Practical supply chain thinking for mid-market operations.

Every April 29, the supply chain industry takes a moment to do something it rarely makes time for the other 364 days of the year. It stops. It looks around. It acknowledges the people and the work that keep goods moving, businesses operating, and shelves stocked. National Supply Chain Day was established in 2020 as a way to lift the supply chain profession up by spotlighting the stories, leaders, and breakthroughs that shape global commerce (Pawhuska Journal Capita,2026). Wha

There's a version of this story that plays out in mid-market operations every single week. A shipment doesn't arrive when it should. A customer calls before your team knows there's a problem. Someone pulls a report from the ERP, someone else checks a spreadsheet, a third person texts the carrier. Forty-five minutes later, you have a partial picture — and a customer who's already frustrated. Nobody made a bad decision. Nobody was lazy. The team did exactly what they've always

If you've been in operations long enough, you know the feeling. A shipment is late. A customer is calling. You're toggling between three systems, two spreadsheets, and a group chat trying to piece together where things went wrong and when. A supply chain control tower is supposed to fix that. But the term gets thrown around a lot, often by vendors selling very different things. So before you decide whether you need one, it helps to understand what a supply chain control tower

Activity Based Costing (ABC) can transform how warehouses and manufacturing plants understand their costs. Instead of relying on broad averages, ABC assigns costs to specific activities, giving a clearer picture of where money is spent. This guide will walk you through building an ABC system step-by-step and explain the benefits you can expect. By the end, you will have a practical action plan to start applying ABC in your operation. Operator picking products in a warehouse.