Shekar Natarajan

At the jampacked MODEX 2026 in Atlanta, Scott Luton sat down with Brian Devine, President & CEO of Ignite Industrial Professionals, for a grounded and timely conversation about one of the most pressing issues in global supply chain: the workforce. While automation continues to dominate headlines, Devine makes one thing clear: people are still at the center of it all. And finding them is getting harder by the day.   “Fingerprints on Every Box” Despite rapid advancements in robotics and automation, Devine emphasizes a fundamental truth that often gets overlooked. “There’s still… fingerprints on boxes. Somebody’s putting their fingerprints on tons of boxes to move it to the next phase of the supply chain,” he explains. Even in many highly automated environments, human labor remains essential. Devine shares an example of a cutting-edge facility where autonomous forklifts handle part of the process, but still rely on human operators to complete the job. The takeaway? Automation is largely augmenting, rather than replacing, the workforce. And that makes the labor shortage even more critical to address.   A Shrinking Labor Pool One of the most compelling parts of the discussion centers on simple supply-and-demand economics. The labor pool isn’t just tight. It’s…

At the Gartner Supply Chain Planning Summit in Denver, Scott Luton sat down with Caglar Ozdag, a supply chain leader at ZS. Known for its deep analytics and technology expertise across industries such as life sciences, airlines, consumer goods, and agriculture, ZS has become a trusted partner for organizations looking to elevate their planning and manufacturing performance. Ozdag leads the firm’s supply chain practice with a focus on planning from detailed forecasting through detailed scheduling. As a former practitioner himself—having led planning operations at large global enterprises—he brings a grounded, real-world perspective to the challenges facing today’s supply chain leaders.   Old Problems Persist—and New Ones Are Emerging When asked about classic and emerging challenges in planning, Ozdag didn’t hesitate: firefighting isn’t going away. From supply planning disruptions to last-minute schedule changes, firefighting remains a daily reality. “Life happens,” Ozdag noted. Plans rarely match reality, and organizations must constantly adjust. But today, a new layer has been added: AI uncertainty. Everywhere he goes, leaders are asking the same questions: “Is AI the right investment?” “Will the ROI materialize?” “Are we adopting the right tools, or just chasing hype?” This blend of enduring complexity and emerging skepticism has become a defining…