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supply chain planning
January 16, 2026
Demand Chain AI’s Rob Haddock on Raising Planning Maturity and Helping Companies Outgrow Spreadsheets
At the Gartner Supply Chain Planning Summit in Denver, Scott Luton caught up with Rob Haddock, a seasoned supply chain practitioner and advisor with Demand Chain AI, to discuss the persistent planning challenges organizations face—and why maturity, discipline, and optimization still matter more than buzzwords. Demand Chain AI blends consulting services with advanced supply chain technologies, focusing on optimization across trade promotion management, demand sensing, supply planning, and detailed production scheduling. Haddock’s role centers on helping organizations strengthen business processes—particularly sales and operations planning (S&OP), performance reporting, and the practical application of technology to improve execution on both the demand and supply sides. A Practitioner’s Perspective on Planning Gaps Haddock’s perspective is shaped by decades spent inside large, sophisticated supply chain organizations. Early in his career, he worked within an iconic, global beverage company where advanced planning environments were already in place—though, in hindsight, he admits those tools were sometimes underutilized. Today, Haddock spends much of his time working with small and mid-sized organizations that haven’t been as fortunate. In many of these environments, planning maturity is still low, foundational practices are missing, and—unsurprisingly—Excel remains the primary planning tool. “Basic business practices that have been around since the 1990s…
May 15, 2020
This Week in Supply Chain Now: May 9th-15th
Another great week here at Supply Chain Now! Have you listened to all the episodes? If not, no worries! Check them all out here: We added a special Saturday episode on May 9th and featured another speaker from the 2020 AIAG CR Summit, Eric Kane with Bloomberg, and his insights from the conference. On Monday, we continued our Supply Chain Super Trends series with Sarah Barnes-Humphrey with Let’s Talk Supply Chain. Supply Chain Super Trend #3 focused on a holistic approach to supply chain TALENT. Mike Griswold with Gartner joined us for another excellent livestream last week, and we published it as a podcast episode on Tuesday. He shared his latest observations on how COVID-19 is impacting global supply chains. A MUST-listen! We continued our interviews with the speakers from the AIAG CR Summit on Wednesday, with great insights from Dr. Assheton Carter with TDI Sustainability. Thursday we published our popular Supply Chain Buzz, with Scott and Greg sharing and discussing the latest news and events in Supply Chain and beyond. And on Friday, we wrapped up the interviews with the extrordinary speakers from the AIAG CR Summit, with Brian Rich…