CPIM certified in winter 2025 and scored 304. My company again paid for APICS bundle for CSCP. Since that time, I had some life changing events and left homes so life happens and I had less time to study. My CPIM study method was isolating myself for 3-4 months, memorizing terms, and doing pocket prep. For CSCP, I had 2 months to complete an exam before my authorization expired and coupled with a new house, I decided to get it done by memorizing the terms and do pocket prep again. I got a 303.

Quick tips:

- know cash to cash cycle time and NO other formulas. This exam is so different than CPIM. I wish I didn’t re-look at the textbook formulas I memorized for CPIM. Would have saved me hours on my study nights.
- had no incoterm or warehouse equipment questions. do not look at incoterms or warehouse inventory equipment: I was stressing over these the last 2 days and even if you get tested, it would be 1 question because that’s not the main focus of the exam.
- it’s possible to pass without doing learning system questions (I scraped by in both exams) so pocketprep is good practice but the exams are a middle point between pocket prep and the learning system.
-exam questions had 2 answers that were the best options. The other 2 answers were not realistic. Getting it down to 50/50 chance is your best strategy.

Overall, after completing both exams, APICS is extremely conceptual and theoretical. While it would be great to get companies to follow these practices, it’s very difficult with large companies, like I’m in pharmaceutical supply chain. If your employer pays for it, I would recommend it as a resume booster and to stand out in your team. My goal was to do these exams while my employer paid for it and not being tied to higher education programs to stay at the company for the next 1-5 years. I can now say I am done with doing the exams. Good luck to everyone studying.

or any other department for that matter. which department does the most blaming?

Without it - the supply chain between Scandinavia and continental Europe stops.

A 600m freight train boards a 200m ferry in Rostock. 90 minutes to unload and reload everything. DB Cargo wagons from all over Europe. Consumer goods, steel, paper, machinery - all of it crossing the Baltic by rail.

I work as a dynamics 365 technical consultant and to be honest whenever I hear the terms Sales order, packing slip, invoicing, load, shipment, reconciliation, grn etc i feel like I'm dealing with something that i fully don't understand yet. I want to get a well rounded knowledge on the entire sales to invoice or procure to pay processes. Do i need to focus on learning SCM for this. If yes, can you pls recommend books that are not too basic or not too advanced?

I'm doing about 800 orders/month, shipping primarily in the US, so I'm thinking about switching to a US 3PL. Any advice where should I be looking, and is one location enough to start?

New DC workers’ reactions and genuine disbelief when they learn some of the terminology always gets me. Their face is priceless.

Hi all,

I’m in an Associate Demand Planning role and since we’re a newer team I’m struggling to get a clear answer on next steps to become a full fledged Demand Planner at my company. It’s becoming increasingly clear that the job just doesn’t exist and I’ll probably need to look externally at some point.

That being said now is not the time for me to move immediately. I have a few big life events in the next year or so that I would like some stability through, then I’ll think about moving on.

My company has, however, shown a pretty consistent commitment to furthering employee education and training. They just comped the PMP cert for a bunch of people.

That got me thinking. Are there any certifications I should look to pursue that would make me a stronger candidate in the future? I really enjoy demand and inventory planning, so preferably something related to that, but I also like finance and general supply chain.

Separately once achieved, how do you use them for career advancement, aside from just adding them as a bullet point on a resume?

I'm curious if anyone here has a real-life example where improving forecast accuracy actually resulted in measurable inventory or service-level improvements.

For example, something like:

• WAPE went from 30% to 24%
• forecast bias went from +10% to +2%
• inventory decreased X%
• fill rate/service level increased from X% to Y%
• stockouts decreased X%
• obsolete stock / markdowns decreased X%

I'm particularly interested in whether anyone has measured the relationship between forecast error and the amount of safety stock required.

Theoretically, a better forecast should allow you to either carry less inventory for the same service level, or achieve a higher service level with the same inventory. But I'm trying to understand what this looks like in real businesses rather than in textbook examples.

If you've implemented a better forecasting process/model, what metric improved (WAPE, MAPE, MAE, bias, etc.), by how much, and what actually happened afterward to inventory, fill rate, stockouts or working capital?

Industry, approximate lead times and whether you forecast at SKU or SKU/location level would also be really interesting.

Hi guys, I work as an Inventory Controller at a certain company that manufactures construction products. In short I have a supervisor who came in this year and I think she doesn't have a clue how most things work and most of the work I do it personally. We are 5 in our department, the dispatch clerk, receiving clerk, procurement clerk, my supervisor and I. The issue comes whenever one of the other 3 is absent I'm always told to do their duties and their reports and sometimes I clock out late making sure that I do those reports. Whenever there is something that goes wrong I would be the scapegoat and whenever I defend myself she would call me a baby and this is frustrating. I'm usually called during holidays and weekends about work and I suppose that it's my resting time and I would always be interrupted at home. It has now become mentally exhausting to an extent where I want to quit. After research I have discovered that I have been graded as a Receiving clerk while I'm the inventory controller which is disappointing because I feel exploited in this case. So now I'm finalizing my August reports and after that I'm leaving because with what happened recently I would rather start hunting for a new job while at home rather than risk my mental health. Are all supply chain jobs this stressful because I suspect that it might be my toxic company environment?

