Adri McCaskill Transcript
[00:00:00]
Mike Ogle: So Adri, it’s great to have you with us today on the Supply Chain Careers podcast to share your career path, your experiences, and your advice.
Welcome.
Adri McCaskill: Thank you, Mike and Chris. I’m really excited to be here, and I appreciate the invitation. I always enjoy conversations like this because supply chain has opened doors for me that I never would have imagined when I first started out. It has taken me across countries, industries, companies, and some very interesting challenges.
So I’m looking forward to sharing a little bit about that journey today, and hopefully a few lessons that are useful to your listeners.
Mike Ogle: Oh great. And speaking about that journey, how did you even become aware of supply chain, and then what were some of the influences that you did have a- along that journey, the people, the experiences that made it a successful career path for you and an enjoyable career path for you?
Adri McCaskill: I would probably go all the way back to where it started. I was born and raised in South [00:01:00] Africa. My home language is Afrikaans, which is one of South Africa’s 11 official languages. So from the very beginning, I grew up in a country and a culture that was very diverse, very dynamic, and very complex, which in hindsight is probably a good foundation for a career in supply chain.
The single biggest influence on who I became professionally was probably my father, Dr. Aubrey Pienaar. He’s an industrial engineer, but more importantly, he was one of the people who helped shape industrial engineering and supply chain as a profession in South Africa. He was a founding member of the Southern African Institute of Industrial Engineers, and he authored the first Afrikaans book on the concepts and principles of manufacturing systems.
He also served on CCMP’s board of directors and later received a distinguished service award. So when I was 16 and I had to start applying to universities, my father [00:02:00] suggested I study industrial engineering. He said that’s just the way your brain works.” And of course, being 16 and not particularly interested in being stuck in factories, I responded, “Ew, that’s a man’s job.”
So naturally, I applied to law school instead. A few years in, I realized I had made a mistake. Law is a wonderful profession, but for me, it felt like I was working inside a very defined framework. And as anyone in supply chain knows, we do not always love staying inside the box. In fact, sometimes we do not even like admitting there’s a box.
So I changed course. I shifted my focus to business and I ended up graduating with three majors, finance, economics, and business management. And looking back, even then, supply chain was already pulling me in that direction. During my undergrad, I was doing supply chain internships, so even though I [00:03:00] did not fully understand yet where my career was heading, the pieces were starting to come together.
And not long after graduating, I had the opportunity to do my MBA at Miami University in Ohio with a focus in supply chain. And that is really where everything started to click. One person who made an enormous difference in that season of my life was Tom Spade, the MBA director. He was an incredible mentor to me.
My original plan was to finish my MBA and go back to South Africa to work for my dad’s company. But I was graduating in 2009, which was not exactly the easiest time to enter the job market. The economy was rough, and my US classmates were struggling to find jobs. And I started to wonder whether I was making a mistake for not even trying to explore opportunities in the United States.
So I went to see Tom Spade, and I asked him very directly, “Am I being stupid for not even trying?” And Tom, being Tom, said let me reach [00:04:00] out to a few people, and I see what the market looks like for an international student like you.” And one of the people he reached out to was Bill Gates, the supply chain Bill Gates, not the Microsoft one.
And just like that, my resume ended up on someone’s desk at UTI, and a week later, I was flying down to South Carolina for interviews, and a week after that, I had a job offer. That was probably the moment supply chain became my official career path. But it was also the moment I truly understood the power of relationships and networking.
People do business with people, and the recommendation of someone they trust can carry more weight than almost anything you can put on your resume. So when I look back, supply chain was not one single decision for me. It was a combination of influence, timing, mentorship, opportunities, and finally realizing that my dad might have been right all along, that really was the way my brain was [00:05:00] working
Mike Ogle: You get two industrial engineering graduates here with you as hosts.
Adri McCaskill: That’s great. So you do understand the way the brain works.
Mike Ogle: Yes. And our spouses, Yeah … unfortunately have to deal with that as well.
Adri McCaskill: Yes.
Chris Gaffney: So Adri, lots of our listeners, they love these podcasts because they have aspirations to ultimately be chief supply chain officer or a CEO.
And you’ve gone from an intern first job then, into iPlan and now where you are. And so they listen because they wanna understand about those key forks in the road, those key career path transitions you made. And so if you can share a little insight on, why you chose to make some of the moves that you made and lessons learned that might be helpful for those other folks with a similar aspiration.
Adri McCaskill: I think before I start getting into the details, I would like to talk about my favorite quote and one that I often share with [00:06:00] students and young professionals. It’s a quote from Bobby Unser and it says, “Success is where preparation and opportunity meet.” And what I’ve learned over time is that both of those matter equally.
You can work incredibly hard, prepare, study, build your skills, but if you’re not ready to recognize and take advantage of opportunities when they come along, you can miss them. And at the same time, opportunities will come, but if you’re not prepared, you can’t fully capitalize on them. When I look back at my career, a lot of the key moments came down to this intersection, being ready when the opportunity showed up.
