The Quantitative Supply Chain

Historically, programming has often been seen as an intimidating task reserved for computer whizzes and IT practitioners. Nowadays, however, with the rise of tools such as Python, programming has become that much more accessible. For this episode of LokadTV, we're joined, once more, by Nicolas Vandeput to discuss just how simple programming can actually be.

Despite many companies currently investing huge amounts of resources into establishing data science capabilities, the hard truth is that the majority of these projects fail to impact upon daily business operations. As such, we look beyond classic statistical modelling and explain why the impact of a proper data science department must run far deeper than just collecting data, manipulating it and getting an output.

When investing in a piece of supply chain software, there is the expectation that it will last a company decades, rather than just a few years. However, with a rapidly changing tech landscape, this becomes a complicated endeavour. For this episode of LokadTV, we discuss this challenge of maintainability and how it can be impacted by good design.

We've previously discussed the importance of a supply chain specialist over someone with more classic data science capabilities. At Lokad, we call them "Supply Chain Scientists". We're joined by one of our Supply Chain Scientists, Maximilian Barth, to learn more about what their role entails.

Mahatma Gandhi famously said that “The future depends on what you do today.” ― and for the organizations of tomorrow to be successful they already need to start establishing the right set up and supply chain operating model. We're delighted to welcome Markus Leopoldseder and Knut Alicke from McKinsey to discuss with us which capabilities organizations should be focusing on, and what the future of work in supply chains may look like.

Much like a great chef in a Michelin star kitchen, the best data scientists have to craft statistical solutions that adapt and evolve to every scenario. As such, we investigate what it takes to create these numerical recipes and what characterizes the solutions built for our supply chains.

Dollars of profits and losses are the only metric that matter in the long run for any company. At Lokad, we emphasize a strict financial optimization of the supply chain. This approach should not be confused with short-sightedness and other kinds of pseudo-rational methods which are prevalent when finance gets in charge of the strategy. This approach goes against the idea of service levels, and most of the other KPIs similarly defined through percentages.

Historically, pricing and planning have been dealt with by separate divisions within companies. This has resulted in inconsistent strategic thinking and data silos. For this episode of LokadTV, we discuss why these two challenges should be dealt with in tandem and how they are actually, in reality, two sides of the same coin.

Mainstream statistics are all about the law of large numbers. Yet, supply chains are the opposite. It's the law of small numbers that prevails. For decades, this mistunderstanding has generated problems for practitioners due to misdesigned tools, methods and processes. In this episode, we discuss the challenges and the appropriate perspectives when it comes to small numbers.

As coronavirus swept the world, numerous organisations quickly transitioned towards remote working. However, with so many employees working from home, these less secure environments created new security vulnerabilities. As such, for this episode of LokadTV, we are joined by Professor Richard Wilding who tackles with us this complex topic of cyber risk in supply chains.