The Antifragile Supply Chain - Thriving Due to Uncertainty

09/29/23 • 23 min

This episode explores:

The concept of antifragile supply chains and thriving due to uncertainty. (00:44)
Supply chains are on a spectrum of coping with uncertainty from a state of fragile to resilient to antifragile. (3:12)
How supply chains respond to uncertainty depending on where they are on the spectrum of fragile to resilient to antifragile. (5:48)
Insight from organizations already on the path to supply chain antifragility. (11:39)
Advice for listeners on how to get started on their journey to supply chain antifragility. (17:56)

Host Thomas O’Connor and Gartner research vice president Tim Payne discuss findings from the Executive Report: The Antifragile Supply Chain - Thriving Under Uncertainty, a report that proposes a paradigm shift towards managing uncertainty in supply chain organizations.

Tim, author of the report, dives deep into how the majority of supply chains’ approach to uncertainty is fragile, and ultimately rooted in preventing major losses from uncertainty. These organizations are protective of stability, and build their supply chains for redundancy and efficiency. However, shifting towards an “antifragile” mindset allows supply chain organizations to convert uncertainty into business growth and competitive advantage.

Thomas and Tim close the show with recommendations for supply chain leaders interested in pursuing this antifragile mindset, including how and where to begin the process.

This episode explores:

The concept of antifragile supply chains and thriving due to uncertainty. (00:44)
Supply chains are on a spectrum of coping with uncertainty from a state of fragile to resilient to antifragile. (3:12)
How supply chains respond to uncertainty depending on where they are on the spectrum of fragile to resilient to antifragile. (5:48)
Insight from organizations already on the path to supply chain antifragility. (11:39)
Advice for listeners on how to get started on their journey to supply chain antifragility. (17:56)

Thomas and Tim close the show with recommendations for supply chain leaders interested in pursuing this antifragile mindset, including how and where to begin the process.

Previous Episode

Biomimicry: How Honeybees Can Inspire Supply Chain Design

This episode explores:

An overview of Gartner’s Maverick program. (1:04)
The concept of biomimicry and how honeybees can inspire supply chains. (2:20)
What supply chains and CSCOs can learn about the role of autonomy from honeybees. (4:45)
The role of swarm intelligence and how it can influence supply chains to operate like a hive. (11:19)
Key actionable advice supply chain leaders can take away from honeybees and biomimicry. (16:40)

In this podcast, host Thomas O’Connor and Gartner senior director Claudia Clemens dive deep into Claudia’s Maverick Research: Biomimicry: How Honeybees Can Inspire Future Supply Chain Design. They explore how the humble honeybee hive’s individual worker autonomy, nonlinear task structure and swarm intelligence can inform real-world supply chain practices like decentralized governance of autonomous workers and collective actions toward sustainable growth.

Thomas and Claudia close the show with recommendations for supply chain leaders, including empowering both human and machine supply chain elements through clearly defining purpose and leveraging autonomy, flexibility and democratized data to create true diversity of thought.

Next Episode

Generative AI with Cliff Henson, Microsoft

This episode explores:

Defining GenAI: a capability at the peak of its hype and plenty of use cases (2:20)
Reasons for CSCOs to take action on GenAI now rather than later (5:02)
Real-world GenAI use cases in supply chain (7:04)
Recommendations for supply chain leaders implementing GenAI in their own organizations (13:03)

Host Thomas O’Connor explores generative AI (GenAI) with guest Cliff Henson, corporate vice president of cloud supply chain at Microsoft. They discuss approaches and opportunities in this emerging space, including use cases for GenAI in space planning and order fulfillment.

Though early in the GenAI journey, Cliff discusses the transformative potential of the technology and how it has enabled the connection of disparate systems and provided the ability to obtain data-driven insights in minutes, rather than weeks or months. Then, Thomas and Cliff close the show with four discrete recommendations for supply chain leaders seeking to implement GenAI in their own organizations.