2016 Executive of the Year

SUPPLY CHAIN AWARD

www.canadianshipper.com November/December 2016 31

BY JULIA KUZELJEVICH

Meet Jamie DeKelver, VP, Logistics with NSC Minerals Ltd., the 2016 Supply Chain Executive of the Year

A year spent covering a maternity leave brought Jamie DeKelver to the daily world of supply chain. And she has never looked back. Now DeKelver is Vice-President of Logistics with NSC Minerals Ltd., and Canadian Shipper is pleased to feature her as the winner of the 2016 Supply Chain Executive of the Year, an annual award given by

the Freight Management Association of Canada.As DeKelver describes it: “I landed in logistics by accident. I started at NSC in 1999 and was

taking classes and initially working towards a career in accounting. In 2002 I took a temporary position in Sales and Distribution at NSC Minerals to fill a maternity leave. I remember at that time making my boss promise me that I could have my old job back when the term was fin-ished. Turns out I loved the new position and was given an opportunity to stay in the role!”

DeKelver continued taking accounting courses in the evenings (juggling a full-time de-manding position, a family, and school work was very challenging at times, she notes) at

SIAST (now Sask PolyTech) until completing the accounting program. DeKelver enrolled in CITT, earning her CCLP designation in 2013.

“I think my accounting background really gave me a solid foundation that I needed to excel in sales and distribution. I think that it’s not always

just about ‘cheap freight’. It’s about how those costs relate to the whole part of the business,” she says.

DeKelver’s experience echoes that of many other women in the field of logistics.

“What I found is logistics is not something you think about-you get there by accident. But what I liked most about it was dealing with customers-I really enjoyed that. And the problem-solving, solution-building aspect of it. I like to think I am a good advocate for bring-ing in more women. It’s an important part of the role to make people think about it as an option,” DeKelver says.

DeKelver advanced to her current position of Vice President of Logistics in 2014. It was a new position for the company. The Sales and Logistics department has grown (initially there were two positions) to seven positions today.

As the Sales and Logistics department grew, so did recogni-tion at the C-level of the role logistics plays within the company.

CEO Neil Cameron played a major role in this.“He is such a strong supporter and recognizes the impor-

tance of the supply chain within our company,” DeKelver says.Cameron came to NSC Minerals as VP of Operations in

2010 and worked very closely with DeKelver in her capaci-ty as Manager of Sales and Distribution.

“I was promoted to C.O.O. in 2013 and Jamie reported to me. In May of 2014 I was promoted to President and CEO and subsequently promoted Jaime to her current

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SUPPLY CHAIN AWARD


product closer to our customers. We now move product into the Midwest United States and our volumes continue to grow. Over the past year Jaime took on the project of introducing new logistics tracking software and has worked with the developer to come up with a product that works extremely well for rail, trucking, storage locations and the live/online reporting of inventory moving be-tween our plants, storage locations and customers,” he adds.

“Jamie brought calm and deliberateness to NSC and to her in-teractions with clients. She is efficient in getting responses, quick actions for inquiries, and confidence in her word, thereby elevating the stature of her company. She manages high expectations from clients on pricing, quality and delivery, all the while balancing this with the practical side of logistics, subcontractors and Mother Na-ture’s wrath while transporting their product over long distances. She was able to ensure that the mark was hit more often than not. This endeared her to all who have worked with her,” says cus-tomer Fred Desjarlais, Vice President, Volker Stevin Canada.

position of VP of Logistics in June of 2014,” he says.Cameron notes NSC Minerals is in the salt business with the ma-

jority of product going towards road de-icing in the winter months. "We are responsible for delivering material to over 700 custom-

er locations throughout Canada, Northwestern and Midwest United States. As you can imagine when the snow hits everyone wants their salt now! Jaime is a master at managing the logistics requirements during these intense, high stress periods. At times, we will have to go out and find alternate transportation providers and at higher costs to get salt to the customers and Jaime man-ages this very well. We sell safety! If our salt does not get to the customer our roads, sidewalks and parking lots are not safe for the public to pass over," Cameron says.

Prior to 2008 NSC moved its entire product by truck.“Jaime was instrumental in getting NSC Minerals to build large

storage locations and start moving our products by rail. This has improved our preparation for the winter months by having our

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“We have a great team in place at NSC and we all work together towards the common goal of providing quality products and exceptional customer service. Everyone contributes to get the work done.”Jamie DeKelver, VP, Logistics with NSC Minerals Ltd.

When the customer service line rings at 3AM, chances are the person on the other enddoesn’t want to talk to a machine. Or listen to excuses. That’s why I’m here 24/7. I am a curatorof solutions. I know your business and what you need. I specialize in answers. And results.I’m not here just to listen to your problems, I own them. I am

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continued from page 33 REGULATORY UPDATE

two potash mines so we don’t have very far to go for sourcing our product. The prime salt season is relatively short – November through February. However, we start filling salt sheds in June and depending on the winter our season can extend into late April or early May. We work very hard in the pre-season to ensure that all of our storage facilities and customer sheds are as full as we can get them prior to the first snowfall-60% of our shipments are by truck, the remaining 40% is by rail,” DeKelver says.

If there is a missed sale, they don’t get it back, she adds.“If the customer is low on salt they will start to ‘ration’ it. They

can’t wait a day or two until the salt gets there, the public doesn’t stop driving.”

Other segments of the business are animal feed salt and indus-trial salt. Both rely very much on just-in-time delivery, so trans-portation planning is critical here as well.

