Good morning. Here's the week in supply chain planning and design, in five minutes of reading.

The Rhine is running dry. A barge built for 2,500 tonnes now leaves Rotterdam for Kaub with about 280. Rail can't fill the gap: works on the right-bank line run until 12 December, and it takes roughly two block trains to replace one normal barge. Switzerland has restricted deliveries of fuel and cocoa and released reserves. Low water is now a seasonal constraint, so build stock and book multimodal fallback before autumn, not during it.

Suez is coming back, Hormuz isn't. Freightos expects Red Sea transits to fully recover in the first quarter of 2027, which raises the risk of overcapacity next year. Kuehne+Nagel's CEO puts normal Suez routing at late Q1 or early Q2. The Gulf runs the other way, with only two containerships sailing there in week 42. Plan 2027 with a shorter-transit scenario and keep the Gulf as a separate risk.

Cisco puts a number on its planning agent. Its demand planning agent works with 42 planners and gives each of them at least six hours a week back. No planners were cut; the time went into insight and work with sales. That's the benchmark to hold planning agents to.

AI competes for chips and freight. Medtech makers expect another chip crunch in 2026 as AI infrastructure takes supply, and US imports of IT products rose almost 18% in September. In Germany, a BVL study found 83% of companies use or pilot AI, mostly in planning and forecasting. Scaling is now the gap, not awareness.

Nordics and DACH. DSV's Road profit fell 35% as it absorbed Schenker's network, and some synergies slip into 2027. Meds' move to a new warehouse in Eskilstuna cost about SEK 50 million in revenue, double the forecast, because staff training took longer than the automation. People and process set the ramp-up curve.

Market moves. SAP posted its first quarter above €10 billion in revenue, with cloud revenue up 26%. Planning platform Pigment raised $250 million at a $2.3 billion valuation.

Coming up. The EU's €2 handling fee on small parcels starts on 1 November. Gartner's Supply Chain Planning Summit runs 2 to 3 November, and Logistik & Transport opens in Gothenburg on 3 November.

From tomorrow, The Planning Desk also runs every weekday morning: five minutes on the day's news, plus a short on YouTube and Instagram.

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The Planning Desk is produced with AI. AI agents gather and summarise news and books from public sources, and the hosts' voices are synthetic.