One of the first big examples of that was how I got to UTI. As I mentioned earlier, Tom Spay at Miami University pointed me in the direction of UTI and I interviewed with them. But what was interesting at that, when I went down for the interview, it became clear very quickly that there was not necessarily a [00:07:00] specific open position waiting for me, and that was one of my first big lessons about networking.
Sometimes if the right person makes the introduction, a company may be willing to look at you even that… if they do not have a perfectly defined role in mind yet. So they flew me down to South Carolina, and I think I had something like nine one-hour interviews in one day. During one of those interviews I met with Gerald Perritt, who at the time was leading the warehouse operations in the United States, and Gerald described the role that he’d like to have on his team.
It was not a traditional neatly boxed job description. It was more of a right-hand person, someone who can help with budgeting, strategy, finance, spatial projects, jump into a warehouse if something go wrong, that type of project. And I remember thinking that does not sound very fancy.” It didn’t sound like a big title, and it did not sound like the obvious glamorous job you imagine when you come out of business school.
[00:08:00] But when I spoke to my father afterwards, he immediately said, “You need to take that job. That is one of the best roles you can get coming out of school because you are going to learn a little bit about everything.” And he was absolutely right. That role gave me exposure across the organization. I learned finance, strategy, operations, warehouse, leadership meetings, customer issues, implementation work.
It was like getting a backstage pass into how the business actually operated. So one of the lessons I learned early is that do not dismiss a role just because it does not sound impressive on paper. Sometimes the best career-building roles are the ones that give you exposure, trust, and access to the, how decisions are really made Another important moment happened during those early years at UTI.
Gerald wanted to bring all of his warehouse managers together for a big meeting, and I helped put the event [00:09:00] together. I remembered someone saying to me that’s not really in your job description.” But I was young, I wanted to learn, and I thought I can help, so why not?” It was a lot of work, but that meeting became a pivotal moment in my career.
The newly appointed global CLND leader attended the meeting, and afterwards he asked Gerald, “What does Adri do for you?” So Gerald explained the role, and the response was basically, “Great, can I borrow her from time to time?” And suddenly I was doing some of the same type of work I was doing for Gerald, but now at a global level.
That was a huge opportunity. Yes, it meant more work, but it also gave me global exposure, global relationships, and a much broader view of supply chain. The lesson there is one I still tell young professionals: sometimes the work that is not in your job description becomes the work that changes your career.
You still need to be smart about the [00:10:00] capa- about your capacity and boundaries, but early in your career, saying yes to the right stretch opportunities can open doors you did not even know existed. One of the other major lessons from that period was confidentiality. Because of the type of role I was in, I was often around sensitive information: budgets, strategy, leadership discussions, customer issues, organizational changes.
And I learned very early that if you want to move up in an organization, people have to be able to trust you. Not later when you have the big title, early. Confidentiality is one of those things that can build your career or tank it very quickly. If people cannot trust you with sensitive information, they will stop giving you access to the conversations where important decisions are made.
So for anyone listening who is early in their career, I would say protect trust like it’s an asset, because it is. Your [00:11:00] reputation for judgment, discretion, and professionalism will follow you After a few years, around 2012, I told Gerald that I was ready for the next step. By then I had been exposed to different parts of the business, and I discovered that I really loved the warehouse side, especially new site startups and implementations.
So I moved more directly into implementation work, and for the next few years I was involved in setting up warehouses, working with different industries, different product types, different clients, teams, and different operating environments. That period was probably one of the steepest learning curves of my life.
You can l- learn a lot in a classroom, you can learn a lot in meetings, but the warehouse floor teaches you things very quickly. When you are starting up a building and the system does not behave the way the people expect it, or inventory is not where it should be, you have to learn very fast. And that is where I really [00:12:00] learned that operations are not theoretical.
They are people, process, technology, pressure, and customers all colliding in real time. And that is why I still tell students, “Start close to the work. The warehouse floor is the best classroom you will ever have.” Then around 2015, things were changing at UTI. Gerald had moved on, and I started to sense that it might be time for my own next step.
At that point, I started talking about my father– with my father again, and his company, iPlan, was well established in South Africa and parts of Asia and Europe, but the US company was really dormant. There was not much happening yet. So he suggested that I join iPlan and I build the US business. That transition was very different from the others.
At UTI, I was a operator. In supply chain, many of us are like that: give me a project, point me in a direction, and I will run with it. But at [00:13:00] iPlan, suddenly I had to go find the project first. That was the first time I felt like I was really using my MBA in a different way. I had to think about sales, marketing, business development, client relationships, and how to build something that did not really exist yet in the US.
And I will be honest, it took time. It took about two years before the first major projects really started coming together. And then, of course, when it happened, it felt like multiple things landed at once. That taught me a very different lesson. Not every career transition gives you instant momentum.
