ASCM Insights - Blog Posts

New MoMA Installation Depicts the Art in Supply Chains

When I first joined the supply chain field nearly 20 years ago, it seemed to me that supply chain management was a true 50-50 blend of art and science. I would hear jokes about forecasts always being wrong and demand planners needing a certain kind of magic to even come close to getting them right. Or similarly, reverse-logistics teams would try to predict the precise number of goods that would fail to meet customer satisfaction standards and be sent back — but to get it right, sorcery would definitely be involved. Sure, these people had research, data and statistics; but what the most successful supply chain professionals possessed was a killer gut instinct.