Insights
AI for Manufacturing & Supply Chain
How do you calculate safety stock levels when supplier lead times keep changing?
Marta got the call at 5:40 in the morning, before her coffee had even finished dripping. The night shift lead on line 2 told her they had e…
How do you actually negotiate better freight rates with LTL carriers?
Dave from AP slid the folder across my desk around ten in the morning, which was never a good sign. He didn't say anything, just tapped the…
What's the right balance between cycle counting and full physical inventory counts, and when should a plant use each one?
It's a Sunday in late January, and the warehouse lights are on when they shouldn't be. Twenty-two people, most of them pulled off their nor…
Why does supply chain management keep breaking down even when every system says everything's fine?
The shift-change meeting was supposed to start at six. It always starts at six. But at 6:40 the plant manager is still on the phone with a…
How do I separate real signal from noise in automotive industry news so it actually informs my supply chain and plant decisions?
Shift change at a tier-one stamping plant, one I'll call Deer Creek Fabrication, used to start with coffee and a walk of the line. Now it s…
How do you actually calculate OEE for a production line, and can you trust the number once you have it?
Tuesday, 6:10 a.m., the daily production review. The plant manager pulls up the OEE dashboard for Line 3 — a stamping and weld line running…
Why is my WMS inventory not matching ERP inventory?
Warehouse teams and planners frequently find that on-hand quantities in the WMS don't match what the ERP shows for the same SKU, forcing ma…
What is the correct formula for calculating safety stock levels, and how can it be applied accurately?
Planners across manufacturing and automotive supply chains frequently set safety stock using rough rules of thumb or a single static formul…