Sometimes you move into a role where you have to build the momentum yourself. That requires patience, resilience, and a willingness to be uncomfortable for a while. Over the next ten years at iPlan, I had the opportunity to grow business units, launch new services, manage international teams, [00:14:00] and work with international clients, take on bottom-line responsibility, and develop new products for the company.
That was where I moved more from being an operator and implementer to becoming a business builder. iPlan’s core work was traditionally more focused on ERP systems and broader business process work. My background from UTI was heavily focused on warehousing, so I started bringing more of that warehousing operations capability into iPlan.
Over time, that grew into a dedicated warehousing and emerging technology business unit. And that was another important lesson. Sometimes your value is not that you fit perfectly into what already exists. Sometimes your value is that you bring something different. My team was a little different from the rest of the organization.
We were operators who liked to play in the system. We understood the warehouses, but we also understood processes, systems, and data and technology, and we [00:15:00] often became the bridge between operations and IT for our clients because we could speak both languages Then in 2025, another opportunity showed up. I had the chance to purchase that business unit from iPlan and launch SplitLogiX.
That was probably the biggest transition of my career, going from employee and business unit leader to owner and CEO. But it not feel like a random leap. It felt like the next step in a journey that I had been preparing for years. The broad role at UTI taught me how the business worked. The global work taught me how to operate across cultures and geographies.
The warehouse implementation work taught me how operations really succeed or fail. iPlan taught me how to build business, manage P&Ls, work with global clients, and develop solutions and lead teams. And then SplitLogiX became the moment where all of that preparation met the opportunity. One [00:16:00] of the most meaningful things was that my team had the choice to either stay with iPlan or come with me, and they all chose to continue the journey.
That meant a lot because when people choose to follow you into something new, that says something about the trust you’ve built. We retained our IP, our solutions, and our clients, and iPlan stayed involved as a minority investor. Today, we are still operating globally with a footprint in the US and South Africa, and we continue to work in warehousing, business processes, technology, AI-enabled solutions, and helping organizations bridge the gap between operations and IT.
So when I think back about my career transitions, I would summarize my lessons this way. First, prepare, but also pay attention when opportunities show up. Second, do not chase only the title, chase the role that gives you exposure, learning, and trust. Third, protect [00:17:00] your reputation. Confidentiality, judgment, and follow-through matter more than people realize.
Fourth, get close to work, especially in supply chain, the floor will teach you things that no report can. Fifth, do not be afraid of roles that are undefined or uncomfortable. A lot of growth happens in the gray areas. And finally, remember that careers are not straight lines. Sometimes you are building skills you will not fully understand until years later.
Looking back, I can see how each transition prepared me for the next step. At the time, it did not always feel that clear, but now I can honestly say that my career has been a series of preparation, meeting opportunity, and being willing to say yes when the next door opened
Mike Ogle: I think that’s great especially a whole lot of that operations side and all the pieces that you were able to get experience with to [00:18:00] get you to that position.
And it, one of the things it made me think of when you talked about being able to identify opportunity it’s a really difficult thing to try to teach people.
Adri McCaskill: That is
Mike Ogle: true. And you have to have a little bit inside you that wants to look for that. But it’d be great if we had a little sign that would appear in front of us that said, “Opportunity in progress.
Accept or decline.”
Adri McCaskill: A- and I will also tell you sometimes the decision might be not to take the opportunity.
Mike Ogle: Absolutely. With your experience at SplitLogiX and being able to keep the team in place I wanted to get a… have the audience have a little bit better of an idea of what SplitLogiX is doing the part in the supply chain, the role that you’re playing for clients, and what makes somebody successful working in that space.
And one of the things I’d like to have is some lessons would be on both sides [00:19:00] from your side in SplitLogiX and for the clients.
Adri McCaskill: I will say SplitLogiX is really the next chapter of everything I’ve done throughout my career. When I had the opportunity to purchase that business unit from IPAN and launch SplitLogiX, it didn’t feel like a complete leap into something new.
It felt like a natural extension of the work I’ve already been doing, helping companies make their operations work better in the real world. At a basic level, SplitLogiX help companies align people, process, and technology so that their supply chain operations can actually perform the way they are supposed to.
And in supply chain, problems are rarely one-dimensional. A warehouse issue might look like a system problem at first, but when you dig deeper, you may find that the process wasn’t clearly defined, the team wasn’t trained consi-consistently, or the technology was configured around assumptions that no longer fit the operation.[00:20:00]
So our job is to look across people, process, and technology and figure out where the breakdown is really happening. That is why our work tend to fall into a few main areas. The first is blueprints and work instructions. Before you can improve on an operation, train a team, implement technology, or apply even AI, you need to understand how the work is actually supposed to happen.
We help companies document and standardize those processes so everyone is working from the same playbook. The second area is AI and technology enablement. There’s a lot of excitement around AI right now, but AI is only useful if it is connected to a real business problem and a clearly understood process.
