BackOps AI

SHIPPED!

Technology EN ↓ 6 episodes

SHIPPED! is a podcast for operations leaders in logistics and supply chain. Hosted by Sean McCarthy, Co-Founder & CEO at BackOps.ai, each episode features candid conversations with VPs of Operations, Customer Success Directors, and COOs about the real challenges they face – handling shipping issues, managing customer problems when deliveries go wrong, and keeping customers happy.

Author

BackOps AI

Episodes

$10 orders that cost $30: the split-shipment problem in store-plus-DTC retail 23.06.2026 30:27

Frank von Oldenburg has run logistics for semiconductors, train brakes, printers, and now apparel, starting on the night shift doing import entries and working up to VP of Logistics at DXL Group. His operating thesis: a widget is a widget, until the day it's a 5,000-pound steel coil that will derail a train if it uncoils. He tells Sean why he repeatedly took lateral and lower-paying moves to g...

Why AI should be a recommendation, not a dictation: lessons from 12,000 DSD routes | Jeffrey Hendrix (Bimbo Bakeries) 22.04.2026 31:06

Jeffrey Hendrix started on a bread route at 19, delivering to grocery stores at 3am, and didn't finish his undergraduate degree until he was 35. By 47 he had a doctorate and was running commercial strategy for a company with 83% U.S. household penetration and 12,000 routes on the street. The education wasn't the point, applying theory in real time to decisions he was already making was. I...

How Brinker sustains 20% growth: Supply visibility over demand forecasting | James Butler 10.03.2026 30:32

James Butler rebuilt Brinker International's supply chain around a contrarian principle: optimizing supply visibility beats perfecting demand forecasts. As SVP & Chief Supply Chain and Corporate Strategy Officer managing operations for Chili's and Maggiano's across 1,200+ restaurants, he's engineered a feedback architecture that converts operator friction into system-level impr...

How face-to-face supplier visits cut costs 40-50% | Bryan Kryzda (Cove Brands) 10.03.2026 30:08

Bryan Kryzda spends 6-8 weeks per year in China and Korea, cutting out trading intermediaries to negotiate directly with manufacturers. This approach recently delivered 40-50% cost reductions on identical products from existing suppliers—same quality, dramatically different economics. At Cove Brands, he's applying consulting, banking, and PE experience to transform a post-bankruptcy Amazon agg...

How OpticsPlanet forecasts 1M+ SKUs: The 90-day prediction system that stocks items selling once 10.03.2026 37:10

Managing over 1 million SKUs across 2,500 brands requires a forecasting system sophisticated enough to predict single-unit demand 90 days out. OpticsPlanet 's approach: if the model predicts even one sale within that window, they stock it. High-velocity items get 45 days of supply maintained automatically. But when COVID sent demand through unpredictable cycles from 2020-2022, their systems co...

AI adoption without the hype: Using ChatGPT while staying skeptical of enterprise AI solutions 27.02.2026 33:20

Most ops leaders won't tell you they're confused about their ICP. Zach Sands does. As VP of Operations at Pangaea, running both a DTC subscription skincare brand and a retail-heavy grooming line, he's using his podcast appearances as a live testing ground to figure out which pain points actually resonate. That level of honesty shapes his entire approach to AI: he's using ChatGPT as...