When the Right Supply Chain Decision Arrives a Month Late

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A supply-chain decision can be perfectly correct, and still be useless if it arrives too late. Better forecasts matter, but the harder problem is turning uncertain, fragmented information into action while that information still has value.

My guest is Benji Price, Co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Wild Ducks, who has worked with supply-chain planning teams globally. We look at what happens when planners are expected to manage millions of SKU-location combinations, critical knowledge still sits in people’s heads, and understandable local decisions quietly create excess inventory and hidden cost.

We examine why every forecast is wrong to some degree, why the newest AI model is not automatically the best forecasting tool, and where automation should hand decisions back to experienced people. We also get into a harder question: if faster decisions sometimes beat more accurate ones, what should supply-chain leaders actually optimise for?

Listen now to understand how forecasting, automation and human judgement can work together to produce better decisions before the opportunity to act has passed.

 If disruption hit tomorrow, would you know where your supply chain was most exposed? In 15 minutes my free scorecard helps you assess 27 resilience statements, calculate your score, and turn the result into three priorities and a 30 day action plan. You can download the scorecard free at tomraftery.com/scorecard.

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