So for us, it’s about practical application, helping teams make better decisions, reduce manual effort, and improve execution. The third area is [00:21:00] Odoo European implementations. So our team has years and years of experience implementing and working around different European WMA systems. So when we started SplitLogiX and had to choose an ERP for ourselves, we looked at it through a very practical lens.
We needed something that could move fast, scale with us, support different parts of the business, and not become this massive overcomplicated implementation before we even got started. And that’s how we found Odoo. And what was– what impressed us was how quickly we could get a full ERP environment up and running, including multi-company, multi-currency, project management, payroll, and eventually even integrating our own SplitLogiXAI agent into the platform.
So now, as an Odoo implementation partner, we bring both sides of that experience to clients, the technical European implementation knowledge, but also the operational understanding [00:22:00] of how the system has to work in the real world. The fourth area is the Warehouse nine one one, which is where clients call us when something’s already going wrong.
Maybe a go live is struggling, service levels are dropping, or the team is in crisis mode. And I often compare the work to an emergency room. You assess the situation, check the vitals, stop the bleeding, stabilize the operation, and then build for longer term recovery plan. And the fifth area is new site startups, which I personally really enjoy.
That’s when we help clients launch a new facility. We define the processes, prepare the team and support training, and make sure that the operation is ready to perform from day one. What makes this part of supply chain different is that you have to be able to translate between different worlds. You need to understand the executive conversation, the business case, the customer promise, the finance impact.
But you also need to understand that the reality of the [00:23:00] warehouse floor is where people are trying to get orders out the door today. The biggest lesson for clients is that you can outsource support, expertise, and even execution help, but you cannot outsource ownership of that outcome. And for providers, the lesson I would say is don’t hide bad news.
In operations, bad news does not get better with age. The best partnerships happen when both sides are honest early on. They can solve problems together and stay focused on the operation rather than try to protect themselves. At the end of the day, this work require operational credibility, curiosity, a lot of humility and stamina because the problems are often messy.
But those are usually the problems most worth solving
Chris Gaffney: So, many of my supply chain friends say w- we think most CEOs should be supply chain people ’cause [00:24:00] they really know how it gets done. So they’re always excited when a supply chain person gets into that CEO role. I would be curious, what is your view of the critical responsibilities in your role as the top level leader, number one?
And now, as your business is about working with clients, how do you form and manage your teams to really have big client impact?
Adri McCaskill: Leadership is something I’ve always been genuinely passionate about. A few years ago, I actually looked very seriously at doing a PhD in leadership, but then I struggled to even find time to complete the application, and I had to be honest with myself.
I thought, “If I cannot even give the application the attention it deserves, I probably cannot give the actual program the attention it deserves right now.” So I did put that idea on pause for a bit, but I did not put the learning on pause. Instead, I started being much more intentional about [00:25:00] how I keep learning.
I read a lot, and I listen to a lot of audiobooks while I drive, especially around leadership, communication, decision-making, and personal growth. A few examples of some of the books that have really influenced me are Extreme Ownership, The Dichotomy of Leadership, Brave by Choice, and Never Split the Difference.
And I also really like Malcolm Gladwell’s work. Right now I’m listening to Talking to Strangers, and that one has been fascinating because it makes you think about how easily we can misread people, situations, and even intent. And I think that really matters in leadership because leadership is not one size fit all.
There are a lot of different leadership models out there: servant leadership, extreme ownership, care and growth, and I think you can learn something valuable from all of them. But the one that probably resonates most with me is the care and growth model. The way I interpret it is very simple: leadership is not [00:26:00] just about getting work done through people, it’s about using the work to grow people.
If you truly care about someone, you do not just make life easy for them, you stretch them, you empower them, you give them the opportunity to become more capable, more confident, and more independent over time. And this is especially meaningful to me with young professionals. I genuinely love investing in people, and even when they eventually move on, which they will, I do not see that as a wasted effort.
Supply chain is a small world. They will carry what they learned with them, and I always believe our paths will cross again. I also believe very strongly that before you hold someone accountable, you have to make sure that they actually have what they need to succeed. Do they have the tools? Do they have the training?
Do they understand the objective? Do they have the authority to make decisions? But even more importantly, do they have the information to make good [00:27:00] decisions? And that connects directly with how we build teams for client engagements. I always start with the problem: what does the client actually need right now?
Do they need operations ex- experience? Do they need system knowledge? Do they need someone who can walk into a tense situation and stabilize it? Or do they need someone who can document, train, lead change, or manage the details of execution? Once I understand the problem, I can build a team around that need, and then clarity becomes critical.
Everyone needs to know their role, who owns what, what decisions will be made, and what success actually looks like. Because unfortunately in client work, especially in supply chain, pressure is real, timelines are tight, and if your internal team is unclear, the client will feel that very quickly. This is also where people, process, and technology applies internally, too.
It is not just something we help clients with. Our own team need the right [00:28:00] people in the right roles, a clear process for how we are going to deliver, and the right tools and information to support the work. And then from a leadership perspective, I believe in a very simple principle: praise in public, coach in private.
