How do I know when my current automation tools no longer scale?

Common signals include declining forecast accuracy, rising inventory despite stable demand, increasing manual work, and workflows that break with every change. Other warning signs are planners spending more time maintaining the tool than analyzing decisions, growing reliance on offline spreadsheets to fill gaps, and KPIs that no longer move despite extra effort. When small business changes trigger large reconfiguration projects, the tool has stopped absorbing complexity and started adding it. At that point, the cost of staying typically exceeds the cost of switching, because the gap between the tool and the actual Supply Chain keeps widening as volume, SKUs and channels grow.