built their consulting business around the CAPS Supply Chain Designer and Paragon Transportation Routing applications.[10] When CAPS Supply Chain Designer went into decline and their business suffered, Philip Gibbs and Peter Gordon approached LLamasoft to form a new partnership.

In his paper, Hicks described that supply chain vendors and supply chain ideas are divided into two groups, one being IT group, and the other logistic group. According to Hicks, members of the first group believe that information is the key feature in chain supply management, with focus on collaborative planning and information sharing. On the other hand, members of logistic group are focused on applying numerical analysis to large sets of data in order to solve large planning problems ond organizations issues.[11]

Public health initiatives

Hicks began a public health advisory service inside of LLamasoft. In 2009, the advisory service was selected by John Snow, Inc., a non-profit organization that handles the logistics of aid and medicine distribution for United States Agency for International Development.[12] Hicks worked with the governments in Lesotho, Kenya, Dominican Republic, and El Salvador. His public health team has also worked in Ethiopia, Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Tanzania, Panama, and Guatemala.[13] He was a guest speaker Georgia Tech’s March 2011 Conference on Humanitarian Logistics and Supply Chain. The company’s current public health partners include the World Bank, World Health Organization (WHO), US Agency for International Development (USAID), Clinton Foundation, Supply Chain Management Systems , John Snow Inc, Georgia Institute of Technology and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Awards

In 2011, Hicks and LLamasoft won the title of "Best Product or Service" at the Innovate Michigan Business Plan Competition, the largest single business plan competition in the world.[14]

Hicks was also included in the Supply & Demand Chain Executive's "Pros to Know" Award Winners list in 2013 and was named an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award finalist in 2011.[15][16]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Bomey, Nathan (1 March 2012). "Downtown Ann Arbor software firm LLamasoft adds 50 employees". The Ann Arbor News. Retrieved 10 February 2014.
  2. ↑ Roush, Matt (12 December 2012). "New LLamasoft Supply Chain Software Claims Performance Breakthrough". CBS Detroit. Retrieved 10 February 2014.
  3. ↑ Hicks, Donald (1999). "A four step methodology for using simulation and optimization technologies in strategic supply chain planning". Simulation Conference Proceedings, 1999 Winter 2: 1215–1220.
  4. ↑ "LLamasoft Summer Conference on Supply Chain Design". USAID. 11 October 2011. Retrieved 10 February 2014.
  5. ↑ Tuin, Astrid, Kelly L. Ganamet, Hicks A. Donald (2010). "Kenya: 2020 Supply Chain Modeling. Forecasting Demand from 2020-2024" (PDF). USAID. Retrieved 10 February 2014.
  6. ↑ http://www.dnasoftware.com/newsroom/16-2010/33-august-1-2010
  7. ↑ http://informs-sim.org/wsc98papers/prog98sim.html
  8. ↑ http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20131008006552/en/LLamasoft-Announces-Innovative-Supply-Chain-Transportation-Network
  9. ↑ http://companycheck.co.uk/company/03386986/LLAMASOFT-EUROPE-LIMITED/financial-accounts
  10. ↑ http://www.logistech.co.uk/Logistics-modelling-new-integrated-approach.pdf
  11. ↑ Shapiro, Jeremy (2006). Modeling the Supply Chain. Cengage Learning. p. 589. ISBN 978-0495126096.
  12. ↑ "Selecting and Implementing Vendor Managed Inventory Systems for Public Health Supply Chains" (PDF). USAID. July 2012. Retrieved 10 February 2014.
  13. ↑ "2011 Health and Humanitarian Logistics Conference Speakers". Georgia Tech. 3 March 2011. Retrieved 10 February 2014.
  14. ↑ Roush, Matt (17 November 2011). "Business Plan Event Hands Out $1 Million". CBS Detroit. Retrieved 10 February 2014.
  15. ↑ "Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2011 Michigan and Northwest Ohio Semifinalists Announced". Reuters. 18 May 2011. Retrieved 10 February 2014.
  16. ↑ "Michigan and Northwest Ohio 2012 semifinalists". Ernst & Young. Retrieved 10 February 2014.