For the past few weeks, we’ve been discussing agility beyond software teams, how entire businesses can operate in smaller loops, respond to uncertainty more quickly, and transform complexity from a threat into an advantage.
This week’s theme, Supply Chain as a System of Learning, extends that idea to one of the most unforgiving aspects of any business: the flow of goods, materials, and services that keep everything running smoothly.
In Monday’s YouTube video, we explored why the companies that survived recent global shocks weren’t the ones with the best forecasts; they were the ones with the shortest learning loops. In Tuesday’s email, we shared three simple experiments to enhance your team’s “learning velocity.”
Today, we take it one step further.
Let’s look at five real organizations that applied the same principles you’re experimenting with, inspection, adaptation, constraint focus, and small learning loops, to build supply networks that can sense, respond, and recover faster than their competitors.
These examples aren’t meant to impress you. They’re intended to give you patterns you can experiment with in any function: technology, operations, logistics, product, finance, HR, wherever flow matters.
1. Schneider Electric: Turning the Supply Chain Into a Nervous System
Schneider Electric, a global leader in energy automation, was significantly impacted by the semiconductor crisis. But instead of doubling down on firefighting, they built what they call a Control Tower, a central feedback loop that integrates procurement, logistics, customer service, and production data.
Here’s what mattered most:
- Weekly flow retrospectives, not quarterly ones
- Process behavior charts to spot abnormal variation early
- Scrum-of-scrums across sites to reallocate constrained components daily
- Shared visibility, so decisions didn’t bottleneck at management layers
The result? Schneider maintained a fulfillment rate of around 91%, even as competitors dropped into the 60s.
Pattern to replicate: Visibility + cadence beats prediction every time.
Where this applies outside the supply chain: Technology operations (deployments), customer escalations, and product development queues.
2. Flex: Digital Twins and Two-Week Experiments at Scale
Flex (formerly Flextronics), one of the world’s largest contract manufacturers, embraced a simple belief: You don’t need better forecasts. You need better experiments.
They built a digital twin of their entire manufacturing network, suppliers, logistics lanes, and work centers, and fed it real-time operational data. Then they layered sprint cycles on top of it:
- Every factory ran two-week throughput experiments
- Minor changes were tested in isolation (batch size, routing, sequencing)
- Only improvements with a measurable impact were scaled
Flex ultimately cut lead-time variation by over 40%.
Pattern to replicate: Run small tests at the constraint; scale what works.
Where this applies outside the supply chain: Incident response, DevOps cycle times, and continuous improvement programs.
3. Procter & Gamble: Teaching Suppliers to Work in Sprints
P&G realized that a supply chain is only as adaptive as its slowest learning partner.
They then launched Collaborative Planning Sprints with their suppliers. Not giant transformation programs. Just simple Scrum-like cycles:
- A single sprint goal tied to flow or quality
- Daily standups between the supplier + P&G
- A sprint review to demo improvements
- A retrospective focused on learning, not blame
Within six months, they reduced order-to-delivery lead times by 32%, without implementing new systems, overhauling processes, or escalating to executives.
Pattern to replicate: Alignment + rhythm + visibility = predictable adaptation.
Where this applies: Vendor management, engineering handoffs, and data team collaboration.
4. Maersk: Using Throughput Accounting Instead of Traditional Cost Control
Maersk, the global shipping giant, discovered a flaw in its old approach: cost metrics rewarded local efficiency rather than total flow.
So they adopted Throughput Accounting: a Theory of Constraints approach that measures:
- Throughput dollars per vessel per week
- Queue time at bottleneck ports
- Constraint utilization
- Cash-to-cash cycle impact
This created a unified language for finance, operations, scheduling, and logistics. Suddenly, decisions optimized the system, not individual ports, ships, or departments.
Pattern to replicate: When everyone shares the same north star (flow), arguments fall away.
Where this applies: Portfolio prioritization, cross-functional roadmapping, and budgeting.
5. Patagonia: Designing for Slack, Not Purity of Efficiency
Patagonia protects its supply network the same way it protects the environment, intentionally and long-term.
Their secret? They don’t optimize for efficiency.
They optimize for optionality.
- Dual suppliers for critical materials
- Shared sustainability + flow platforms
- Regular Kaizen Week partnerships
- Built-in slack for scaling or shifting quickly
It’s counterintuitive but powerful: Slack creates resilience. Resilience creates speed when disruption hits.
Pattern to replicate: Design space for learning, not just for utilization.
Where this applies: Team capacity planning, release management, and strategic planning cycles.
What These Companies Have in Common
Across all five organizations, a few universal patterns show up:
1. Cadence before technology
They didn’t start with new tools.
They started with new rhythms of learning.
2. Constraint-focused experiments
Each organization improved its flow by examining the system’s slowest point, not the easiest or most politically palatable one.
3. Cross-boundary retros
They learned with suppliers, customers, and partners, not in silos.
4. Better measures of reality
Not cost.
Not utilization.
Not forecast accuracy.
But learning velocity and throughput at the constraint.
5. Psychological safety as infrastructure
You can’t shorten learning loops if people are afraid to speak up. This is as true in logistics as it is in software.
How You Can Apply This, Starting This Week
Here’s your starter kit, tying back to Tuesday’s email:
- Track TTD, TTDec, and TTChg daily
- Choose one constraint and run a one-week experiment
- Hold a 15-minute retro with one partner (internal or external)
- Use a simple run chart to visualize variation
- Share results with your team to build momentum
If you want a guide, we included a printable Weekly Experiment Worksheet in Tuesday’s email.
Final Thought
The companies we admire aren’t winning because they’re efficient.
They’re winning because they’re adaptable.
Because they treat learning as a system, not an afterthought.
And because they shorten the distance between signal → decision → action.
The more your teams learn, the less you break. And in today’s environment, that’s the real competitive edge.