Paul D. Price

Supply Chain Analyst · Inventory Planning

I keep parts on the shelf and busywork off the calendar.

I'm Paul Price, a supply chain analyst at Satair, an Airbus company, where I plan inventory for the A220 product line. Before that I managed replenishment at The Home Depot. I hold an M.S. in Supply Chain Management with a focus on statistics and machine learning, and I use SQL, Python and AI to turn slow planning routines into fast ones.

Play the reorder game Download résumé (PDF) LinkedIn
Paul Price

Results

Four numbers from my last two roles

Satair80%+less time spent on repetitive monthly planning tasks after I reworked the process
Satair$11M+of A220 inventory in the planning scope I manage
Satair17,000+SKUs in the transition project I oversee
The Home Depot1,122 bpscombined in-stock gain across my three classes in fiscal 2022

Experience

Aerospace parts and big-box retail

Two very different inventories. One is thousands of slow, expensive, critical parts. The other is high-volume product across a national store network. The planning questions are the same in both: how much, where, and when.

Supply Chain Analyst

Satair, an Airbus company

May 2024 – Present · Peachtree City, GA

  • Cut repetitive monthly planning work by more than 80% using tools the team already had.
  • Manage planning for the A220 product line, more than $11 million in inventory, including safety stock, lot sizing and MRP in SAP.
  • Oversee a SKU transition project covering more than 17,000 SKUs.
  • Designed 15+ new reports and analyses in Palantir to give planners visibility they didn't have.
  • Used AI to re-code those analyses in Python, making them faster and more efficient.
  • Wrote custom master data cleanup logic that outperforms the versions before it.

Inventory Planning Analyst

The Home Depot

Jan 2022 – May 2024 · Atlanta, GA

  • Managed replenishment for three classes totaling about $100 million in store inventory.
  • Raised in-stock by a combined 1,122 basis points across all three classes in fiscal 2022.
  • Earned a Homer Award for supporting inventory relief from the Hurricane Command Center during Hurricane Ian.
  • Served as New Store Captain, onboarding new stores for Department 30 in fiscal 2023.
  • Trained co-workers as the subject matter expert on an inventory allocation tool.
  • Tracked KPIs and ran root cause analysis, and worked directly with suppliers to hit replenishment goals.

See it work

The reorder point, built in wood

Every turn of the crank is a period of time, and every turn a customer takes one block from the bottom of the stack. When the stack falls to the red marker, the order flag goes up and the supplier's cart sets off. The supplier sits one step down the track for every turn of lead time. Move the marker or the supplier and watch what happens to the shelf.

Drag the machine to look around it.

Blocks on the shelf
Turns with an empty shelf
Average on the shelf

Ready to set these for a real part, with real costs attached? Play the reorder game

The Reorder Game

Two numbers decide what a part costs you

Every play deals you a random aircraft part with its own demand, cost, supplier and customer urgency. Lead times run from 45 to 525 days, and suppliers run late far more often than early. Set a reorder point and an order quantity, watch six years of inventory redraw, then lock in your policy. Your annual cost stays hidden until you lock in, so you have to reason it out. There is a second catch: every part also comes with a turn-rate directive from management, and it has to be met even when it isn't the cheapest way to run the part. Your score is how close you get to the cheapest policy that follows orders.

Paul Price pointing at the spot on an inventory chart where stock crosses the reorder point

Memo from management

Inventory turns on this part must be at least a year.

On handBackorderedBuffer (Safety Stock) you plannedOrder placed

Cost per year

Holding
Ordering
Shortages
Fill rate
Average inventory
Inventory turns

Disclaimer. This game is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Every part number, price, demand figure, lead time, supplier and cost shown is fictional and randomly generated. None of it reflects real business information, data or practices of my current or former employers, and this site is not affiliated with or endorsed by them.

How scoring works: inventory turns are units shipped in a year divided by average units on hand. Each policy is scored on the same eight simulated runs of six years each, after a three-year warm-up, using a reorder point policy reviewed daily. Each order is one or more lots of the order quantity, enough to lift stock on hand plus on order back above the reorder point, for a single ordering fee. Deliveries arrive at the end of the day, and holding cost is charged on each day's closing stock. Shortage costs are the stocking business's own. Routine and Urgent orders are backordered and cost a share of the unit's margin for every day the customer waits. An AOG customer buys elsewhere, which costs the lost margin plus an allowance for future business.

Bonus level

Warehouse Run

A reward for good planning. Score 80 or better on any part and the warehouse opens: a small platformer starring a pixel version of me, a lot of pallet racking, and forklift drivers who are not looking where they're going.

Arrow keys or A and D to move. Space, W or the up arrow to jump. Hold jump longer to jump higher. Esc pauses, M toggles sound.

How I work

Understand the numbers, then improve the process.

Start from the fundamentals

Safety stock, lot sizing, MRP and demand planning are my daily work, backed by graduate training in statistical analysis and machine learning. I want to know why a parameter is set the way it is before I change it.

Fix the process, not just the number

If a task repeats every month, it should not take a person all day. Streamlining workflow is the part of the job I enjoy most, and it is how I took more than 80% out of a monthly planning routine.

Use AI as a working tool

I use AI to write and re-write code faster than I could alone, including Python versions of Palantir analyses at Satair. I direct it, test what it produces, and own the result.

Toolkit

  • SAP
  • SAP IBP
  • Palantir Contour
  • SQL
  • Python
  • Excel
  • Google Sheets
  • AI-assisted coding
  • Replenishment
  • Safety stock
  • Lot sizing
  • MRP
  • Demand planning
  • KPI analysis
  • Root cause analysis
  • Master data

Education

M.S., Supply Chain ManagementCharleston Southern UniversitySpecialized in statistical analysis and machine learning
B.A., International AffairsUniversity of Georgia · Magna Cum Laude

About this site. My real work belongs to my employers, so I can't show it here. This site is the next best thing. I planned it and decided what the game should teach, then built it with AI: the simulation, the search for the best policy, and the page you're reading.

Contact

Have a planning problem worth talking about?

I'm always glad to talk with people who care about inventory, analytics and doing the work better. Email is the fastest way to reach me.

[email protected]
Download résumé (PDF) linkedin.com/in/paul-d-price

Paul Price in a straw fedora, brown jacket and polka-dot tie