Start with the last missed delivery

• Tell me about the most recent missed delivery where your planning team discovered a supplier lead time shift after production was committed.
• When did the issue first appear in your systems and who raised the alarm? Options: Planner, Production scheduler, Procurement, Customer service, ERP alert, Other
• Approximately how much did expediting add to that shipment's cost, as a percent of shipment value? Options: Less than 2%, 2% to 5%, 5% to 10%, 10% to 20%, More than 20%
• Walk me through the sequence of events from the lead-time change to the corrective action request from the customer.
• What single consequence from that incident would make your leadership prioritize replacing the current planning approach immediately?

Where the current planning process breaks

• If your planning model recalculated daily instead of in weekly batches, how many recent expediting events do you think would have been prevented? Options: Almost all, Most, Some, Few, None, Unsure
• Describe your current planning cadence, including who runs the batch, who reviews results, and who approves changes to the committed schedule.
• Which artifacts feed your weekly plan for the product family you would pilot, name systems and files. Options: ERP planned orders and supply tables, Planner spreadsheets, Supplier confirmations / emails, Third-party risk feeds, Other
• Approximately how many planners actively maintain reconciled spreadsheets for this product family? Options: 1, 2 to 3, 4 to 6, 7 to 10, More than 10
• Who has authority to change a committed production schedule when a component shortage appears? Options: Plant manager, Production manager, VP supply chain, Cross-functional change board, Other
• If daily calculations flagged mismatches 48 hours earlier, what one operational decision would you change that would reduce expediting spend?

Who feels the pain and who must sign

• Who finds out first when a critical component is delayed and what immediate action do they typically take?
• List the stakeholders who must be engaged to run a parallel pilot and formally accept its results. Options: VP supply chain, COO, Plant manager, IT director, Procurement lead, Customer account manager, Finance, Quality, Other
• Describe how pressure from a top-three customer affects your tolerance for delivery misses, with examples if possible.
• Which finance metric will the COO use first to judge pilot success, expediting cost reduction, inventory carrying cost reduction, or another metric? Options: Expediting cost reduction, Inventory carrying cost reduction, Both equally, Other
• Identify the role that would have final authority to proceed when the VP supply chain recommends a platform but IT objects to any custom middleware. Options: COO, VP supply chain, IT director, Procurement, Executive committee

Pinning the outcomes the COO will fund

• Quantify the reduction in expediting spend and in inventory carrying cost during year one that would convince the COO to commit budget. Options: Expediting >=50% and carrying >=5%, Expediting >=30% and carrying >=3%, Expediting >=20% and carrying >=1%, Other, Unsure
• Where does finance currently record expediting spend, for example which GL or cost center? Options: Expedite cost GL, Freight cost center, Customer penalty account, Plant expense center, Other
• Select the reporting cadence finance expects for pilot ROI updates. Options: Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, At pilot end, Other
• Would the COO be prepared to sign a one-year license immediately if the pilot achieved the target reduction, or would additional validation be required? Options: Sign immediately, Require extended validation, Require board or procurement review, Undecided

Data and integration hard stops

• List the ERP endpoints that must be writable for the pilot to run without custom middleware. Options: Inventory on-hand, Purchase orders, Planned orders / MRP signals, Master item data, Work orders, Routing/capacity, Other
• Are APIs available for those endpoints and in what form? Options: Full REST/SOAP APIs available, Only scheduled exports or flat files, Limited APIs with restrictions, No APIs available, Unsure
• Please identify the role in your organization that owns those APIs or ERP integration windows. Options: ERP admin/team, Central IT integration team, Third-party managed services, Vendor support, Other
• Rate the quality and accessibility of supplier lead time and on-hand inventory data for the pilot product family. Options: High quality and accessible, Moderate quality, needs cleanup, Poor quality, significant cleanup required, Unknown
• Do you have a dedicated technical resource available during the pilot window to support integration and data fixes? Options: Yes, full-time, Yes, part-time, No, will need to allocate, No, cannot provide resources
• Is there any legal, compliance, or contracting approval that could prevent the pilot from starting on your desired timeline? Options: Yes, vendor contract review, Yes, data sharing agreement required, Yes, security review, No, Unsure

Designing a pilot that proves or disproves value

• Select the single metric you would use to decide success for a 90-day parallel pilot. Options: % reduction in expediting cost, Reduction in stockouts or emergency POs, Improved order fulfillment rate, Reduced supplier lead-time variance, Other
• Define the product-family boundary you want for a focused pilot, for example top revenue SKUs or highest-expense SKUs. Options: Top revenue SKUs, Highest expediting cost SKUs, Single plant product family, Customer-critical SKUs, Other
• Identify who will own day-to-day pilot decisions and who will handle data exceptions during the trial. Options: VP supply chain, Plant operations lead, Procurement lead, IT integration owner, Cross-functional pilot manager, Other
• Give the artifacts you will use to compare platform output to your ERP plan during the pilot. Options: ERP planned orders, Planner spreadsheets, Supplier confirmations, Production schedules, Exception logs, Other
• Please name who will sign final acceptance if the pilot shows a statistically significant reduction in expediting costs, and the expected timeline to move to production.

