Supply Chain, As It Should Be
In 2008, when I founded Lokad, I devoured shelves of books on forecasting, inventory optimization, planning, and “supply chain science.” A few years of practice later, it became painfully clear that the mainstream playbook was a methodological and technological dead end. This post explains why—and introduces my new book, Introduction to Supply Chain, which reframes the field so we can make better decisions under uncertainty every single day.
You can read it online at lokad.com/book.
What Went Wrong With the Mainstream
The traditional approach starts with plans, targets, and single-number forecasts. It assumes the world holds still long enough for those numbers to be right. It doesn’t—and the gap between spreadsheet certainty and operational reality quietly misallocates capital.
Meanwhile, computing has leapt forward—orders of magnitude more data, cheaper compute, better software. Yet after half a century of stagnation, many organizations still rely on time-series forecasts, safety stocks, and service-level rituals as if nothing had changed. The tools look modern; the economics behind them do not.
The Detour That Changed Our Direction
For years I was stuck inside that paradigm. To escape, I ventured into unfamiliar territory: alternative views, methods, and software practices that we eventually bundled under the label Quantitative Supply Chain. In hindsight, the name was unfortunate:
- The mainstream already calls itself quantitative, so the distinction felt cosmetic.
- From afar, our work was reduced to a “flavor” emphasizing specific techniques—especially probabilistic forecasting—rather than a different way of thinking.
But what emerged at Lokad wasn’t a tweak. It was a complete re-foundation—both as a field of study and as a practice for operators. The companies we serve consistently tell us the same thing: Lokad is a radically different option from the mainstream.
Why I Wrote This Book
I wrote this book for my former self—the 2008 version of me who was just entering the field. Had I held these pages back then, Lokad would have skipped nearly a decade of wandering. The book:
- Revisits the foundations of supply chain with today’s computing reality in mind.
- Improves and extends my public lectures with a coherent, operator-first narrative.
- Distills seventeen years of hands-on work across industries into a practical field manual.
If you’ve followed Lokad for a long time, you’ll recognize the throughline. If you’re new to our work, this is the most direct, compact way to see supply chain as it should be.
An Invitation to Practitioners
Our field doesn’t need another layer of dashboards or yet another parameterized forecast. It needs better economics that makes sensible decisions at scale. The alternatives exist—many have been pioneered at Lokad—and they are ready to be used.
I hope this book helps you move beyond traditions that no longer serve you and inspires the next generation of supply chains.
Special thanks
This book was a considerable undertaking and I want to thank the people who supported me through the various stages (initial discussions, rewrites, and fine-tuning). If you’re reading this line, you know who you are. Your patience and feedback were greatly appreciated.
Read the book: https://lokad.com/book