Celebrate the wins out loud because they matter, and people do need to feel that. But when someone needs needs feedback or course direction, do that privately and respectfully. Leadership not, is not about making people small. It’s about helping them grow. So as a leader, I do not see my job as being the hero.
My job is to create the conditions for the team to be the hero, and that means clarity, trust, tools, accountability, support, and the right people around the table. When you get all of that right, the team will grow, and the client will feel it, and the work will speak for itself.
Chris Gaffney: I would comment most of our listeners would love to work with a leader with that [00:29:00] framing, and this is off the cuff ’cause you aspire and live this.
Why do you think so many senior leaders miss these things that seem to be very practical, foundational ways to motivate people, direct people and enable people to do great work? I’m just curious if you have a perspective on that.
Adri McCaskill: I actually do, Chris, and I will tell you for me it comes down to intent.
What is your intent as a leader? And everything follows from that. If your intent is to be the smartest person in the room, the hero, then you will act the way that will bring that to light. Or if your intent is to build your team up, grow your people, then again, how you act will follow that.
Chris Gaffney: Thank you.
Mike Ogle: Boy, there have been some various places outside of supply chain that those kinds of things could be applied well.
Adri McCaskill: That is always true. [00:30:00]
Mike Ogle: So wanted to dive a little deeper into the 911 warehouse rescue, and that framework borrows pr- pretty heavily from emergency response. You had mentioned how you go through the process of a little bit of triage. You stop the bleeding. You go through discipline recovery.
And I’d really like to be able to have the audience understand a little bit more about when you’re going through that kind of process what really makes the difference between, failure, stabilizing somebody, getting that client then to a, a growth path? Are there some examples that you could provide?
Adri McCaskill: This is one of my favorite topics because the medical analogy really does work. Most of the time in supply chain, we talk about continuous improvement, best practices, better systems, better processes, better training, and all of that stuff is important, but sometimes that is not the situation you’re walking into.
Sometimes you are [00:31:00] not walking into a healthy operation that needs to get better. You are walking into an accident scene. Orders are late, trucks are waiting, the customer is frustrated, supervisors are exhausted, the client is nervous, and everyone has an opinion about what should be fixed first. That is not a normal improvement project.
That is an emergency, and that’s why we use the Warehouse Nine One One analogy. In a medical emergency, you do not start with long-term wellness advice. You do not tell the patient to lose weight or exercise more while they are bleeding. Those things may matter later, but they are not the priority in the moment.
The same is true in a warehousing crisis. There may be many long-term opportunities for improvement, but when the operation is failing, you have to focus on what is relevant right now. You have to triage, stop the bleeding, and then move into disciplined recovery. And the first step is [00:32:00] triage. And for me, triage is really about making the tough call.
Is this warehouse just underperforming, or is it in a crisis? Because those are two very different situations. If it is just underperforming, you can use normal improvement tools, you can run projects, you can build a roadmap, and you can work through some best practices. But if it is in crisis, you need a different level of urgency and a different decision-making structure.
One of the first things we look for is control. Who’s actually in charge? In an emergency room, you do not have five doctors all independently treating the patient without coordination. Someone takes control. Roles are clear, and decisions are made quickly. A warehouse rescue is the same. You need one point of accountability.
You need clear decision authority. And in a 3PL environment, that becomes even more important because you may have corporate leadership, site leadership, [00:33:00] and the client all involved. Everyone has valid perspectives, but if everyone is trying to steer the recovery, the operation will stay in chaos. Then we look at the vitals.
In medicine, you check pulse, blood pressure, breathing. In a warehouse, your vitals are your operational KPIs, your OTIF, backlog, inventory accuracy, labor stability, and whatever tells you whether the operation is alive and functioning One example I often use was a large operation feeding a manufacturing plant.
It had roughly about four hundred people in the facility, and the numbers told the story very quickly. OTIF was around seventy-seven percent, inventory accuracy was around forty percent, and the site was dealing with major labor instability. Now, when you hear numbers like that, the temptation is to immediately say, “We need to fix OTIF,” or, “We need to fix inventory accuracy.”
But that is actually not the right [00:34:00] question yet because you cannot fix performance with performance. Performance is the outcome. The question is: Where is the operation bleeding? So we started to look at where the breakdown was happening. Was it inbound? Was it inventory control or outbound? And what we found was that a lot of the pain started very early in the process.
Product was coming in but was not always being scanned properly into location. So by the time outbound needed it, the system might technically have inventory, but the people on the floor could not find it. To the customer, that feels like a outbound failure. To the warehouse, it feels like a system failure.
But the bleeding actually started in inbound and put away, and that is the power of triage. You stop guessing. You stop chasing the noise. You i-identify what is most urgent and where the failure is actually entering the operation The [00:35:00] second step is stopping the bleeding. This is where the analogy becomes very practical.
