Peak 2026 – Part 3: When the plan stops working, who decides what happens next?

Who gets priority? And who deals with the consequences?

Now imagine a different morning.

A storm has brought outdoor operations to a halt. Deliveries are backing up, equipment outside may need inspecting, and nobody can say exactly when normal activity will resume.

Inside the building, the original labour plan no longer makes sense. People need moving between processes. Central supply chain wants to know when deliveries can restart.

The weather is outside your control. How you prepare to recover isn’t.

These situations look different, but they test the same thing: whether an operation can make coordinated decisions when competing pressures threaten to overwhelm the plan.

As Peak 2026 approaches its busiest weeks, that’s worth testing.

When everyone has a good reason to come first

Let’s return to the goods-to-person operation.

Picking has an obvious claim on the stations. Customer orders must be processed, and missed carrier collections can quickly become missed delivery promises.

But giving picking priority throughout the shift doesn’t make the other work disappear.

If put-away can’t access enough stations, inbound stock continues to accumulate. The dock becomes congested. Trailers may have nowhere to go.

Inventory control faces a different challenge. Its work may not have the same immediate deadline as picking, but continually pushing it aside can leave unresolved stock issues and a growing backlog.

So what’s the right allocation?

There isn’t one answer that works all day.

Picking might need most stations before a despatch deadline. Put-away might need a protected window to relieve inbound congestion. Inventory control might need a defined allocation to stop its backlog becoming unmanageable.

The right decision for one department isn’t necessarily the right decision for the whole operation.

During Peak, when there’s less spare capacity to absorb problems, that distinction matters.

The problem with everyone protecting their own targets

Most operations have departmental performance measures for good reasons.

Picking needs to understand productivity and backlog. Inbound needs visibility of receipts and trailer movements. Inventory control needs to know what work is outstanding.

The danger comes when those measures become separate conversations.

One manager is pushing to clear orders. Another is trying to get trailers off the yard. A third is explaining why inventory work is falling behind.

All three may be doing exactly what’s expected of them.

But if nobody is looking across the operation, their decisions can work against each other.

And this isn’t only an automation problem.

Think about two processes competing for the same MHE, replenishment and picking needing the same experienced colleagues, or inbound and outbound needing the same dock space.

When capacity is tight, giving more to one activity means giving less to another.

You can’t avoid every conflict. You can avoid leaving those conflicts to be settled by whichever department has the loudest voice or the most immediate deadline.

Make competing demands visible

One practical response in the goods-to-person scenario is a daily station-demand meeting.

Not another meeting to review yesterday’s numbers.

A short discussion about what each department needs today, when it needs it and what happens if it doesn’t get it.

Put-away explains the inbound backlog and pressure on dock and yard space. Picking sets out its order profile and despatch deadlines. Inventory control makes its outstanding work and risks visible.

The group then agrees how stations will be allocated throughout the day.

That might mean protecting picking capacity ahead of a collection deadline, then shifting stations to put-away. It might mean reserving time for inventory control rather than leaving it to compete for whatever remains.

There will still be difficult choices. But at least they’re deliberate, with an understanding of the wider consequences.

And the morning meeting can’t be the end of the process.

If inbound volumes change, equipment becomes unavailable or picking falls behind, the allocation may need revisiting.

The point isn’t to produce a perfect schedule at 8.30am.

It’s to establish who can change the priorities, what information they’ll use and how quickly they can act.

Then something happens that nobody scheduled

Now consider the storm.

The wind is strengthening. Outdoor activity has been suspended, and deliveries are beginning to stack up.

Inside the building, managers are working out what can still be done safely.

The original labour plan no longer fits the available work. Some colleagues need moving to other processes. Space is becoming a concern, and there are questions about equipment and infrastructure outside.

Central supply chain wants an estimate of when deliveries can resume.

But nobody can give a reliable answer yet.

It’s tempting to wait for the storm to pass before working out how to recover.

By then, however, the backlog may be much larger and valuable preparation time will have been lost.

You can’t restart affected activities simply because the business needs them to resume. Conditions must be assessed and appropriate safety checks completed.

But that doesn’t mean everyone has to wait without a plan.

Use the disruption to prepare for recovery

A cross-functional war room can bring the necessary decisions together.

