PuLP

Your MVP works. One product, one model, one perfect plan. Congratulations: you just solved the easiest problem in Supply Chain. Now add 3 products sharing the same factory. Product A needs 14,000 units in July. Product C needs 13,000 that same month. Your factory produces 15,000. Who gets shorted? If your answer is “we’ll figure it out in Thursday’s meeting,” your company has an engineering problem, not a management one. ...

“We always want 4 weeks of coverage.” This phrase, repeated like a mantra in every S&OP meeting on the planet, is financially toxic. Why? Because it’s a fixed rule applied to a dynamic system. If your demand in January is 200 units and in July is 20, you’re forcing yourself to maintain 800 and 80 units respectively “just in case.” January falls short. July immobilizes capital for no reason. The alternative isn’t more sophisticated intuition. It’s mathematics. ...