Risks and obstacles you are bracing for

• Flag the single risk that would cause you to stop the pilot before day 30. Options: ERP data not available, No technical resources allocated, Supplier refuses to participate, Data quality too poor, Security or privacy concern, Other
• Tell me about prior technology pilots your organization ran and why any of them did not convert to full rollouts.
• Name the internal groups that most often block supply chain projects and explain the typical reasons. Options: IT, Procurement, Finance, Operations, Legal, Quality, Other
• Estimate the time procurement and legal typically take to approve a vendor pilot in your organization. Options: Less than 2 weeks, 2 to 4 weeks, 1 to 3 months, More than 3 months, Unknown
• Provide the roles required to sign off on remediation if a security or data privacy issue is flagged during the pilot. Options: CISO or security lead, Legal, IT director, VP supply chain, COO, Other

Alternatives you are weighing

• Explain what evidence would convince you to keep using your ERP's planning module rather than adopting an external platform.
• Choose which alternatives you are actively evaluating today. Options: ERP planning module improvements, Internal build by IT, Other vendor platforms, Consulting services, No alternatives being evaluated
• Has anyone formally proposed solving this with an internal development effort instead of bringing in an outside platform? Options: Yes, formal proposal exists, Yes, informal suggestion, No, Unsure
• Explain what would have to be true about your current approach for your team to keep it instead of changing.
• Point to the internal champion for change and the primary defender of the status quo, with roles. Options: VP supply chain, COO, IT director, Procurement lead, Plant manager, Other

Next steps and timeline decision points

• Assuming the pilot proves the numbers, what is your ideal cutover timeline to move from pilot to production? Options: Cutover within 30 days, 30 to 60 days, 60 to 120 days, Undecided
• Provide the roles that will negotiate commercial and legal terms on your side if you decide to proceed. Options: Procurement, Legal, VP supply chain, Finance, COO, Other
• How will you prioritize the next product families for rollout if the pilot is accepted? Options: Expand same product family, Next highest revenue family, Highest expediting cost family, By plant geography, Other
• Choose the operational metrics you want included in the final acceptance report. Options: Change in expediting cost, Inventory carrying cost change, Fill rate improvement, Forecast error reduction, Supplier lead-time variance, Other
• Realistically, when could you commit the stakeholders and technical resources needed to start the pilot? Options: Within 2 weeks, 2 to 4 weeks, 1 to 2 months, 3+ months, Not sure

• Solution Experience — Translate Planning Workflows into Prevention

• Confirm the current state and its cost
• You confirm the demonstrated workflow would have detected the supplier lead-time shift before production commit and thus prevented the missed delivery.
• Provide a recent missed-delivery scenario export including demand, POs, supplier lead-time history, and inventory for the product family to be used in the proof.
• You agree the pilot acceptance metrics for expediting-cost reduction and carrying-cost reduction to validate after a time-boxed parallel pilot.
• Map your current planning workflow end-to-end
• Run the sample forecast on the provided scenario and deliver an accuracy and mismatch-timeline comparison before the follow-up session.
• You identify the minimal data feeds and ERP endpoints required to run the parallel pilot alongside your current process.
• Proof walkthrough using your missed-delivery scenario
• Identify the ERP endpoints and data owners for the pilot product family, including access windows and required field mappings.
• Validate the future state and agree acceptance measures
• Confirm the buyer stakeholders who will evaluate pilot outcomes and agree on the decision milestone at pilot end.
• Explicit validation question

• Solution Experience — Translate Planning Workflows into Prevention
• Solution Experience Deck
• Solution Brief — Planning Workflow to Outcome

