James L. Heskett

Did you miss our recent Industry 4.0 webinar with SAP? On March 23rd, Mike Lackey with SAP and Tobias Hoffmeister with MHP Americas Inc joined Scott and Greg to discuss Industry 4.0, how the opportunity to get started is NOW, and how to make that digital transformation to your R&D, manufacturing, and assets. If you missed the live session, no worries! Click here and access it right on the Supply Chain Now website.

Special Guest Blog Post written by Philip Vervloesem   If your supply chain planning still runs on a monthly cycle, 2026 will be uncomfortable. We are operating in a polycrisis where change is constant, and responses need to be fast enough to keep up. From customer conversations, industry research, and leadership discussions at the Gartner supply chain conferences, a clear pattern has emerged: the organizations pulling ahead are not planning more often. They are embedding agility, intelligence, and speed into the way they make decisions. Here are five predictions shaping supply chain excellence in 2026 – our “bingo card” for what’s now table stakes.   1. Continuous, always-on planning is a must Monthly or quarterly cycles are no longer enough. The organizations that outperform treat planning as a continuous capability embedded in daily operations, and make it part of their governance and operational excellence. Imagine this: a sudden surge in demand hits or a supplier flags a delay. Instead of waiting for the next planning cycle, teams immediately evaluate options, share insights across functions, and adjust course. Planning stops being a calendar exercise and starts shaping real-time decisions.   “By shifting from process-centric to decision-centric planning, we now run hundreds…