In paper and packaging, the supply chain is no longer a background function that gets attention only when something breaks. In markets increasingly defined by overcapacity, price pressure, and volatility, supply chain performance is becoming a commercial differentiator – because service reliability, lead times, traceability, and cost-to-serve increasingly decide who wins accounts.
What’s changed isn’t a single disruption. It’s the operating environment: supply chains designed decades ago for global scale now face a “post-global” world shaped by government intervention, labour disruption, and capital scarcity.
Why “every link” matters now
1) The economics shifted from scarcity to competition
When supply is tight, customers tolerate variability. When markets tip into oversupply and price competition, customers use delivery precision and responsiveness as a selection criterion – and the supply chain becomes part of the value proposition.
2) Disruption is no longer rare
Labor shocks and logistics chokepoints can reverberate quickly through fibre, chemicals, energy, transport and converting. Literature from 2022 reports shocks lasting as long as 112 days, a concrete reminder of how quickly supply continuity can be tested.
On the logistics side, global shipping disruptions have added cost and volatility; UNCTAD notes that by mid-2024, rerouting away from key corridors increased global vessel demand and raised container ship demand meaningfully – amplifying congestion and cost pressure.
3) Regulation is turning traceability into a supply-chain design requirement
For fiber-based products, traceability expectations are rising. The EU’s deforestation-free products regulation targets commodities including wood (among others) and is explicitly designed to prevent EU consumption from contributing to deforestation and forest degradation.
In parallel, the EU’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (EU) 2025/40 sets new rules for packaging design and waste management; it entered into force in February 2025 and applies from August 2026 (per the UK government’s compliance overview), putting additional pressure on materials choices and packaging design decisions.
The three structural shifts leaders are making
Shift A: Global scale → regional scale (shorter, more diversified networks)
The new winning posture is not “one optimized global network,” but regionalized resilience – shorter lanes, more redundancy where it matters, and tighter control of upstream risk beyond Tier 1.
Shift B: Inventory-heavy models → faster flow models
Leading players are moving away from “forecast → make → store,” toward models where finished goods sit for minimal time (in some cases described as “make-to-order-to-print”). The practical implication is less buffer inventory and a higher premium on planning accuracy, scheduling agility, and execution discipline.
Shift C: Manual coordination → digital infrastructure + AI-enabled planning
Digital infrastructure is increasingly table stakes; differentiation is coming from intelligent automation and early AI adoption in planning and scheduling to adapt capacity, logistics, and production sequencing dynamically.
The operating model reset: from siloed excellence to a “trade-off engine”
The core supply-chain challenge is no longer optimizing one variable at a time. Leaders must solve multivariate trade-offs continuously – service, cost, energy, working capital, emissions, and risk – often under fast-changing constraints.
A practical way to institutionalize this is to build a “trade-off engine” with three components:
- End-to-end visibility (Tier-n mapping, tariff exposure, single view of constraints)
- Decision cadence (weekly cross-functional prioritization; clear escalation rules)
- Scenario-ready planning (rapid re-optimization when costs, regulations, or lanes shift)
This is especially important in tariff environments where many businesses can’t fully pass costs through; one 2025 supply-chain risk survey estimated weighted average tariff pass-through at ~45%, implying the rest must be mitigated operationally (network, sourcing, specs, inventory posture).
What to measure: the “board-grade” supply chain scorecard
To manage “every link,” leaders need KPIs that connect execution to commercial outcomes:
- Service & reliability: OTIF, delivery precision, schedule adherence
- Speed: end-to-end lead time, changeover responsiveness, expedite rate
- Cost-to-serve: logistics cost per ton/order, premium freight incidence
- Working capital: inventory days by node, obsolescence, WIP aging
- Risk & resilience: critical supplier concentration, time-to-recover for top disruptions
- Traceability coverage: % volume with verified origin/chain-of-custody evidence (especially relevant under deforestation-free and packaging rules)
A 60–90 day “every-link” sprint
Days 1–20: Build the supply chain X-ray
- Map constraints and dependencies beyond Tier 1 (materials, energy, logistics lanes)
- Quantify exposure: tariffs, chokepoints, single-source risks
- Identify the top 10 “break points” where failure would stop delivery
Days 21–50: Stand up the cross-functional trade-off cadence
- Create a small executive supply-chain forum (Ops + Commercial + Finance + Procurement)
- Define rules for allocation under constraint (who gets capacity, at what margin/service priorities)
- Put scenario triggers in place (regulatory change, lane disruption, labor risk)
Days 51–90: Prove value with 2–3 targeted redesigns
- One network move (e.g., regional buffering or supplier diversification for a critical input)
- One planning move (S&OP “continuous refresh” for faster re-optimization)
- One traceability move (chain-of-custody/data evidence workflow aligned to evolving EU requirements)
