Differences in process technology: a supplier of aluminium cans to a soft drinks manufacturer is positioned between producers of aluminium rolled sheet, and high speed canning lines. At the can supplier, the sheet has to be deep drawn and printed with increasingly sophisticated designs. High speed filling machines (1,500 cans/minute) at the soft drinks manufacturer means that the lengthy changeovers are carried out as infrequently as possible. During the peak summer sales period – when sales can double during a hot spell of weather – the whole logistics pipeline is under pressure. The can supplier – situated next to the factory of the drinks manufacturer – supplies cans through a ‘hole in the wall’ conveyor which enables just-in-time delivery. Coordinating these three quite different manufacturing processes is a major challenge. The default solution is to hold huge stocks at the can supplier – but even then, you have to hope that the forecasts were correct! If we move to the NDC for the drinks manufacturer, the even tougher challenge is to interface manufacturing with service processes – distribution and retail. Retail demand is not based on manufacturing batch sizes, but on end customer demand through the till – influenced by weather forecasts and promotions.