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• Configure Bidirectional Integration with Current ERP
• Import and Reconcile Spreadsheet Forecasts
• Implement Data Mapping and Field Transforms
• Load Inventory Positions and On-hand Balances
• Ingest Supplier Lead Times and Purchase Order Status
• Integrate External Supply-Risk and Logistics Feeds
• Model Capacity Constraints and Routing Rules
• Activate Daily Recalculation and Optimization Engine
• Configure Product-Family Parallel Pilot Instance
• Run 90-Day Parallel Pilot in Live Mode
• Deploy Planner Workbench and Exception Dashboards
• Automate Supplier Notifications and Escalations

Configure Bidirectional Integration with Current ERP

• Which ERP (enterprise resource planning system) integration endpoints do you already expose for inventory, purchase orders, and demand forecasts? Options: Inventory levels API, Purchase order API, Forecast import endpoint, Flat-file SFTP exports, Other
• Will your ERP accept bidirectional updates to purchase order status and planned receipts during the pilot? Options: Yes, No, Only via batch file, Requires change request
• How many concurrent API calls per minute can your ERP accept during daily sync windows? Options: Less than 10, 10-60, 61-300, More than 300
• What authentication method does the integration endpoint require (API key, OAuth 2.0, or SFTP with certificates)? Options: Mutual TLS, API key, OAuth 2.0, SFTP with certificate, Other
• Who in your IT organization owns ERP endpoint configuration and can approve service account credentials? Options: ERP administrator, Integration team lead, IT director, Third-party integrator
• What acceptance criteria will confirm successful bidirectional integration (field coverage >=95%, data latency <=2 hours, reconciliation error rate <1%)? Options: Accept criteria as written, Accept with modified thresholds, Need discussion

Import and Reconcile Spreadsheet Forecasts

• Which planners maintain spreadsheet forecasts for the selected product family and how many active files exist? Options: 1-3 files, 4-10 files, 11-25 files, More than 25 files
• Are the forecast workbooks single-sheet consolidated files or multi-sheet files per planner? Options: Single-sheet consolidated, Multi-sheet per planner, Mixed formats
• How often are those spreadsheets updated during your planning week? Options: Weekly only, 2-3 times/week, Daily, Multiple times per day
• Provide a representative forecast workbook that includes columns SKU, week, quantity, and revision number — can you share a sample file for mapping? Options: Yes, sample available, Yes, after NDA, No sample available
• Does your forecast workbook include an edit history or change log that we can use to reconcile revisions? Options: Yes, built-in versioning, Yes, separate change log sheet, No change log available
• How will you reconcile imported forecasts with planner spreadsheets during the pilot (automated diff reports, manual sign-off by planner) ? Options: Automated diff + reporting, Manual planner sign-off, Combination

Implement Data Mapping and Field Transforms

• List the source field names in your ERP and spreadsheets for part number, unit of measure, and lead time that you require mapped to the platform.
• Are there custom units of measure or locale-specific date formats in your data that will require transforms? Options: Yes, No, Some SKUs only
• Specify the transformation rules you require such as unit-of-measure conversions or rounding logic for lead times.
• Can you provide a sample master data record for a pilot SKU so we can validate mapping and transforms? Options: Yes, sample available, Yes after NDA, No sample available
• Do you require lineage tracing so each transformed record stores the original source value and transformation applied? Options: Yes, No
• How will you validate field mappings during user acceptance testing (record samples, automated field-level comparison, planner spot checks)? Options: Record samples, Automated comparison, Planner spot checks, Combination

Load Inventory Positions and On-hand Balances

• Which inventory locations (plant, warehouse, consignment) must you include for the pilot product family? Options: Single plant, Multiple plants, Plant + warehouses, Include consignment
• How frequently does your enterprise resource planning system publish on-hand balances for those locations? Options: Real-time, Hourly, Daily, End-of-day batch
• Are safety stock levels and reservation flags maintained in the ERP or managed by planners in spreadsheets? Options: Maintained in ERP, Managed in spreadsheets, Hybrid
• Provide the on-hand data fields your ERP will send including lot number, serial, reservation flags, and do you require lot traceability? Options: Yes, lot traceability required, No lot traceability, Partial
• Will you have inventory freeze windows such as scheduled cycle counts or stocktakes that affect the initial load? Options: Yes, No, Limited windows
• What data accuracy threshold will you accept for loaded on-hand balances at pilot start (for example, >=98% SKU-location match)? Options: >=99%, >=98%, >=95%, Custom threshold

