Large chain restaurant brands operate complex and layered supply chains, where distribution center-level stockouts can spread downstream and cause shortages at the restaurant level. When a stockout is identified at the DC level, Armada Supply Chain Solutions (the sponsor company) responds with aggressive mitigation measures across all downstream locations to recover inventory at any cost. Such uniform action does not consider the likelihood, timing, and severity of the potential downstream stockouts that could occur due to this loss of inventory. This study develops a methodology for quantifying the resiliency of individual restaurants at the SKU level, using weekly inventory snapshots and daily shipment records to estimate consumption rates and project inventory levels for each downstream restaurant. The model classifies each restaurant into a risk tier based on projected days of inventory cover and gives planners a structured framework for prioritizing recovery actions across a network of hundreds of locations. By identifying which restaurants have enough on-hand inventory to absorb a disruption and routing them through standard shipping instead, the tool directly reduces unnecessary emergency freight spend. Even small reductions in the frequency of expedited shipments across a large restaurant network can result in substantial cost savings. Armada is recommended to pilot the tool with one or two brands before scaling it across the network. In the longer term, the company is encouraged to invest in building the data infrastructure needed to support more advanced predictive methods of stockout prediction.
