Optimize Inventory Systems for Swedish DTC Brands with Dual Lead TimesOptimize Inventory Systems for Swedish DTC Brands with Dual Lead Times
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Woldamlak's avatar
Woldamlak Debasu
• 4h
Inventory Reorder System Design - Swedish DTC Brand, Dual Lead Time Structure
The situation: A direct-to-consumer brand in Sweden with two product lines operating on fundamentally different supply chain timelines 70-day lead time from China for physical products, 30-day domestic lead time for a supplement. Both being managed with the same reorder logic, creating compounding over and under ordering risk as the business scales.
What I mapped:
Problem one - blended reorder logic across mismatched lead times. A 70-day lead time product managed with the same triggers as a 30-day product means the reorder signal fires too late for the longer lead time SKUs. By the time stock looks low, the window to act has already closed.
Problem two - stock level monitoring instead of velocity-based runway calculation. Stock levels show current position. Velocity shows how long that position lasts. At 70 days of lead time, the difference between those two numbers is the difference between acting in time and a confirmed stockout.
The system I designed:
Two separate reorder models one per lead time structure rather than a single blended system. Velocity-based runway calculation per SKU updated continuously from real sales data. Reorder triggers calibrated to lead time thresholds: runway below 70 days fires for China products, below 30 days for domestic. Output: a single dashboard the internal team reads and acts on daily without manual calculation.
The principle:
The reorder decision has to happen before the window closes, not after stock looks low. At long lead times the two moments are weeks apart. The system has to account for that gap explicitly it cannot be managed by feel or by periodic manual review.
Relevant to prospective clients:
This diagnostic and system design work is the core of what I do for Shopify DTC brands mapping where current reorder logic breaks down against real lead time constraints, rebuilding the trigger system around velocity rather than stock levels, and ensuring the buying decision happens at the right moment for every SKU in the catalog.
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