Robyn Meyer

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…

A Legacy Behind the Mission At Manifest 2026 in Las Vegas, Scott Luton sat down with Stefan Groschupf, CEO & Founder of Centrum AI, to discuss how a new generation of technology is being purpose-built for today’s supply chain realities, rather than yesterday’s assumptions. What began with a lighthearted joke about multivitamins quickly turned personal. When Scott quipped that “Centrum” reminded him of a vitamin from the eighties and nineties, Stefan shared the real inspiration behind the name. “My dad… the biggest building he constructed was called Centrum,” he explained. “That was the inspiration. His legacy, a head nod to him.” For Stefan, the company name represents more than branding; it reflects a mission rooted in impact and responsibility.   Designing for Today’s Reality “We’re building a new tech platform for the supply chain industry that is really built on the foundation of the reality today,” Stefan said. That reality includes uncertainty, dirty data, data silos, and geopolitical shifts that are reshaping global trade. He offered a simple example: in many ERP systems, a lead time is entered as a fixed number — say 15 days. “That’s of course nonsense,” Stefan noted. “It’s anywhere between nine days and 18 days……