Podcast: Supply chain predictions for 2026

Let’s shift gears slightly and focus in on this year, from the perspective of the thought leaders at ASCM, the Association for Supply Chain Management. Here’s ASCM's Top 10 Trends for 2026:

1. Artificial Intelligence. AI, as the ASCM explains, enables precision and speed across core functions. In planning, machine learning synthesizes real-time market trends and external factors to drive forecast accuracy improvements. For warehousing and logistics, AI can optimize dynamic freight routing and enable efficient e-commerce fulfillment and automation. In the coming year, AI has the potential to minimize human error, accelerate disruption response, lower operational costs, and boost transparency and service levels.

2. Trade Policies and Global Dynamics. Geopolitical tension is driving a fundamental, capital-intensive rewiring toward regionalized and resilient supply chains. The strategy has evolved beyond "China +1" to an "Anywhere-but-China" approach, leading to new manufacturing hubs in Africa, Mexico, Vietnam and other areas of the world. In 2026, more companies will pursue deep vertical integration—internalizing production expertise—to combat structural price volatility and mitigate reliance on centralized suppliers.

3. Automation. Adaptive automation is fundamentally reshaping logistics through robotic and autonomous systems. Picking technologies streamline warehouse operations, handling inventory movement and accelerating order fulfillment. In the last mile of e-commerce, self-driving trucks and delivery drones bypass traditional obstacles and traffic congestion. These autonomous solutions are projected to significantly reduce delivery costs in 2026, proving especially valuable at serving remote and hard-to-reach areas.

4. Agility and Resilience. In 2026, digital twin technology is poised to become the primary enabler of modern agility and resilience. The virtual replicas use real-time data from IOT sensors and systems to mirror the entire physical supply chain network, from production to logistics. This visibility allows managers to anticipate disruptions and pivot operations, significantly reducing response time. Digital twins also enable sophisticated scenario planning, where thousands of what-ifs can be simulated in a risk-free environment.

5. Workforce Evolution. The proliferation of new technologies is fundamentally redefining roles, shifting the human workforce away from repetitive, transactional tasks toward strategic oversight and analytical problem-solving. Intelligent scheduling, predictive maintenance and conversational agents are poised to transform the frontline by optimizing workflows and improving safety. AI is automating administrative tasks and freeing planners to focus on scenario planning and network redesign. The new imperative is human-machine collaboration for faster, more accurate decision-making.

6. Visibility and Traceability. Visibility relies on unified, real-time data platforms for a single source of truth, enabling precise, end-to-end supply chain management. This kind of traceability is critical for optimizing inventory, accurate demand sensing and avoiding costly stockouts. In 2026, these essential data foundations will also enable more businesses to achieve resilient global trade and meet consumer demand. Now, on the other hand, companies that fail to adopt key solutions expose themselves to risk and loss of valuable opportunities to more tech-enabled companies.

7. Cybersecurity. The modern cybersecurity paradigm is shifting toward protecting the supply chain from threats that originate outside the corporate perimeter. One critical application is network segmentation, which isolates sensitive enterprise resource planning systems from partner-facing applications. Furthermore, organizations are implementing and actively monitoring continuous vulnerability detection tools that can scan supplier interfaces and enforce multi-factor authentication for all key data exchanges.

8. Cost Optimization. Cost optimization is driven by strategic responses to market and geopolitical pressures, focusing on structural efficiency. A key application is tariff mitigation, where many companies are shifting focus from blunt cost-cutting toward generating customer value through enhanced responsiveness and transparency. Concurrently, other applications focus on precision. For instance, by carefully tracking actual purchased costs and implementing lean, pull-based inventory systems, organizations can dramatically improve visibility into inventory value and reduce carrying risks.

9. Agile and Dynamic Sourcing. Agile sourcing can help ease extreme supply chain volatility, especially in sectors facing geopolitical resource threats. For many organizations, the core application is the immediate need to secure critical mineral supplies. Sourcing agility enables these companies to counteract climate-driven resource nationalism and sudden export controls that constrain access to vital materials. By constantly monitoring the global supply landscape, an agile sourcing model allows firms to dynamically pivot procurement strategies before resource scarcity can halt production lines.

10. Climate and Circularity. Circularity applications focus on mitigating climate and resource risk to transform threats into new commercial opportunities. One crucial application is physical resilience, necessitating the immediate adoption of adaptive infrastructure to counter the severe operational impacts of extreme weather. Meanwhile, in resource-intensive sectors, the application of circular models compels a radical product-service pivot, shifting business models away from disposable goods and fueling the rapid expansion of high-value niches in professional repair and manufacturing.

