Silvia Judy

Special guest post written by Chris Cunnane with InterSystems Supply chain orchestration is the coordinated management of end-to-end supply chain activities, across planning, sourcing, production, logistics, and delivery, using technology, data, and processes to ensure that every moving part works together seamlessly. It enables organizations to attain an agile and resilient supply chain model through the use of decision intelligence. This is achieved through the See > Understand > Optimize > Act framework, which gives organizations the confidence to plan and respond to disruptions with assurance in their supply chain stability. See: gather raw data and information from your environment or a situation. Understand: analyze the information you’ve seen to build a comprehensive understanding of the context, your knowledge, and potential complexities. Optimize: develop the best possible solution or course of action to address the situation. Act: implement your chosen solution, putting your knowledge into practice. From a practical standpoint, this framework powers your supply chain application ecosystem with end-to-end visibility, insights, and better decisions. It helps organizations reach their supply chain goals by enabling them to align processes, stakeholders, and technology toward desired outcomes. The end result is reduced costs, improved operating margins, and optimized sustainability decisions, among others.…

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…