I recently completed my masters in Supply chain management from a Business school in France. I have an industrial experience of almost 1 and half year in Africa. Currently I am searching for an internship in France but I am struggling to even land an interview. I would love to have some help or advice to get a start in the industry. I really have to land a job before April since my monthly EMIs for my education loan are starting and I am not financially capable of paying it on my own. So any help is appreciated and thank you in advance. I wish you all a good day.

Any particular exemptions you’re finding your suppliers unable or u willing to address?

I’ve been volundtold to lead the exemption removal project and so many suppliers are just coming back saying “we submitted a business case and not going to design out the exempt materials.”

So I’ve been in retail management for a small business of 15 people with 7 service trucks for about 5 years now. It’s good money. High 70k range on average. BUT, there is no upward mobility, benefits, 401k, bonuses. It’s a good job, don’t get me wrong, but it doesn’t feel like a career. It’s just the standard 9-5. Nothing wrong with that by any means. I just feel like the ceiling has been hit in my position.

I started but stopped a supply chain management degree about 10 years ago and dropped it. Now I’m wanting to go back for my bachelor degree in Operations and Supply Chain Management. With the idea to get a masters degree later on.

The main question is, would it be worth leaving this secure job with no benefits or upward mobility but has good money, for a better future with opportunity and benefits? I know that question will sound crazy to a lot. But I just don’t like feeling like I’m stuck. We are a small business with limited growth that’s even possible.

Please let me know what you think and if this is a viable career swap at probably 31-32 by the time I finish my degree and swap careers. I’m looking to lean into Aerospace/Defense or Pharmaceuticals. Thanks!

Hello,
I currently hold a bachelors in information and library science. Pretty much as soon as I graduated that field started imploding.

Can I realistically pivot over to supply chain / logistical work and utilize my degree in this line of work?

I have multiple years of experience in a library setting, and around a years experience in a clerical/archival setting.

Any advice on a career pivot being a good or bad idea is greatly appreciated

Hey everyone, finished my BS in Supply Chain & Operations Management in May and have about 4 years of operations experience before that. Been applying since October and have gotten almost nothing back, and the few interviews I did get turned out to be scam postings.

The experience is all remote back office work, no warehouse or physical inventory at all. Most recent was ops specialist at a SaaS company running a high volume request queue for enterprise clients. Before that was ops support for a restaurant franchise, which is the closest I've gotten to supply chain: hardware procurement for US and Canadian locations, creating POs, coordinating vendor installs, tracking equipment through delivery and setup, and using their ERP daily. Before that, mortgage.

Applying to both remote and onsite roles, not picky on type, just trying to get in the field somewhere.

Is a general ops background with no physical supply chain experience just not translating? Or am I going about the search wrong? Genuinely not sure how to move forward from here.

Edit: added more detail about my background, original post was too vague.

I spent three years building logistics software, but my latest inventory tracking project stalled over the last two weeks because external consultants delivered broken warehouse API integrations. Now i need to make a fix solution for this, but i dont have time so i need outsource team which can help me. If you know who can fix similar inventory sync failures, tell me how pls, need fast as posible, txnx

I recently accepted an offer for a full-time entry-level purchasing job with a Sunday - Thursday schedule. Although I am a bit bummed that schedule means I miss out on church and most NFL games, my excitement outweighs that by a lot. I committed to my finance degree despite struggling to find enjoyment in my first finance class in junior year and later classes; I had accepted an internship and wrongly thought it was too late to change. Supply chain and related functions was one of the career paths that I kept thinking about, especially after my first supply chain class. Story aside, I'd like to know what to expect from a supply chain / purchasing job with the aforementioned schedule from those with similar experiences.

we're a few months out from a cutover and i keep hearing the same thing from people who've done it, which is that the stuff that actually hurts is never what you tested for. integrations that passed UAT fine and then fell over on real order volume, or some edge case in returns or allocation logic that only surfaces once live data starts moving.

trying to figure out how much of this is avoidable with better test coverage versus how much is just the nature of production.

for anyone who's been through a cutover: what was the thing that got through, and in hindsight could you have caught it?

Hello. I am planning to take CSCP.

Any other review providers aside from the APICS learning system?
I am having second thoughts if I should take the one with retake bundle. It is quite pricey. I will have to check with my employer if they can reimburse, but anyone who did retake?

around how many hrs of study did it take you til you pass?

Thank you!