Operations, safety and facilities each have a different part of the picture.

Facilities can provide frequent updates on conditions, including wind speeds where relevant, and identify equipment or infrastructure needing inspection.

Safety can advise on the conditions and controls required before affected activities resume.

Operations can work through the practical consequences: available space, equipment, backlog, labour and the sequence in which work might restart.

Central supply chain needs regular updates and realistic recovery estimates, even when those estimates remain uncertain.

And colleagues in the building need to know what’s happening.

If large numbers of people must move between processes, that needs coordination. People need clear instructions, appropriate training and an understanding of why priorities have changed.

Otherwise, the operation risks creating confusion inside the building while trying to manage the disruption outside it.

The war room doesn’t stop the storm or remove the backlog.

What it can do is ensure the operation is preparing for recovery rather than waiting for the weather to improve before starting to think.

When conditions are safe and the necessary checks are complete, teams should know what needs to happen next.

You can’t control when the storm passes. You can control how ready you are to restart.

The common thread is decision-making

The station conflict and the storm are different kinds of pressure.

One develops through normal competition for shared resources. The other arrives unexpectedly and changes what the operation can safely do.

But both expose the same weakness if it exists.

Departments may understand their own priorities without anyone having a clear view of the consequences across the whole operation.

The answer isn’t to escalate every decision to the most senior person in the building.

It’s to agree who owns different decisions, what information they need and when a problem requires a wider conversation.

There’s also a balance to strike.

Intervene too slowly and problems build. Change priorities constantly and you create disruption of your own.

Good operational control means knowing when to hold the course and when circumstances justify changing it.

Don’t leave the best lessons behind when Peak ends

There’s another opportunity in these situations that’s easy to overlook.

When operations are under pressure, teams often find better ways of working.

A daily station-demand meeting might start because departments are competing for capacity. But if it helps people understand each other’s constraints and make better decisions, why stop doing it when Peak ends?

A war room might be established to manage a major disruption. But the way operations, safety and facilities share information and coordinate decisions could reveal practices worth keeping.

Not every emergency measure should become a permanent process. Some are only appropriate under exceptional pressure.

The important thing is recognising the difference.

Once things settle, ask your teams what worked, what didn’t and what they’d do differently. Look beyond the immediate results and consider whether the way people worked together made a difference.

Did clearer ownership remove delays? Did bringing departments together reveal problems that weren’t previously visible? What made things harder than necessary?

You don’t have to wait until the end of Peak to capture these lessons. The detail is often freshest while the situation is still being managed.

Some of the most useful improvements to your everyday operation may come from decisions made under Peak pressure.

The challenge is making sure those lessons don’t disappear when volumes return to normal.

Five questions to ask before the busiest weeks

If you’re responsible for a Peak operation, I’d want answers to five questions.

1. Where are the likely conflicts? Which departments depend on the same stations, people, equipment or space?
2. Who decides what takes priority? When departments disagree, is there someone with the authority and whole-operation view to make the call?
3. Can you see the consequences? Are you looking beyond individual departmental KPIs to understand how today’s decisions affect other processes and later shifts?
4. How will you review decisions as conditions change? Do you have a practical management rhythm, with clear triggers for reconsidering priorities?
5. What happens when normal operations stop? Who brings operations, safety, facilities and the wider supply chain together, and how will you prepare for recovery without compromising safety?

These don’t require an elaborate new system. They require clarity about information, ownership and communication before the pressure is at its highest.

Your Peak plan won’t make every decision for you

Forecasting demand, understanding capacity and preparing resources all matter. They give your operation the best possible starting point.

But they won’t prevent departments competing for equipment. They won’t stop a storm. And they won’t tell your team exactly what to do in every situation that develops.

That’s where operational leadership comes in.

As the busiest weeks of Peak 2026 approach, don’t just ask whether every department is ready.

Ask whether your teams are ready to make difficult decisions together, whether they know how to respond when circumstances change, and whether you’re capturing what those experiences teach you.

Because the best outcome isn’t simply getting through Peak.

It’s coming out of it with a stronger operation than the one you went into it with.

Before Peak pressure builds, use the five questions in this article to review shared resources, decision ownership and recovery readiness with your teams.