She froze. Page 412 was the chapter on "Managing Economies of Scale in a Supply Chain." She opened her laptop and searched for the unofficial "Sunil Chopra 7th Edition PPT" that a classmate had shared in a Google Drive years ago. It was a messy, pirated slide deck full of typos, but Slide 34 had a diagram she needed: the infamous "Risk Pooling" graph.
When she clicked the last slide, the CEO asked one question: "How fast can you implement this?"
She had inherited a mess. Three regional distribution centers were operating at 140% capacity, a key supplier in Vietnam had just been hit by a typhoon, and the CEO kept demanding "Amazon-level speed" with "bargain-bin inventory costs." Her theoretical knowledge felt useless.
And that is how a 47-page PowerPoint, built in a panic at midnight, saved a $200 million supply chain.
"Maya, don't trust the PPT from corporate. The inventory turnover ratio they sent is a lie. Use the 7th Edition formula on page 412—the one about cycle inventory. I've attached the real warehouse data."
She quoted Sunil Chopra directly: "The key to supply chain success is not minimizing cost, but maximizing surplus."
Frustrated, she grabbed her battered copy of Supply Chain Management by Sunil Chopra—the 7th Edition, the one with the green cover that looked like it had been through a war. She flipped to Chapter 14, "Transportation in a Supply Chain."
Maya stared at the blinking cursor on her laptop. It was 11:47 PM. The presentation for the board was due at 8:00 AM sharp, and she was stuck on Slide 19.