So there you have ASCM’s top 10 for 2026. I’ve worked with ASCM off and on for quite a few years, dating back to the days when they were known as APICS. Their annual conference, Chainge 2026, will be held September 29-30 in Long Beach. I’ve attended many of their events and spoken there in the past, so their show is definitely worth your time.

Let me squeeze in a few short takes from various sources, to give you perspectives on some other pending supply chain developments over the coming year.

According to Stephen Dyke, director of strategic solutions at FourKites, “Supply chain leaders must ask the tough questions that force organizations to reconcile what they say they want with how they're structured to operate. The tension between growth mandates and cost-focused accountability isn't going away until someone calls it out directly. Most supply chain organizations claim they want agility and responsiveness, Dyke says, and then measure their teams exclusively on cost per unit and budget variance. They want innovation in network design while maintaining organizational structures where no one has authority over more than one node in the network. They want AI to optimize inventory positioning while keeping separate P&Ls for manufacturing, distribution, and retail that each optimize their own local metrics. In 2026, these contradictions will become harder to ignore as the eagerness to adopt and implement AI drives business transformation projects forward. The organizations that make progress will be willing to have uncomfortable conversations about whether their structure supports their strategy.”

Amy Dean, vice president of Operations at SC Codeworks, is keeping an eye on adaptive warehousing, noting that modular, on-demand infrastructure will allow warehouses to scale up or down instantly for peak seasons or new channels.“Warehouses are evolving from reactive to predictive,” says Dean. “Companies today are increasingly looking to their vendors and technology partners to go beyond implementation to deliver innovations that boost productivity and lower costs. The operations thriving in 2026 won’t just adopt technology, but design it for flexibility, ready to pivot with every shift in demand.”

Ryan Tierney, Senior Vice President Product Management with TrueCommerce, believes that ever increasing demand and ever increasing expectations for products will cause turnaround times shrink again. “What used to be a 24-hour workflow is now often 12 hours—and tightening,” Tierney says. “To keep pace without ballooning costs, more brands, shippers, and 3PLs will shift from on-premise tools to modern cloud platforms that centralize data and standardize integrations.

We’re hearing a lot about how AI and automation will impact companies, but how about the employees at those companies, especially the ones on the floors of these facilities? Andy Lockhart, Director of Strategic Engagement, Warehouse Solutions, North America with Vanderlande, predicts that employee perception of automation will continue to evolve in 2026. He says, “As automation increasingly takes over the most physically strenuous, repetitive and dangerous tasks, employees will begin to see it as a key indicator of a better, safer workplace. Working in a highly automated facility is less physically demanding and creates opportunities for upskilling into higher-paying roles like maintaining or managing robotic systems. Forward-thinking companies will start to promote their use of automation not just as a business efficiency tool, but as a competitive advantage in attracting and retaining the best talent. Automation will become a differentiator for employees choosing where to work.”

And to bring it all full circle, here’s Beth Hendriks, Chief Technology Officer with Infios, who says that In 2026, the supply chain winners won’t be the ones adopting the most AI — they’ll be the ones applying it with purpose. The industry is shifting from technology-first thinking to problem-first strategies, finally recognizing that most AI initiatives fail because companies chase tools before defining outcomes. The message for 2026, Hendriks says, is clear: technology doesn’t drive transformation — clarity of purpose does. The question is no longer ‘What can AI do?’, but ‘What should it solve?’”

That’s a great question she asks, though to put things in perspective, I was writing a newsletter back in the late 1980s called AI Week, and that was the exact same thing people were talking about nearly 40 years ago, that AI was a technology in search of solutions. AI has evolved a lot since then, but for every company today wondering how AI can fix your supply chain problems, the real question you need to ask yourself is: What problem do I need to fix, and can AI help me fix it?

And on that note, that’s going to wrap it up for this installment of Supply Chain Insider. As you can imagine, there are plenty of other predictions and prognostications out there, so please feel free to visit Material Handling & Logistics – at mhlnews.com – for more predictions as well as all the latest supply chain news. If you liked this podcast, we encourage you to subscribe to The Great Question wherever you get your podcasts. So for MH&L, I’m Dave Blanchard. Take care.

About the Podcast
Great Question: A Manufacturing Podcast offers news and information for the people who make, store and move things and those who manage and maintain the facilities where that work gets done. Manufacturers from chemical producers to automakers to machine shops can listen for critical insights into the technologies, economic conditions and best practices that can influence how to best run facilities to reach operational excellence.

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