Supply chain scientist: a new profession and a new business model?

Lokad, a young French company employing 50 people and selling most of its services abroad, optimises its customers' supply chains. Through an original offer of experts assisted by a proprietary software platform, it is gradually taking over responsibility of the supply chain with a view to operating it on a daily basis in an optimised way, without betraying the company's intentions. The gains for the company are considerable. In this highly scientific discipline, the optimisation target is constantly changing and being thwarted by various players and events. The right approach, which tends to be counter-intuitive, consists in pushing a hypothesis to the limit in order to observe its consequences. These consequences are often absurd and undesirable, so that a more relevant hypothesis can then be reformulated. This unlikely form of collective learning is confusing... before seducing and convincing young engineers and demanding customers.