Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Supply chains have more data than ever. Yet warehouses still miss deadlines, misallocate labour and react too slowly when reality changes.That gap between seeing and acting is where cost and service start to suffer.
I’m joined by Scott DeGroot, Executive Director of the Global Supply Chain Institute at the University of Tennessee, and Keith La Londe, VP of Systems at PathGuide Technologies. Scott brings decades of global planning and logistics experience, including 38 years at Kimberly-Clark; Keith works directly with warehouse and distribution systems. Together, they examine the uncomfortable gap between enterprise planning and what is actually happening on the warehouse floor.
That matters because operations run in seconds. Trucks arrive late. Labour doesn’t show. Orders change. Carrier cut-offs approach. Yet ERP and planning systems often operate on a very different clock. The result can be congestion, idle trucks, wasted warehouse space, missed service commitments and people manually bridging the gap between what the system says and what the operation needs.
A few things challenged my thinking. Scott calls much of what organisations have built “dashboard theatre”: excellent visibility that never becomes a better decision about what to pick, pack, stage, load or dispatch next. He also argues that near-real-time data is often enough — knowing which of 135 inbound trucks matter over the next 12 hours can be more useful than trying to see everything. And one multimillion-dollar AGV installation actually reduced productivity because people and robots kept competing for the same physical space.
We also get into self-serving supply chain metrics, when local judgement should override central assumptions, what AI can genuinely improve in warehouse operations, and why waiting for perfect certainty is itself an operational risk.
For senior supply chain, logistics, procurement, warehouse, operations and technology leaders responsible for turning information into execution.
If you’re dealing with this gap between what your systems know and what your operation can actually do, I’d like to hear where it breaks down for you.
🎧 Resilient Supply Chain: resilientsupplychainpodcast.com
🔔 Subscribe for practical conversations on supply chain resilience, operational risk, AI, logistics and decision-making.
👍 Follow the podcast wherever you listen.
00:00 Dashboard Theatre Problem
00:30 Welcome And Guests
02:32 Planning Vs Execution Gap
05:06 Visibility Without Action
06:54 Early Warning Signs
08:28 Small Mismatches Snowball
09:58 Misleading Metrics Trap
12:00 ERP Vs WMS Trust
17:33 Act Without Certainty
19:24 Frontline Info That Matters
21:26 Amazon Raised The Bar
22:48 Standardise Or Localise
24:30 When Plans Fail In Reality
28:17 Near Real Time Is Enough
30:06 Proving Decisions Improved
31:22 Trust Boosts Morale
35:36 AI For Safer Decisions
38:30 Lightning Round
39:46 Next Three Years Changes
43:16 Improve Tomorrow Morning
45:25 Where To Learn More
46:28 Closing Thanks
Supply chains have more data than ever. Yet warehouses still miss deadlines, misallocate labour and react too slowly when reality changes.That gap between seeing and acting is where cost and service start to suffer.
I’m joined by Scott DeGroot, Executive Director of the Global Supply Chain Institute at the University of Tennessee, and Keith La Londe, VP of Systems at PathGuide Technologies. Scott brings decades of global planning and logistics experience, including 38 years at Kimberly-Clark; Keith works directly with warehouse and distribution systems. Together, they examine the uncomfortable gap between enterprise planning and what is actually happening on the warehouse floor.
That matters because operations run in seconds. Trucks arrive late. Labour doesn’t show. Orders change. Carrier cut-offs approach. Yet ERP and planning systems often operate on a very different clock. The result can be congestion, idle trucks, wasted warehouse space, missed service commitments and people manually bridging the gap between what the system says and what the operation needs.
A few things challenged my thinking. Scott calls much of what organisations have built “dashboard theatre”: excellent visibility that never becomes a better decision about what to pick, pack, stage, load or dispatch next. He also argues that near-real-time data is often enough — knowing which of 135 inbound trucks matter over the next 12 hours can be more useful than trying to see everything. And one multimillion-dollar AGV installation actually reduced productivity because people and robots kept competing for the same physical space.
We also get into self-serving supply chain metrics, when local judgement should override central assumptions, what AI can genuinely improve in warehouse operations, and why waiting for perfect certainty is itself an operational risk.
For senior supply chain, logistics, procurement, warehouse, operations and technology leaders responsible for turning information into execution.
If you’re dealing with this gap between what your systems know and what your operation can actually do, I’d like to hear where it breaks down for you.
🎧 Resilient Supply Chain: resilientsupplychainpodcast.com
🔔 Subscribe for practical conversations on supply chain resilience, operational risk, AI, logistics and decision-making.
👍 Follow the podcast wherever you listen.
00:00 Dashboard Theatre Problem
00:30 Welcome And Guests
02:32 Planning Vs Execution Gap
05:06 Visibility Without Action
06:54 Early Warning Signs
08:28 Small Mismatches Snowball
09:58 Misleading Metrics Trap
12:00 ERP Vs WMS Trust
17:33 Act Without Certainty
19:24 Frontline Info That Matters
21:26 Amazon Raised The Bar
22:48 Standardise Or Localise
24:30 When Plans Fail In Reality
28:17 Near Real Time Is Enough
30:06 Proving Decisions Improved
31:22 Trust Boosts Morale
35:36 AI For Safer Decisions
38:30 Lightning Round
39:46 Next Three Years Changes
43:16 Improve Tomorrow Morning
45:25 Where To Learn More
46:28 Closing Thanks
