As I was with family over the summer holidays enjoying meals together, I found myself listening to those “good old” sayings we’ve all heard many times. You know the ones, the bits of advice passed down from our parents and grandparents? They’re not just clichés; they’re packed with simple, no-nonsense wisdom.
So what happens when you apply that same logic to complex supply chains?
In this blog, we’re going to connect the dots. We’ll take those classic bits of advice you may have heard growing up and how its core idea can apply to supply chain design. Let’s look at these classic phrases in a whole new way.
- Look before you leap.
This is the foundational principle for supply chain design. A company shouldn’t just decide to build a new warehouse or open a new distribution center on a hunch. The “looking” involves a deep dive into data, customer locations, future demand, transportation costs, labor availability, and supplier locations. The “leaping” is the multi-million dollar investment that follows. Detailed modeling and scenario planning ensure that when you finally do jump, the new configuration will be efficient and cost-effective for years to come.
- Don’t build your house on sand
This is a perfect analogy for the foundational stage of designing a supply chain. A company’s network, the locations of its factories, warehouses, and distribution centers, is the foundation upon which its entire logistics and operational strategy is built. If this foundation is poorly planned, with facilities in the wrong locations or without considering future growth, the entire structure will be weak (and costly!). Just as a building on a weak foundation is vulnerable to a storm, a supply chain with a poor design is susceptible to market shifts, disruptions, and rising costs.
- Don’t wait until you’re thirsty to dig a well
This proverb perfectly parallels the necessity of long-term strategic planning in network design. Too often, companies get caught up in the “day-to-day” and defer major network decisions until they are already parched, meaning their warehouses are over-capacity or their shipping costs have become unsustainable.
A supply chain “well” (an optimized network) isn’t dug overnight, it requires time for modeling, site selection, and implementation. This saying serves as a reminder that the best time to optimize is before the drought hits. If you didn’t start years ago, the next best time to start is right now, before a competitor gains a significant advantage or a major market disruption leaves your business stranded.
- Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
This is the golden rule of supplier diversity and risk mitigation. If a company relies on a single supplier or a single geographic region for a critical component, they are one natural disaster or political shift away from a total shutdown. In supply chain design, this means building redundancy into the network. By spreading those “eggs” across multiple suppliers and shipping routes, your entire operation does not come to a grinding halt.
Modern supply chains are more complex than ever, but the solutions don’t have to be. By leaning into these timeless truths, we can build networks that are resilient, proactive, and ready for growth. Sometimes the best way to move forward is to remember the simple wisdom we’ve known all along.
—Brad Barry, St. Onge Company
