Beyond Visibility: Decision Intelligence In the Supply Chain

## Overview Jett McCandless, CEO of Project 44, discusses how supply chain visibility has evolved from a competitive advantage to a baseline requirement, and how the industry must now shift focus toward decision intelligence and autonomous action. The podcast explores how organizations drowning in supply chain data can transform passive visibility into proactive, AI-driven decision-making.

## Key Topics McCandless distinguishes between two types of visibility: "little v" (tracking shipments and ETAs) and "big V" (tracking POs and part numbers across supply chain nodes). While these visibility layers have matured, the real challenge is that supply chain managers are overwhelmed with alerts and dashboards but lack the ability to act decisively. The solution is decision intelligence—using AI agents to automatically recommend or execute actions like expediting orders, rerouting inventory, or adjusting promotional strategies.

## Project 44 Platform Project 44 tracks 1.5 billion shipments annually across 267,000+ carriers in 190+ countries, with approximately $4 trillion in GDP flowing through the platform daily. The platform comprises four product families: an intelligent transportation management system, visibility layer, yard operations management, and last-mile e-commerce capabilities. The system processes roughly 8 billion events per day and maps the entire planet down to hexagonal grid squares to identify choke points and disruptions.

Data prioritization occurs through a three-step process: ingesting global events from social media, news, and logistics data; associating those events with shipments; and allowing customers to define what constitutes actionable exceptions for their specific business. This ensures alerts are contextual—an auto manufacturer's priorities differ from a life sciences company's, for example.

## Trust and Data Quality McCandless emphasizes that AI-driven decisions are only trustworthy when built on high-fidelity data. Project 44 prioritizes direct carrier connectivity, ensuring access to each carrier's highest-quality data stream. The platform supplements carrier data with satellite imagery, highway cameras, agent-based inquiries, and comprehensive geographic mapping. Critically, the system is operator-controlled: customers toggle features on and off, start with specific geographies or transport modes, and review detailed logs of agent performance.

## Customer Evidence Notable customers include Ford, BMW, Goodyear, Kellogg's, Amazon, Home Depot, and Costco. A public case study from El Con (life sciences) demonstrates nine-figure inventory savings through improved lead time visibility. Gartner data shows 21 of the top 25 supply chain professionals are Project 44 customers, and 9 of the top 10 logistics service providers use the platform. Every LSP that dropped out of the top 10 over the past decade was not a Project 44 customer; every company that rose into the top 10 was.

## Obstacles and Advice The primary blocker to success is carrier connectivity and data quality—once achieved, it enables everything downstream. Change management is the secondary challenge, as organizations must rethink workflows and cross-enterprise collaboration. For companies beginning their journey, McCandless advises: define a North Star vision (e.g., direct-to-consumer sales), assess current capabilities and tech stack, identify quick wins achievable in 60–90 days, and avoid becoming dependent on large infrastructure projects like ERP migrations. Building early ROI creates budget and organizational credibility for sustained modernization.