The Spring 2026 Supply Chain Forum brought together corporate executives and supply chain practitioners from more than 70 partner companies for three days of learning, networking, and recruiting at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. From ocean freight and energy infrastructure to AI deployment and leadership under pressure, this year’s forum made one thing clear: the pace of change is no longer a warning — it’s the operating environment.

Here are ten takeaways every supply chain leader should be sitting with.

1. AI is already doing the work

Across nearly every session, artificial intelligence moved from buzzword to business reality. At Caterpillar, AI agents now handle spot freight procurement, supplier outreach, and logistics risk identification—tasks that previously required teams of analysts. At Kimberly-Clark, a deliberate AI maturity curve is driving investment in fast, accessible wins like chatbots and agentic tools while building toward larger enterprise solutions. At Pilot, agentic AI is already pricing fuel in real time across 900 locations. The message wasn’t that AI is coming. It’s that the companies pulling ahead are the ones that stopped waiting for perfect conditions and started building.

2. Good data is the prerequisite nobody wants to talk about

Every AI conversation eventually circled back to the same constraint: data quality. Bolting AI onto fragmented or unreliable data is a trap. The insights produced are only as good as the foundation beneath them. At Caterpillar, nearly a decade of investment in aftermarket data makes their AI agents trustworthy. The takeaway for partners: before asking what AI can do for your organization, ask whether your data is ready for it.

“An AI solution that sits on a pretty poor data architecture is, frankly, quite useless.” 

—Sarah Haffer, VP of Digital Transformation, Kimberly-Clark

3. AI creates capacity. The hard part is what you do with it

The most nuanced AI conversation at the forum wasn’t about technology. It was about people. The reality is candid: AI means fewer jobs in some organizations, and the leaders navigating this well are redeploying talent to customer-facing, judgment-intensive roles and investing in upskilling before the transition forces their hand. At Pilot, AI now handles complex fuel supply planning for thousands of daily deliveries, freeing teams to make the highest-risk decisions that still require human judgment. The cultural challenge is the same across industries. AI is changing what work looks like faster than most people are prepared for.

4. The energy transition is real, but it’s moving on its own timeline

The Pilot leadership team offered a grounded perspective: diesel and gasoline will remain dominant for decades; alternative fuels are gaining traction as complementary options; and the pace of change is being set by customers and capital economics, not by ambition. Biodiesel, renewable diesel, and E15 ethanol are practical near-term levers. Heavy-duty EV adoption faces steep infrastructure and capital hurdles. The advice for partners: plan for fuel costs to remain elevated and volatile, and build flexibility into your energy sourcing strategy.

5. Disruption is the new normal. Resilience is the new efficiency

Geopolitical disruption is no longer a tail risk. By 2026, it’s become a recurring operating condition. From ships trapped in the Gulf to parts being flown into conflict-adjacent markets to managing supply risk from the Strait of Hormuz, the lesson learned across years of black swan events is consistent: surety of supply means having backup options and knowing how to pivot. Single-source strategies and best-price-only negotiations are relics of a more stable era. Even college athletics has felt the force of overnight disruption, as NIL, revenue sharing, and the transfer portal have dismantled a stable, decades-old business model and required entirely new organizational capabilities built largely from scratch. The organizations managing disruption best have built agility into their networks before they needed it.

“Prepare your people to think for themselves. There’s no cheat code for that.” 

—Adam Wright, CEO, Pilot

6. Predictability is a competitive advantage—and it’s undervalued

Before Hapag-Lloyd restructured its routing model, best-in-class ocean schedule reliability was around 55%. Their new hub-and-spoke approach has pushed on-time performance to nearly 90%. One Tennessee-based customer eliminated a seven- to nine-day inventory buffer worth $10 million simply because they could plan with confidence. Variability in ocean shipping doesn’t stay there; it ripples through every downstream decision, from inventory positioning to final-mile delivery. In a volatile world, the ability to deliver consistently and communicate transparently is a differentiator that compounds.

7. End-to-end thinking unlocks value that functional excellence cannot

The cost of optimizing in silos was a consistent theme. Individually sound decisions—cheap ocean bookings into one port, urgent domestic trucking to make up the time—can combine to produce a far more expensive outcome than anyone intended. The solution isn’t better individual decision-making but shared goals across every function, tied to the same customer outcomes. The Haslam undergraduate case competition reinforced the point: the strongest student solutions weren’t those that optimized a single mode but those that considered the entire network. The value is in the connections.

From the Forum Floor: Undergraduate Students Take on F1 Logistics

Three teams of UT undergraduates, competing in GSCI’s inaugural case competition facilitated by faculty member Lance Saunders, were challenged to redesign the global logistics strategy for Formula One — 24 races, 21 countries, five continents, zero margin for error. Each team tackled modal shift, container rationalization, hub strategy, risk mitigation, and sustainability, arriving at meaningful cost savings without sacrificing service levels. For GSCI partners, the competition offered a window into what UT supply chain students look like in action. The winner was announced at the evening reception at Neyland Stadium.

8. The skilled trades gap is a supply chain problem

The pipeline of welders, boilermakers, pipefitters, and general laborers is thin. The problem is structural, as American high schools have shifted away from vocational programs, leaving industries chronically short of skilled workers. At Caterpillar, approximately 35,000 technicians are needed globally. Those technicians, not parts, are the organization’s number one supply chain constraint. Workforce availability is a supply chain risk that deserves the same strategic attention as supplier relationships or logistics capacity.

9. The best leaders create more leaders—not more managers

The leaders who build lasting organizations push decisions down, foster cultures of trust, and develop the people around them. The most effective leaders are deeply attuned to the people and environment around them, give their teams cover to make decisions in ambiguous situations, and understand a fundamental distinction: managers can only create managers. Technical skills get people in the door. The ability to develop other leaders is what scales an organization.

“Managers can only create managers. They cannot create leaders.”

—Stuart Sandlin, President & CEO, Hapag-Lloyd North America

10. Talent in the digital era requires new skills (and a new mindset)

Data analytics skills are now table stakes. What’s growing in value: cross-functional communication, comfort with agile ways of working, and genuine curiosity. As AI handles more analytical heavy lifting, independent thinking becomes more valuable, not less. The professionals who will thrive are those who work fluently with AI tools while bringing judgment, context, and human connection that no model can replicate.

The conversations at the Spring 2026 Supply Chain Forum reflect what GSCI has long believed: the discipline requires continuous learning. The gap between good and great is almost always a question of talent and leadership. Looking to develop your talent? Consider the SCM Academies—short, virtual courses in leadership, finance, technology, planning, and procurement—returning this August through November. Dates and details are available on the GSCI events page.

The Fall 2026 Supply Chain Forum is scheduled for November 10–12. For more information, contact gsci@utk.edu.