“I believe that the relationships we have with our transporta-tion providers and customers are the key to our success. We are all working towards the same goals; having strong relationships in place make it easier to deal with the challenges and issues when they inevitably happen,” DeKelver adds.

The storage is used to lower freight costs –the company rails to storage and then trucks out from there.

“We will fill our storage sites during the summer months which allows us to take advantage of certain trucking backhauls in some instances and helps keeps our railcar fleet moving to avoid railcar

NSC has a virtually unlimited raw product supply with product coming from the potash industry. While the company ships most-ly within Western Canada and the Mid-Western U.S., it also ships as far as Alaska, Nova Scotia, and Colorado.

“Our challenges always have been and always will be the trans-portation aspect. Our production facilities are located right on the

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“Jaime is focused on ensuring our entire supply chain is functioning smoothly and efficiently. She is an advocate for our company, our customers and our transportation providers simultaneously, always striving to maintain the best possible balance within awarded contracts so that each party’s interests are looked after to the fullest.”Kelly Wallace, Manager, Customer Service and Logistics, NSC Minerals, Ltd.



The change from how things used to be done (very manual la-bour-intensive data entry and analysis of data after-the-fact) to having live real-time data allowed NSC Minerals to make the switch from making reactive to proactive decisions.

“Perhaps Jaime’s biggest contribution to ensuring NSC Minerals Ltd. remains at the forefront of our industry is her involvement in our recent software overhaul. For the last two years, much of Jaime’s pro-fessional life has revolved around securing and implementing a web-based supply chain management solution for NSC Minerals Ltd., which would house and integrate our production, inventory, contract and shipping functions. A system that would allow for collaboration with all of our supply chain partners on the same platform. As there didn’t seem to be a ‘one size fits all’ solution for the bulk product sup-plier, Jaime has worked tirelessly with our chosen provider to tweak and tailor their offering to fit our needs, essentially building NSC Min-erals Ltd. a custom system that enables us to manage our processes with the utmost efficiency. With this upgrade, she and our Manage-ment team have ensured we are in the best possible position to ac-tively compete in today’s landscape,” says Kelly Wallace, Manager, Customer Service and Logistics, NSC Minerals, Ltd.

“It makes a big difference when we are in such a time-sensitive business. I have a few more IT projects that I want to complete in the next 12 months, and am really looking forward to moving on to those after our implementation is complete,” says DeKelver.

A self-starter, DeKelver hopes to complete the Toastmasters’ Competent Communicator program within the next year.

“It has helped with my role in industry, on the CITT council, and to become more comfortable speaking in front of groups,” she says.

Despite a challenging supply chain role, work-life balance is also very important to DeKelver.

“My husband and I both work very hard and sometimes that means long hours. I also travel for work a fair amount. We have two boys who are 19 and 11. It is very important to all of us that we make time for family. We try to be busy during the week and then keep weekends just for family time. Our family loves lake time at the cabin, and we enjoy travelling to new and favourite destinations.” CS

storage costs. My role in this is to work with customers and trans-portation providers to manage our freight and storage costs, and inventory levels, to make adjustments when needed,” DeKelver says.

Service levels are an ongoing issue with the railways. “We spend a lot of time working with our partners at the rail-

ways getting them to understand our requirements. Communica-tion is key- we need to ensure that we communicate our require-ments to them and in return they need to communicate their plans with us. We provide our shipping forecasts as far in advance as possible, and do what we can at our loading sites to assist the railways – for example we will block the cars as much as we can so that the railway has little to no switching to do,” she adds.

“Moving our product farther means our railcars are moving farther and taking longer trips. The biggest concern is the size of our fleet – we need enough cars to service our customers in the winter, yet we can’t have too many cars since we have to store them somewhere in the off-s ason. We never really know what kind of winter we will have, so there is a fair amount of guesswork that goes into the planning that we do in the off-s ason. We also work with our carriers to make sure they are in compliance as well and that they are not being held up at the border. Inevitably that will come through in our rate,” DeKelver says.

DeKelver was involved in taking on the project of introducing new logistics tracking software across the facilities-by far the big-gest project she ever tackled.

The company had an old DOS based system that was last up-dated in 1999. It was no longer being supported and there was a desperate need for a new system.

“We started the process of looking for a new system in 2014 and in 2015 we selected a cloud based provider. We wanted a system that would handle everything – both truck and rail shipments, cus-tomer contracts, orders, inventory, production, freight payables, and invoicing. We took their product and did a lot of customiza-tion. The project kicked off in April 2015 to be fully implemented by the end of October 2016. The biggest challenge was implementing the system across so many areas of our company – sales, shipping, operations, accounting; and helping our employees accept the changes. Everyone had to change their processes and they all had different requirements that they needed to get out of the new sys-tem. We had so many spreadsheets! This new system automated most of what we were doing manually before,” DeKelver notes.

SUPPLY CHAIN AWARDcontinued from page 35

Editor Julia Kuzeljevich has been writing about transportation issues for 17 years. Her articles have garnered several transportation and Canadian Business Press writing awards.

“Jaime’s humble disposition, tethered to her persistence and hard work, has taken NSC to a new level of excellence. Thank you Jaime for all you do for us as a client, and for our industry. From all of us at Volker Stevin, we offer you sincere congratulations on receiving the Supply Chain Executive of the Year award!”Fred Desjarlais, Vice President, Volker Stevin Canada

“Jamie‘s communication style is frank but factual. She does her homework and then challenges you with common sense questions and suggestions, and make sure, no one is going to pull the wool over her eyes. If you are going to address an issue with Jamie, you had better be prepared.”Rod Corbett, Vice President, Paul’s Hauling

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2016 Executive of the Year