In a medical emergency, if someone is bleeding in multiple places, the doctor does not try to solve everything at once. They ask, “What will kill the patient first?” In a warehouse crisis, we ask the same question. What will make the operation worse first? And that is important to remember that stopping the bleeding is not the same as fixing the operation.
The goal at this stage is not perfection. The goal is stabilization, and that means speed matters. Temporary beats perfect. The elegance can come later. In that same operation, we had to put temporary controls in place. For example, if we could not trust that the product was being received and put away correctly, then we needed immediate visibility and discipline around that process.
And that might [00:36:00] mean putting in a temporary dock control tool, manual checks, additional scanning, an independent audit, or a short-term process that creates control, even if it’s not the most elegant long-term solution. And that is where people sometimes struggle. They want the permanent answer immediately.
But in a rescue, you may need a temporary tool that simply stops the downward spiral. One of the examples I like is the dock control process we put in place. It was not glamorous. It was not intended to be permanent. It did add visibility and enforce discipline at a point where the operation needed control.
At that moment, it was necessary. But we were very clear with the team, “This is temporary,” because every time you retrain a process, you re-create the risk of confusion. So you have to communicate clearly that this is what we’re doing now to stabilize. It’s not necessarily what the final process [00:37:00] will be.
Another example was around repack and quality control. We saw situations where different shifts were not executing the process the same way. One shift would do it one way, and another shift would do it a different way. Even something as simple as how work status was identified could vary by shift. They were using different color codes.
But the system assumed consistency, and the customer assumed consistency. The downstream process consi- assumed consistency. And when that consistency is not there, the performance start to break down. So again, the answer was not simply work harder. It was not add more people. It was where is the misalignment between the people, process, and technology?
The process required scanning. The scanner worked, but people were not consistently following the process. Or one team had created a workaround that made sense [00:38:00] to them locally, but it broke the larger operation. And that is why I always say performance is the result of people, process, and technology working together.
If one of those are misaligned, the operation suffers. If all three of those are misaligned, you are in trouble very quickly Then the third step is disciplined recovery. This is the part people sometimes underestimate. In the medical world, stable does not mean healthy. Stable means the patient is no longer in immediate danger, but they may still be weak, they may still need surgery, therapy, monitoring, and time.
And a warehouse is the same. Once you stop the bleeding, the operation is not suddenly healthy. The KPIs may still be weak, and the s- team may still be tired. The client will still be nervous, and the operation can absolutely backslide if you do not move into a disciplined recovery plan. [00:39:00] That is where we shift from survival to structure.
Now we can start rebuilding the right way. We document the actual processes, we define the future processes, we write the work instructions, we train the people by role, create the training logs, establish management routines, we make sure supervisors know what to look for, and we give the team enough hand-holding so that the new process becomes real on the floor and not just a document sitting somewhere.
One of the biggest lessons I have learned is that you cannot hold people accountable to something that was never clearly defined, trained, or supported. In warehousing, we love to say hold people accountable, but accountable to what? If there’s no documented process, no work instruction, no training record, then accountability becomes opinion, and opinion does not stabilize an operation.
Another important part of recovery is [00:40:00] knowing when to remove the crisis controls. This is where the medical analogy comes back again. If someone breaks a leg, they might need a splint, then a cast, then crutches, but the goal is not to walk on crutches forever. In warehouse recovery, some of the things you put in place during the crisis are crutches.
They are there to create control, visibility, and enforcement. But once the operation stabilizes, you need to ask, does this still add value, or was it only needed for survival? The dock control tool I talked about earlier is a good example. At the time, it was necessary. It gave us visibility, and it enforced discipline.
But once the behavior became consistent and the operation stabilized, we removed it because recovery is not about making the emergency process permanent. Recovery is about building a simpler, stronger operating model, and that’s where the growth part comes in [00:41:00] When a warehouse is in crisis, growth is almost impossible.
The organization is just trying to survive the day. But once the operation becomes stable and repeatable, the conversation can change. Now the client can trust the operation again, leadership can plan, and the team can improve. The business can take on more volume with confidence. So for me, at the end of the day, Warehouse 911 is not panic, it’s disciplined intervention.
Triage tells you what matters most. Stopping the bleeding prevents the operation from getting worse, and disciplined recovery rebuilds the foundation. And the biggest lesson is this: performance is not repaired, performance is rebuilt.
Mike Ogle: So I’ve got a, a, a quick follow-up question. Yeah. Sometimes when you go into a situation, I’m sure that you run into almost a circular blame game at some places, especially the ones that might be the sickest.
Adri McCaskill: That is true. H-
Mike Ogle: How do [00:42:00] you deal with that type of situation from the very beginning once you start to notice that everybody’s blaming each other?
Adri McCaskill: So one of the things, there’s always one person that’s louder, and what I try to do is bring that people as in to the team as part of the solution, okay?
You say you know what’s going on, you’re loud. How about you help us find the solution? And sometimes they will rise to the occasion or sometimes they’ll take themself out in the process. Unfortunately, these type of situations, sometimes you have to make the hard calls, and that might mean changes in personnel.
