From Chemistry to Supply Chain Resilience: A Q&A with Andrew Downard

This interview is part of Supply Chain Rewired: Stories from the Frontlines of Transformation, an executive video series featuring candid conversations with members of the ketteQ Executive Advisory Board (EAB). These leaders share unfiltered lessons from decades in supply chain, reveal what's broken (and fixable), and offer insight into the future of supply chain planning.

At ketteQuest 2025, I sat down with Andrew Downard, a veteran supply chain executive, former Gartner analyst, and fellow EAB member. Andrew's unconventional career journey, from research chemist to hands-on supply chain leader, offers a refreshing and deeply informed perspective on what today's supply chain planning solutions get right (and wrong), and why the path forward demands probabilistic thinking, scenario agility, and real-time responsiveness.

Q: You started your career in chemistry. How did that path lead to supply chain?

A: That's right, I began as a research chemist. I was doing the classic "add A to B and create a new product" kind of work. But I quickly realized the science was the easy part. The challenge was scaling it up and moving the chemicals worldwide. That's how I stumbled into supply chain; first through logistics and later through demand planning, which was still a new concept at the time.

I was tasked with determining whether demand planning made sense for the company. I learned on the fly and led the implementation myself. From there, I moved into broader supply chain initiatives, including leading SNOP deployments at Newell Brands across 23 divisions globally. That exposure to different business models and geographies shaped my thinking early on.

Q: What major challenge has shaped your perspective on supply chain planning?

A: The most significant shift has been the rise of supply volatility. When I started, supply was assumed to be constant and literally hardcoded as a "1" in many planning models. All the focus was on demand variability.

That no longer works; today, supply volatility is the bigger issue. Disruptions are more frequent and more severe. The challenge is adapting our thinking and tools to account for that. That's one of the reasons I believe platforms like ketteQ, which are built to handle variability on both the demand and supply sides, are becoming essential. We're all being forced to re-engineer our approach to supply chain planning, and next-gen solutions need to reflect that new reality.

Q: What's still broken in today's supply chains?

A: What surprises me the most is how many supply chains still run on spreadsheets or email threads, even at large, sophisticated companies. Those systems work until they don't.

A vivid example for me was when the Suez Canal was blocked. We didn't have containers on the ship that got stuck, but we had five on the one behind it. Replanning should've been straightforward, but our systems couldn't help us. It exposed how vulnerable we were; not just internally, but across our extended supply network.

The need for better visibility, integration, and responsiveness is clear, and that's where platforms like ketteQ, with a modern, cloud-native architecture, are raising the bar.

Q: What capabilities or technologies excite you right now?

A: moving away from deterministic "one-number" planning to probabilistic modeling, I'm excited. For years, we've chased consensus around a single forecast. That's necessary to some extent. You do have to place orders and run factories, but it's insufficient in today's environment.

We need tools that embrace variability and give us a range of potential outcomes. That means evaluating multiple scenarios quickly and frequently. Until recently, the technology to support it just didn't exist. Solutions like ketteQ are finally delivering that capability: an intelligent, fast, and scalable way to model uncertainty and evaluate decisions before committing.

Q: How did you get involved with ketteQ's EAB?

A: Mike [Landry] and I had crossed paths over the years on both the vendor and client sides. At Gartner, I covered SNOP and planning, which aligned with what Mike was exploring for ketteQ, even before the company officially launched.

Later, when I returned to industry and started implementing these solutions hands-on again, Mike invited me to join the EAB. He wanted the voice of someone actively making technology decisions and leading complex implementations. I thought it was an excellent opportunity to help shape a next-generation supply chain planning solution with a team that genuinely understands the gaps and the possibilities in modern supply chain planning.

Q: What has impressed you about ketteQ?

A: ketteQ has a laser focus on ensuring every deployment is successful. That's rare. Many legacy planning vendors care more about the sale than the outcome. I saw it as an analyst, and I've seen it as a practitioner.

What's also impressive is the combination of product strength and speed to value. ketteQ has built a flexible, modern platform that suits today's volatile environment, but it's also fast to implement and easy to adopt. That combination of next-generation capabilities with time-to-value measured in weeks, not years, is incredibly powerful.

Q: How does ketteQ differ from other planning solutions?

A: I recently sat through a "success story" from another vendor at a major conference. They started the deployment in 2022. The presentation was in late 2024. When asked how long they'd been live, they said, "Two months." That's not acceptable anymore.

With ketteQ, I've seen value delivered in as little as eight weeks. That speed matters because conditions change fast. And so does the transparency. ketteQ's open architecture means you can see your data, move it easily, and integrate with other systems. That's not something older platforms were designed to do, and it's one of the key reasons ketteQ is built for what's next.

Q: How is ketteQ disrupting the market?

A: The two big disruptors are data visibility and the probabilistic engine. Most legacy systems weren't built with data agility in mind. But visibility, accessibility, and interoperability are critical now. ketteQ's architecture supports that from the ground up.

Then there's the Agentic AI solver engine. PolymatiQ isn't just trying to converge on one answer; it's exploring many. That's what modern supply chains need: an intelligent solver that helps you plan for a range of outcomes, not just the most likely one. That's a fundamental shift, and ketteQ is one of the few, if not the only, platforms truly architected around it.    

Q: What advice do you give to supply chain leaders who are still relying on spreadsheets?

A: First, I'll defend Excel—it's familiar and on every desktop. But it's not good enough. It wasn't built for collaboration, scale, or agility.

The first step is unglamorous but essential: get your data house in order. That means investing time in master data, harmonization, and data governance. Then you need the right technology to make that data actionable. ketteQ is an excellent example of how the right technology, when paired with clean data, can elevate decision-making and allow teams to respond in real time.

Q: What advice would you give your younger self?

A: I used to focus on solving the problem right in front of me. But over time, I realized those problems repeat unless you address the root cause. You need to think in terms of systems, processes, and robustness.

You can't eliminate volatility, but you can become resilient to it. Solve today's issue, but always think about how to prevent it tomorrow. That's why I gravitate toward platforms like ketteQ: they don't just help you solve the current fire drill; they help you design robust and responsive systems over time.

Q: What difference would ketteQ have made 10 years ago?

A: Ten years ago, adopting a new planning system was a massive commitment involving millions of dollars, years of implementation, and a static outcome.

With ketteQ, you get to value faster, with flexibility built in. You're not locked into a monolith. And that's crucial because we've learned the hard way that we can't predict what the world will throw at us in 12 months, let alone three years.

In addition to the rise of AI and natural language interfaces, users across the business can now get answers without deep technical expertise. That's not just helpful, it's transformative. ketteQ is making this kind of accessibility and adaptability a reality for supply chain teams across industries.

Explore More Frontline Insights

This conversation with Andrew Downard is just one episode in our Supply Chain Rewired: Stories from the Frontlines of Transformation series. Hear from other respected supply chain leaders like Rick McDonald, Cheryl Capps, and Chris Gaffney as they share lessons learned, bold ideas, and real-world advice for navigating change and building resilient, adaptive supply chains.

Watch more episodes in the Supply Chain Rewired series.