< Back to Blogs
play-button-podcast
Share:

Kinaxis’ Fred Baumann on Continuous Disruption, Adaptive Planning, and Turning Turbulence into Opportunity

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 about resilience. It’s also about opportunity.

Most companies view turbulence as something to recover from. Baumann argues that leaders should instead ask: How can we convert this disruption into competitive advantage? Those who capitalize on volatility faster than their peers—whether by securing constrained commodities, shifting production, or adjusting supply strategies—stand to gain market share.

In other words, supply chains must now be designed not just to withstand shocks, but to adapt and win.

 

Agentic AI: The Most Exciting Breakthrough

When Luton asked what excites him most about Kinaxis’ current innovations, Baumann didn’t hesitate: agentic AI.

While AI is the industry’s most popular buzzword, Baumann sees genuine, transformative value in agent-based intelligence embedded within planning systems. He explained that agentic AI can:

  • Automate menial and repetitive planning tasks
  • Evaluate risks and mitigation options autonomously
  • Generate multiple scenarios and recommendations in real time
  • Enable planners to shift from manual firefighting to strategic decision-making

Most importantly, Baumann emphasized that autonomous supply chain capabilities are not about replacing humans—they are about removing latency. Faster insights lead to faster actions, which lead to faster competitive advantage.

This is the foundation of what Kinaxis calls Adaptive Planning—an always-on, always-adjusting approach to matching continuous disruption with continuous alignment.

“Adaptability is the new resilience,” Baumann said. “It’s not just responding—it’s responding and capturing opportunity at the same time.”

 

Where to Learn More

Baumann invites leaders to connect with him on LinkedIn and explore the thought leadership, white papers, and innovations shared by the Kinaxis team via the company website. Check out a 2025 webinar on Supply Chain Now featuring Fred Baumann & a panel of industry leaders, focused on the topic of “Breaking Through the Chaos: Supply Chain Maturity in an Age of Economic Volatility”: click here.

We also invite you to listen to the full audio version of this interview with Scott W. Luton and Fred Baumann: click here.

More Blogs

warranty management optimization
Blogs
May 5, 2026

Can the Warranty Claims Process be Improved?

written by Chris Cunnane with InterSystems   Automotive manufacturers have invested billions in digital transformation over the past two decades, achieving meaningful gains in production efficiency. Yet one area has stubbornly lagged behind: warranty cost performance. Despite advances aligned with Industry 4.0, warranty costs as a percentage of revenue have remained largely unchanged. This disconnect highlights a critical truth that while production has evolved, warranty operations have not kept pace. At the heart of the issue is a fundamental inefficiency: time. Specifically, the lag between when a warranty claim is submitted and when meaningful problem-solving begins. This delay not only drives up operational costs but also impacts customer satisfaction and brand perception.   The Hidden Complexity of Warranty Claims Warranty management is more than a back-office function. It is a complex, data-driven process involving multiple stakeholders, systems, and validation steps. Each claim requires verification of warranty coverage, assessment of the issue, and coordination across service providers, suppliers, and internal teams. Much of this process remains manual. Organizations often rely on fragmented systems, inconsistent data formats, and time-intensive validation steps such as reviewing receipts, maintenance records, and warranty agreements. These inefficiencies introduce delays that can stretch into weeks before root cause…
leadership
Blogs
April 29, 2026

From Integration to Impact: Lessons in Modern Supply Chain Leadership

In a recent conversation, Supply Chain Now’s Scott Luton gained perspective from Sylvia Wilks, Chief Supply Chain Officer at Lamb Weston, who shared a powerful point of view on what it takes to lead in today’s increasingly complex, high-stakes supply chain environment. Her journey, from leading transformative initiatives at Starbucks to shaping global operations at Kimberly-Clark and REI, offers a consistent message: Success in supply chain isn’t just about systems or strategy. It’s about people, integration, and clarity of purpose. Wilks’ passion for supply chain was sparked during her time at Starbucks, where she led a bold initiative to insource instant coffee production. What began as a business case evolved into a transformative opportunity. “Seeing the entire chain, from strategy through operations, work seamlessly toward a common goal reinforced how much value organizations unlock when supply chain subfunctions operate collaboratively rather than in silos,” she explained. The idea of breaking down silos to create an integrated value chain has remained a central theme throughout Wilks’ leadership career.   The Power of People and Integration Across organizations of all sizes, Wilks sees a common thread: The challenges may be similar, but outcomes depend on how well teams work together. “My passion…