Ingest Supplier Lead Times and Purchase Order Status

• Which supplier communication artifacts carry lead-time changes that you want ingested (email notices, portal exports, advance shipping notices)? Options: Email notices, Supplier portal export, Advance shipping notice (ASN), Other
• Is there a supplier master file with historical lead times you can grant access to for model seeding? Options: Yes, Yes after NDA, No
• How do you record lead-time variability today: single value, min/max window, or statistical distribution per supplier-part? Options: Single value, Min/Max, Statistical distribution, Not tracked
• Who in purchasing will validate supplier lead-time overrides during the purchase-to-pay cycle for the pilot? Options: Buyer, Purchasing manager, Sourcing lead, Other
• Which purchase order status codes in your ERP map to confirmed, delayed, or canceled for planning purposes?
• What maximum lag between a supplier-reported lead-time change and platform ingestion is acceptable (for example, within 24 hours)? Options: Within 1 hour, Within 4 hours, Within 24 hours, Within 48 hours

Integrate External Supply-Risk and Logistics Feeds

• Which external feeds for supplier risk scores or logistics alerts do you currently subscribe to or receive? Options: Carrier delay lists, Port congestion reports, Supplier risk feeds, Custom broker feeds, None
• Will you provide API credentials, SFTP access, or webhooks for each external feed you want integrated? Options: API credentials, SFTP access, Webhooks, We need help obtaining
• Are supplier identifiers in those external feeds aligned to your supplier master IDs or will mapping be required? Options: Aligned, Mapping required, Partial alignment
• How should the platform weight external risk signals versus ERP lead-time history when producing a supplier risk score for your planners? Options: External signals override, Blend 50/50, ERP history prioritized, Custom weighting
• What false-positive tolerance for external risk alerts do you accept before requiring manual review rather than automatic escalation? Options: Low (<5%), Medium (5-15%), High (>15%)
• Which logistics event types (port delay, vessel diversion, carrier service outage) must you have automatically flag affected purchase orders for review? Options: Port delay, Vessel diversion, Carrier outage, Custom events

Model Capacity Constraints and Routing Rules

• Which production lines, work centers, or routing steps define capacity constraints for the pilot product family at your plants?
• Do you express capacity as hours per week, units per shift, or machine cycles per day for the affected routing steps? Options: Hours per week, Units per shift, Machine cycles per day, Other
• Provide the standard routing steps and cycle times you use in the bill of materials for the pilot product family. Options: Can provide sample BOM/routing, Need assistance extracting routing
• Are changeover times and setup windows captured in your routing data today? Options: Yes, included, No, not captured, Partial capture
• Which capacity limits should you enforce as hard constraints versus soft constraints with cost penalties? Options: Make all hard, Make all soft, Mix by work center
• Who in operations authorizes temporary capacity changes such as overtime or subcontracting during expediting scenarios? Options: Plant manager, Operations manager, Production planner, Other

Activate Daily Recalculation and Optimization Engine

• Which time of day should you run daily recalculation and publish plan updates to your planners? Options: Start of business day, After night batch, Mid-day, Custom time
• How many SKUs within the pilot family do you need included in daily recalculation? Options: 1-50, 51-250, 251-1,000, More than 1,000
• Require a dry-run report comparing the previous plan to the new daily plan before you commit changes to the ERP? Options: Yes, always, Optional, No
• What optimization objectives should you prioritize: minimize expediting cost, minimize carrying cost, or maximize customer fill rate? Options: Minimize expediting cost, Minimize carrying cost, Maximize fill rate, Balanced
• Can your planner workflows accept plan changes outside the weekly cycle or do you require an approval step for daily updates? Options: Accept automatic daily updates, Require planner approval, Require manager approval
• What maximum runtime is acceptable for a full daily recalculation of pilot SKUs (for example, under 2 hours)? Options: Under 30 minutes, Under 1 hour, Under 2 hours, Under 4 hours

Configure Product-Family Parallel Pilot Instance

• Which specific product family or SKU range will you nominate for the parallel pilot instance?
• Months of historical transactions for that product family you can provide for model seeding? Options: 3 months, 6 months, 12 months, More than 12 months
• Which planner and buyer users will access the parallel instance and how many user licenses do you need for the pilot group? Options: 1-3 users, 4-10 users, 11-25 users, More than 25 users
• Will the parallel instance receive near-real-time ERP inventory and PO streams or batched extracts? Options: Real-time streams, Near-real-time, Daily batched extracts
• Are there commercial-sensitive SKUs that you require masked or restricted during the pilot? Options: Yes, mask SKU cost, Yes, restrict visibility, No
• Who will act as your pilot program manager responsible for daily coordination and resolving blockers?

