Supply chain is where the rubber hits the road.

In the face of market uncertainty, fulfilling the brand promise requires consistent, reliable order delivery, product quality, and adherence to the promised date.

Performance and improvement are intertwined but separate. Here I share some insights. Let me start with a sports analogy.

Reflection

Over the course of my life, I have had many personal trainers. I know it sounds illogical to hire someone to force me to work out regularly, but it is my reality. I have good intentions, but scheduling sessions with a trainer forces me to go to the gym.

On the first day of work with a professional athletic trainer, there is an assessment of potential: stamina, balance, flexibility, and health limitations. The capabilities and testing methods for determining body mass index, lean muscle mass, and cardio fitness have dramatically improved over my lifetime. I find it amazing to see heart rate, strain, and cardio load on my devices. When I am in the fitness groove, I love the tracking.

The assessment is usually followed by the question of, “What is your goal?” Fitness, weight loss, running a marathon, competing in a triathalon, or participation in a special event? Each goal requires a different plan.

Over the years, I have had many trainers. Unfortunately, a lot of starts and stops. I am back at it.

At the start of a fitness journey, it is easy to see progress. You lift heavier, do more reps, and run faster. You may tone and lose weight. However, as your body gets fitter, improvement is tougher. Staying on track requires discipline — in sleep, diet, and regular workouts. There are many obstacles to staying on track — work, travel, family, and social commitments. The relationship between performance and improvement changes as you age.

Driving Supply Chain Improvement

I find the processes of supply chain improvement to be analogous to the journey of physical fitness.

Many years ago, I managed a continuous improvement program for a large manufacturer. Reporting through the manufacturing organization, I focused vigorously on improving OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness). My focus was factory automation. In my work, I never spoke to my logistics teams or understood the impact of my zealous efforts on inventory. They were in different organizations. I now realize the error of my ways.

My focus was on improvement. I never considered that the company did not have unlimited opportunity, or that improvement would get harder as the organization matured. I was naive.

I see many companies making the same mistakes I made as a practitioner forty-five years ago.

The problem is that the impact is now much worse. This is due to the lengthening of the product portfolio (increasing demand variability and demand latency), the evolution of e-commerce with shorter order cycles, and the inventory repercussions on cash-to-cash cycles.

I shudder at the thought of putting improvement efforts on steroids with AI technologies without understanding the impacts holistically.

Here is what I wish I knew then:

1. Supply chain improvement efforts do not have unlimited potential. Understanding the interrelationships between functions and the connection to operating margin is critical.
2. The goal of lowering manufacturing costs can actually increase total cost and degrade corporate value. We see this in the best deployments of factory scheduling in process-based industries.
3. In my prior organization, there was a continuous improvement program in manufacturing, procurement, and logistics. Our efforts were aligned to our functions, but not aligned to a corporate strategy. In fact, we did not know what the corporate strategy was. (Our research shows only 15% of supply chain managers are clear on strategy.) We falsely believed that we could work effectively through an independent functional focus. As a result, my savings in manufacturing actually increased logistics and procurement costs. We were not able to see total costs easily, so balance was an almost impossible task.
4. The goal of efficiency was being undermined by unchecked complexity. As product portfolios and market efforts proliferated, the potential to reduce operating margins declined. We were not managing complexity. The company was drunk on growth efforts with unchecked discipline on baseline demand.
5. Market headwinds greatly impacted the bill of materials and labor inputs. We did not account for market shifts to understand the realistic potential of our supply chain.
6. Our benchmarks were not realistic. We let leadership set unreasonable goals.
7. We focused on improving operating efficiency. The efficient supply chain may not be the most effective. In the process, we unknowingly gave up capabilities for responsiveness, flexibility, and agility. In the face of unchecked complexity, and increasing issues with item forecastability, the corporation needed increased flexibility, but it was not valued in bonus incentives.

Recently, I published “Supply Chains to Admire for 2026.” Over the last two weeks, two thousand readers downloaded the report. My goal is a type of informal coaching. I want to help others to avoid the issues I faced in attempting to drive continuous improvement.

The design of the report is to help companies understand what is possible, and share performance against peer group. For success, it is critical to understand industry potential and set realistic targets.

I loved some of the comments on LinkedIn:

• Winners understand their industry frontier, manage complexity, align functions, sense changes in demand and supply, and orchestrate trade-offs over time. Orbit charts show how the system moves. Evidence explains why it moves. The control point analysis identifies where value can be captured. AI accelerates the synthesis, but the structured context is the asset.
• One takeaway I hadn’t considered before was the idea that continuous improvement isn’t unlimited. Every industry has constraints and an “effective frontier.” The goal isn’t chasing perfection. It’s understanding what’s realistically achievable within your operating environment and improving from there.
• I never realized how large the gap was between perceived supply chain leadership and actual results.
• The regression finding is the part that deserves more attention than it typically gets. Forty percent of market capitalization explained by four metrics — revenue growth, operating margin, inventory turns, and ROCE is a strong empirical case for why supply chain planning should be anchored to shareholder value, not functional cost. The practical problem I have seen is that most supply chain teams are measured on cost and service levels because those metrics are visible within a quarter. Operating margin and ROCE play out over longer cycles and get attributed to commercial or finance decisions rather than supply chain ones. So even when the analytics are clear, the incentive structure pulls planning teams back toward the wrong optimization target.

Coaching

If these comments resonate with you, start by:

1. Getting clear on the goal. What is supply chain excellence? What is the right role for demand planning? Inventory management?
2. Understanding potential. As you face increasing market headwinds, what is the market potential to drive improvement in your supply chain?
3. Building capabilities. How do you define efficiency? Balance? Agility? What is improvement?
4. Aligning incentives. Actions need to align to reward systems. How do you realign to drive improvement?
5. Measuring effectiveness. Are your planning systems adding value? Measure Forecast Value Added (FVA). Inventory health and the bullwhip by demand stream.
6. Avoiding shiny objects. In this world, where everyone is espousing AI like snake oil focus on value. Side step buzz word bingo.

And, consider hiring a coach. A trainer can help your organization stay on track amid firefighting, technology and consulting overpromises, and organizational shifts.

Let me know if I can help. I love this role, and also know some good resources.

In the meantime, check out my new resource, Ask Lora for benchmarking insights..

See Me Speak

I am speaking in the fall at the Cleo Connect Conference in Chicago, Illinois on September 2nd, and the Keller Logistics Summit on September 23rd in Defiance Ohio. If you are there, let’s continue the dialogue.