Jim Luff

Supply Chain Now is the voice of the supply chain industry, and our hosts are experts in the field. Podcast listeners and webinar viewers tune in to hear the sage advice of host Jake Barr, heralded as an architect of global supply chain strategy and creator of “profit powerhouses.” Earning His Spot on Stage Barr today is the CEO of BlueWorld Supply Chain Consulting, which provides support to such Fortune 500 companies as Cargill, Caterpillar, 3M, PepsiCo, and Pfizer and helps them bring products to market. “We place a premium on accelerating speed to market by leveraging supply chain transformation,” he says. “The result is better operating margin performance and the opportunity to drive faster growth in revenue.” During his more than 33 years with Procter & Gamble, Barr served as the global director of supply network operations and led the end-to-end planning transformation project, which created control towers that now manage the daily business globally and earned him recognition as the architect for the company’s demand-driven supply chain strategy. He served on the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics advisory council for its Supply Chain 2020 Project, was named to the League of Leaders for retail and consumer goods…

At the 2025 Gartner Supply Chain Planning Summit in Denver, Scott Luton sat down with Fred Baumann, Senior Industry Principal at Kinaxis, one of the world’s most recognized leaders in supply chain planning and orchestration. Kinaxis has spent over four decades shaping the planning landscape and has been named to the Gartner Leaders Quadrant an extraordinary 11 consecutive times—a testament to its execution strength and long-term vision. Baumann’s role at Kinaxis centers on helping chief supply chain officers and senior leaders shape their strategic transformation roadmaps, quantify value, and build the business cases necessary to achieve breakthrough outcomes.   From Episodic Disruptions to Continuous Turbulence When asked about old and new challenges facing supply chain planning teams, Baumann observed a major shift: disruption is no longer episodic—it’s continuous. Historically, companies faced major disruptions every few years. Today, volatility and constraint-related challenges—whether driven by tariffs, sourcing changes, geopolitical shifts, or supply shortages—are unfolding weekly or even daily. This environment demands a new way of working. The speed of global business is accelerating, and uncertainty is at historic highs. As Baumann noted, organizations must now adjust their supply chains “much faster than they had to even last year.” The shift isn’t only…