Analysis
Thoughts on supply chain, hardware, and the technology that keeps promising to fix both. Each one commits to a claim that could later turn out to be wrong, carries the counterargument in its own section, and names the conditions under which it holds.
Lowest Landed Cost Was Always a Bet. In 2026 the Odds Stopped Hiding.
Tariffs on Chinese goods peaked at 145 percent in April 2025 and fell to a trade weighted average near 33 percent inside twelve months.
The Forecasting AI Narrative Was Written by the High Volume World
Data starvation: a model does not learn a demand pattern from a part. It learns from the number of times that part has been demanded.
Real Time Data Was Supposed to Kill the Bullwhip. It Made It Faster.
Signal without slack: latency was never the whole disease. The reaction function was, and speed leaves it untouched while making it fire sooner.
The Digital Twin Is Only as Honest as the Master Data Underneath It
The fidelity illusion: the polish reads as accuracy to everyone who did not build it. The old spreadsheet at least looked uncertain.
The Floor Learned to Adapt Faster Than the Plan Feeding It
The signal ceiling: a polyfunctional arm that switches tasks in seconds idles behind a material release that updates Sunday night.
Planning Used to Be Downstream of the Decision. Now It Is the Decision.
The reconciliation point: sourcing sees supply, finance sees cost, sales sees the commitment, and none of them sees all three at the instant they collide.