ATCHISON, Kan., December 2, 2010 — MGP Ingredients, Inc. (MGPI), has announced the appointment of Cheryl Harrity to the position of corporate director of supply chain effective immediately.  For the past year, she has served as a founding partner of NaviChain, LLC., Maple Valley, Wash., where she was responsible for project management, including leading clients such as MGPI in customized methodologies for identifying key performance indicators in alignment with strategic corporate goals.  Just prior to that, she spent two years with Supply Chain Visions, Kirkland, Wash., as a principal specializing in consulting activities dedicated to supply chain performance management and performance benchmarking program implementation and training.

“In Cheryl’s position, she will have responsibility and oversight of customer service, procurement, logistics, transportation and inventory management,” said Scott Phillips, vice president of supply chain at MGPI.  “She will play a key role in helping to position MGP Ingredients as a best-in-class customer service organization.”  Phillips added, “Cheryl is a result-driven executive with a proven track record in building and strengthening supply chain business platforms.  She joins our company with over 18 years of solid operational experience across a diverse range of industries. Throughout her career, her collaborative style has been instrumental in enabling operating efficiencies, improving supply chain performance and optimizing customer service by synchronizing companywide processes.” 

Harrity has held middle-to-executive management positions at CS Integrated, AEP Industries, Ryder Systems, Knouse Foods and ACME Markets as well as consulting roles at KPMG Peat Marwick. Her experience has also included three years serving as the American Productivity and Quality Center’s (APQC) supply chain practice lead. She has advised industries as a supply chain subject matter expert, leading benchmarking and consortium research and publishing results in supply chain best-practice performance research. In these roles, she served as APQC's representative on Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) model project teams for the Supply Chain Council and APQC's lead in the development of the SCOR benchmarking tool and assessment methodology, SCORmarksm.  Harrity additionally served as the Supply Chain Visions' Project Team member for the 2009 release of the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals' (CSCMP, formerly CLM) Supply Chain Management Process Standards by leading the integration of the CSCMP Standards to the APQC Process Classification Framework (PCF).  

Harrity taught Supply Chain Management courses at the University of Nevada, Reno, and has been a featured speaker at CSCMP, the Supply Chain Council, the Warehousing Education and Research Council (WERC), The SHINGO Prize for Manufacturing Excellence, the Association for Manufacturing Excellence (AME) and the Center for Value Chain Research (CVCR) at Lehigh University. She is the recipient of the 2000-2001 Emerging Professional Award for Supply Chain from The Pennsylvania State University Smeal College of Business.

Harrity currently serves as a Committee Chair on the international Roundtable Advisory Committee for CSCMP. She also served as an officer of the CSCMP Seattle and New Jersey Roundtables and currently serves as Secretary/Treasurer for the American Logistics Aid Network (ALAN), an association of supply chain professional organizations founded to aid in humanitarian disaster relief. Harrity earned a master of business administration in physical distribution from Temple University and a bachelor of science degree in business logistics from The Pennsylvania State University.