Vanessa Wieners

When service levels slip, most organizations respond the same way: add more inventory. A little extra safety stock here, a buffer there, and to many businesses, that feels like the safest path forward. But it rarely works. Instead of solving the problem, businesses end up with bloated inventory in one location and stockouts in another. Working capital climbs, service is still inconsistent, and planners are stuck reacting rather than improving outcomes. It’s like trying to fix traffic by adding more cars to the road, and congestion just gets worse. This is the inventory trap: chasing service by piling up stock instead of managing it strategically.   What is Multi-Echelon Inventory Optimization? Multi-Echelon inventory optimization (MEIO) helps you put the right inventory in the right places across your network to hit service goals with less total stock. Instead of optimizing each site in isolation, MEIO looks at your entire network of plants, distribution centers, suppliers, and customers as one connected system.   The three most common inventory issues businesses face At its core, MEIO answers three questions every supply chain leader is asking: Where should we hold inventory? Not every location needs the same level of protection. MEIO determines the most…

Stay up to date on all the latest conversations, interviews, and episodes we released this week here at Supply Chain Now. On Monday’s episode of Supply Chain Now, Scott Luton and Greg White discuss the U.S. Bank 2021 Q2 Freight Payment Index with Bobby Holland of U.S. Bank & John Janson with Sanmar. On This Week in Business History, Kelly Barner shares the best and most interesting bits of historical business trivia, all occurring during the first week in August. We also released an episode of Supply Chain Now en Español with Enrique Alvarez and Demo Perez featuring Felisa Preciado. On Tuesday we released another Logistics With Purpose episode! Hosts Enrique Alvarez and Kristi Porter welcomed Alice Brown with GoodSteps to the show. Another show that was in the mix this week was TECHquila Sunrise with Greg White. This is the 2nd part of a great conversation with RateLinx CEO Shannon Vaillancourt, where they discussed 3 Keys to turn supply chain visibility into action. On Wednesday, Tim Nelson with Hope for Justice joined Scott Luton and Greg White. They discussed their noble efforts to eradicate slavery and human trafficking in the supply chain throughout the world. On Thursday, we released…