Run 90-Day Parallel Pilot in Live Mode

• When do you propose the 90-day pilot window should start and are there blackout dates or peak seasons to avoid? Options: Start next month, Start in 2-4 weeks, Custom start date, Avoid peak season
• Which weekly KPIs must you receive during the pilot (expediting cost percent, fill rate, SKU-level forecast error)? Options: Expediting cost %, Fill rate, SKU-level forecast error (MAPE), Inventory carrying cost
• How often will you hold pilot review meetings and which internal stakeholders from planning and purchasing must attend? Options: Weekly, Bi-weekly, Monthly, Ad-hoc
• What escalation path do you want when the platform surfaces a critical supply shortfall that requires immediate expediting? Options: Notify buyer then manager, Direct notify operations + procurement, Auto-escalate to COOs office
• What evidence will validate the 90-day parallel pilot has met success (reduction in expediting costs by at least 5% of shipment value, forecast error improvement >=10% MAPE, integration error rate <1%)? Options: Accept thresholds as written, Accept with modified thresholds, Need discussion
• Should the pilot operate in advisory mode (recommendations only) or in action mode where it writes planned receipt updates to your ERP? Options: Advisory only, Action mode (auto-write), Hybrid with approvals

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• Subscription Order Form
• Master Services Agreement (MSA)
• Statement of Work (SOW)
• Parallel Pilot Agreement
• Cutover and Acceptance Criteria Addendum
• Service Level Agreement (SLA)
• Data Processing Agreement (DPA)
• Regulatory Compliance Addendum
• Change Order Agreement
• Termination and Renewal Terms

• Go-live Health Check (weeks 1-4)
• First Measurement Review (weeks 4-10)
• Acceptance Gate Decision (around day 90)
• Quarterly Operational Review (ongoing quarterly)

• Circulate the performance trend packet that includes raw metric extracts, calculation notes, and any open data quality flags.
• Create and publish the corrective action list with expected completion dates ahead of the acceptance gate.
• Run a data backfill or correction for any identified integration gaps and report results in the shared channel.
• Restate acceptance criteria and numeric targets
• Produce a documented acceptance decision that records pass/fail for each numeric target from Solution Scope and includes the named buying signatory where required.
• Agree remediation tasks and firm completion dates for any failed criteria so the acceptance loop is closed.
• Confirm incumbent system decommissioning status and steps to prevent dual-running of systems.
• Publish the acceptance decision document with the named buying signatory and store it in the shared workspace.
• If conditional acceptance, issue the remediation plan with milestone dates and criteria for re-evaluation.
• Execute the incumbent wind-down tasks: archive or migrate data, confirm contract/renewal actions, and set the incumbent to read-only or deprovision as agreed.
• Performance trend review
• Confirm that expediting costs as a percent of shipment value and inventory carrying cost reduction are being maintained or improving toward the targets recorded in Solution Scope.
• Ensure all persistent operational issues have owned remediation plans and target closure dates.
• Maintain a prioritized enhancement backlog with agreed delivery windows for the next quarter.
• Update the operational backlog with prioritized issues and enhancement requests and publish the next-quarter delivery plan.
• Schedule any required integration or data-correction windows needed to support accurate quarterly measurement.
• Re-confirm success criteria and ownership
• Confirm production endpoints and integration are operating within expected parameters.
• Produce a prioritized list of open blockers with owners and target resolution dates.
• Verify initial user access and basic usage activity for the trained planner cohort.
• Publish a deployment validation report that includes integration logs and access confirmations.
• Log and prioritize all open blockers with resolution dates and update the shared issue channel.
• Enable any missing ERP read/write endpoints or data access windows required for the pilot to run daily recalculations.
• Present first outcome data against targets
• Determine whether expediting costs as a percent of shipment value and the number of pre-commit mismatches are moving toward the targets recorded in Solution Scope.
• Agree a prioritized remediation plan with tasks and completion dates that will enable a clear acceptance decision at the acceptance gate.
• Validate that data feeds and integrations used to produce the metrics are reliable and auditable.
• Produce a metric reconciliation report that documents sources, calculation logic, and any anomalies discovered.
• Present outcome data against each criterion
• Forecast accuracy and planning cadence
• Deployment and integration validation
• Diagnose root causes for any gaps
• Document pass/fail per criterion and formal acceptance decision
• Early adoption signals and usage patterns
• Open issues and operational backlog
• Agree corrective actions and dates
• Enhancement requests and prioritization
• Remediation and conditional acceptance plan
• Blockers and open issues
• Confirm timeline to acceptance gate
• Data integrity and integration health check
• Incumbent system wind-down confirmation
• Confirm next quarter actions and checkpoints
• Agree immediate remediation actions