How much money is sitting unused on warehouse shelves?

In Episode 15 of Forward Thinking, I sit down with Tim McLain, co-founder of Lexin, to unpack one of the most overlooked areas of supply chain: MRO — maintenance, repair and operating materials.

Tim has spent his career working across supply chain, heavy industry and mining, including senior roles at BHP, where he saw firsthand how easily businesses can accumulate huge amounts of unnecessary inventory.

We discuss why companies overstock spare parts, the disconnect between maintenance, procurement, warehousing and finance, why bad data creates enormous amounts of waste, and how AI is starting to change the way industrial businesses manage inventory.

Tim also explains why inventory acts like a “shock absorber” between supply and demand, how Lexin is using AI to improve MRO data and decision-making, and why better inventory management isn’t simply about cutting stock — it’s about balancing cost and operational risk.

A great chat about supply chain, AI, working capital and the hidden cost of the parts businesses keep in the Warehouse.

In this episode, I sit down with Johnny Davison, founder of Hightrak, a transport management system built by freight people for freight operators.

Johnny's path into logistics is anything but typical. He grew up in Auckland, became a certified mountain guide, spent six months in Antarctica, guided Denali and summited Everest in 2010. Endless logistics planning in base camps turned out to be the perfect training for a career in freight.

We cover:

• How a Mainfreight director convinced him to swap mountains for depots

• Starting his own freight company in 2019 and building a TMS in-house
• Winning big box retailers like Bunnings, JB Hi-Fi and Farmers as a two-truck operator
• Why they sold the freight business and kept the tech

• Getting drivers and ops teams to actually adopt new systems
• Hightrak's expansion into Fiji, Singapore and Australia

Ben Young built Frank Green into a household name, selling as many water bottles in Australia as there are Australians.

Now he's taking on a problem the entire logistics industry has ignored: single use plastic pallet wrap.

In this episode, Ben shares the Frank Green origin story, the hard lessons of scaling a physical product globally, and the Christmas peak that cost the business over a million dollars in customer refunds.

Then we get into his latest venture, NoWrap, his reusable replacement for pallet wrap that's faster, cheaper, safer and manufactured in Australia.

We cover:

• Why 1% coffee cup reuse became a national habit, and what that teaches about changing behaviour
• 50,000 hours a year on product development and 17 iterations of a single lid
• Australia's 100 million tonnes of plastic pallet wrap, 95% of which ends up in landfill
• The real cost of wrapping a pallet (it's not a couple of cents)
• NoWrap's sub 12 month payback, rental model, and built in ESG reporting
• Scope 3 climate disclosure rules and what's coming for logistics businesses
• Bringing manufacturing back to Australia, robotics, and where NoWrap goes next

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Whether you run a warehouse, lead a logistics business or just want a masterclass in product obsession, this one's worth your time.