The, the most important thing is that someone needs to take accountability and ownership and we’ve walked before into operations where we couldn’t help them because no one would make a decision.
Chris Gaffney: You have been super serious about your own business, but you also have invested a lot at the industry level, associations, et [00:43:00] cetera. So I’m curious if you can give the audience kinda your perspective on kind of the give and receive there as wh- why should they be, invest the time in, in, at the industry level?
Adri McCaskill: I could honestly talk about this all day because industry associations have had such a significant impact on my career. We talked earlier about how Tom’s space network helped me get my interview with UTI, and that was one of the first times I really understood the power of relationships in this industry.
But the most important thing I always tell people is this: don’t just attend, get involved. There’s a big difference between showing up to a conference, sitting in sessions, collecting a few business cards, and going home, versus actually becoming part of the community. Join a committee, volunteer, help organize something, introduce people, follow up after the event, share what you know.
The more you contribute, the more [00:44:00] meaningful the relationships become, and I think that is where a lot of people misunderstand networking. Networking, networking is not just about meeting people who can help you. It’s about becoming someone who is known for showing up, contributing, and becoming… and being helpful.
I joined, for example, CCMP back in 2007 as a student member, and I have been involved ever since. Over the years, I served as chair of the Young Professionals committee, served on their board of directors from 2016 to ’18, and today I’m still active on the awards committee, which supports the Distinguished Service Award and Hall of Fame.
I am also very involved with WERC, Warehouse Education Research Council these days. I serve on the conference committee and have the opportunity to speak at WERC and MHI events, and I’m actively looking at ways to deepen that involvement even further. Those communities have given me mentors, clients, employees, [00:45:00] speaking opportunities, learning opportunities, and some of my closest professional relationships, but none of that happened because I showed up once.
It happened because I stayed, and I think that is the real value of associations. They give you a place to learn beyond your company. You get exposed to different industries, different career paths, different leadership styles, and different problems than the ones we see every day, and they do make you better.
They also give people a chance to see how you contribute, not just what your title says. That matters, especially for young professionals. You may not have the biggest title in the room yet, but you can still volunteer. Ask thoughtful questions. You can do the work, and you can build the trust. Over time, people will remember that.
So my advice is simple: start early, and don’t wait until you need something. Do not wait until you need a job, a client, or a mentor, or a favor [00:46:00] before you start building that network. Build it before you need it. Invest in people and stay connected. And importantly, be generous with your time and your knowledge because supply chain is a very small world.
The person you might meet at a student roundtable today may become your mentor, your client, your business partner, or one of your closest colleagues 10 years from now. And when you look back, you will realize that the real value was never just the conference or the committee, it is the community that you build
Mike Ogle: Yeah, one of the things that as, as I start to look at a, a question that I wanted to ask next about some of the best supply chain career advice you’ve received, there have been so many places that you’ve had these inside of some of the answers to our questions, and I just wonder, are there a, a couple of others that you tend to use that you’d like to be able to share things that you’ve heard from others as well [00:47:00] that you use and you love to share with others?
Adri McCaskill: There are a few pieces of advice that have really struck with me over the years, and the one I come back to most is the Bobby Unser quote I mentioned earlier, “Success is where preparation and opportunity meet.” That has shaped how I think about almost everything in my career. You have to prepare, build your skills, and do the work, but you also have to recognize opportunity when it shows up and be willing to step into it.
Another piece of advice came from my father early on, and that was, “Do not chase the title, chase the learning.” Because the title will come, but if you spend your early career chasing what sounds impressive instead of what actually builds you, you can eventually hit a ceiling you did not see coming. One lesson I have learned along the way is that your reputation travels faster than you do.
Supply chain is a small world. People remember how you show up, especially on the har- on the hard days, in [00:48:00] the tough conversations, and when things go wrong. And in supply chain, things will always go wrong, especially in warehousing. At some point, the truck will be late, the inventory will be wrong, the plan will fall apart.
The people who stand out in those moments are not necessarily the ones who somehow prevented anything from ever going wrong. That is not realistic. The people who stand out are the ones who stay calm, help the team focus, communicate early, and start solving the problem without adding panic to the situation.
That is the real skill because when things go south, everyone is watching. They are watching who blames, who disappears, who escalate noise, and who steps in and helps to stabilize the situation. So one of my own pieces of advice would be learn to be calm in the chaos. Not passive, not casual, calm. There’s a [00:49:00] big difference.
The next one is to stay curious. The people I have seen plateau are almost always the ones who stopped asking questions. The ones who keep growing are the ones who never assume they have it all figured out. And then finally, sometimes your parents really do know best because 26 years later, I am doing exactly what my dad suggested I should be doing when I was 16.
So Dad, if you’re listening, you were right again
Chris Gaffney: All right, last one from me. People will look for you on LinkedIn, and they’ll see in your profile that you note the friction that comes when people, processes, and technology get out of alignment. In your view, which of those three tends to drift out of alignment first? And, are there early signals that leaders can track to nip that in the bud?
Adri McCaskill: We touched on [00:50:00] this a little earlier, and the reason I keep coming back to it is because people, process, and technology are so closely connected. A technology issue can create a process issue. A process gap can create a people issue, and sometimes a people workaround eventually becomes part of the operation without anyone realizing it.
So I’m always careful not to say it’s always the people or it’s always the system, because that’s usually too simplistic. But if you ask me which area most often gets strained first, especially during implementations or go-lives, I would say it’s usually the people side. And I don’t mean that the people are the root cause.
I mean they are often the part of the operating model that gets asked to absorb the pressure when the process or technology is not fully ready. You see this all the time in implementation, whether it’s an ERP, WMS, a new warehouse go-live, or major process change. At the beginning of a project, everybody [00:51:00] has a good plan.
The system will be configured by this date, the process will be finalized by this date, work instructions will be written, training will happen, the team will have time to learn, practice, and get comfortable before go-live. But then the technology portion takes longer than expected. Maybe integrations are harder than planned.
Maybe testing uncovers issues. Maybe configuration changes keep coming, and because the system is not finalized, the process cannot be finalized either. And if the process is still moving, your work instructions and training materials are also delayed. But the one date that often does not move is the go-live date.
So what has to give? Unfortunately, it is usually the people portion that gets compressed. Training gets shortened, change management get reduced, practice time disappears, floor support get minimized, and the time people actually need to understand the new process is taken away [00:52:00] right before they are expected to perform under pressure.
And that is where the three-legged stool becomes such a powerpi- powerful picture for me. We say people, process, and technology are all equally important. But then, as the project gets closer to go-live, we shorten the people leg of the stool and still expect it to stand, and then we wonder why the go-live is painful.
So the early warning signs I watch for are not just system defects. I look for signs that the operation is losing alignment. One signal is when process decisions are still changing late in the project, but the training plan has not changed. That tells me people are probably going to be trained on something that’s either incomplete, outdated, or not yet stable Another sign is shadow spreadsheets.
When every team, supervisor, or department has its own tracker, that usually means people do not fully trust the system, the process, or the [00:53:00] data. They are creating their own version of control because the official version is not giving them confidence. I also watch for supervisors escalating routine decisions.
If normal day-to-day decisions keep getting pushed upwards, it usually means that roles, decision rights, or process rules are not clear enough. And then inventory adjustments that are made with no root cause investigations are a red flag every day. Because by just correcting the number but not understanding why the number was wrong in the first place, we will never fix that problem.
The phrase I always come back to is this, when someone says the system is broken, I go to the floor first. Sometimes the system really is the problem, but a lot of the time the system is doing exactly what it was configured to do. It’s just exposing a process that was not clearly defined or a team that was not trained deeply enough or a [00:54:00] workaround that became part of the operation without anyone realizing it.
So for leaders, the lesson is, don’t only track whether the system is ready. Track whether the operation is ready. Are the processes stable? Are the work instructions clear? Have people practiced the actual work they will do after go live? Do supervisors know how to support the workers? And is there enough floor support in those first critical days?
Because performance is not fixed by chasing a number. Performance improves when you find which leg of the stool is out of balance, people, process, or technology, and you bring them back into alignment
Mike Ogle: Yeah, sure. In sports, there’s no need to actually practice. Just go ahead and tell them what the plan is, walk through it on a board somewhere, and it’ll happen perfectly in a game situation.
Adri McCaskill: Yeah, and then we wonder why it’s painful.
Mike Ogle: One other small thought when you talked about [00:55:00] everybody, having a plan it was a Mike Tyson quote I like to use in my classes “Yeah, everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face,” was his reaction to hearing that his opponent had a plan for defeating him.
Chris Gaffney: I like that.
Mike Ogle: So Adri, thank you very much for sharing your career path, all the great experiences that you’ve had, and especially all the great advice that you’ve had on this episode of the Supply Chain Careers podcast.
Adri McCaskill: Thank you, Mike and Chris. This has been such a fun conversation, and I genuinely appreciate the opportunity.
When I think back to that 16-year-old girl in South Africa telling her dad she absolutely not going to study industrial engineering, I could never have imagined that 26 years later I would be running a global supply chain company, speaking on podcasts like this one, and loving every bit of it.
So if there is one thing I would want anyone listening to take away today, it is [00:56:00] this: Your career path does not have to be a straight line. Mine certainly was not. It was full of unexpected turns, uncomfortable transitions, and moments where I had no idea what was coming next, but every single one of those moments was preparing me for the next one.
So be curious, ask questions, start close to the work, build your reputation early and protect it, find mentors but also be one, and get involved with your industry and stay involved, and do not run away from the messy problems, because supply chain, that is honestly where the most interesting work lives.
Thank you so much for having me. This was wonderful conversation, and I hope it was helpful to someone out there who’s just getting started.
