I’m Ryder Erman. My background in distribution and transportation shapes how I design AI workflows for the people who have to act on them.
See recent engagementsI contributed to a customer experience breakout and submitted our group’s recap. We focused on understanding the customer’s need, structuring reliable product information, and making proactive follow-up timely and relevant enough to build trust.
I joined industry panelists for SCM 320, Integrated Supply Chain Management, to discuss careers in supply chain. I emphasized people leadership and how managers keep teams aligned around a shared goal.
I contributed a section on using AI to identify customers at risk of leaving so teams can act earlier. The publisher added the eBook to Module 2 of the customer experience course.
My work as a Frito-Lay Zone Operations Manager spans transportation, facilities, safety and warehouse execution, with partners in sales and regional staffing.
I helped launch a rural fulfillment distribution center in phases and worked on trailer utilization and outbound load consolidation. Earlier, I held an operations supervision role at UPS.
I helped shape a personal workspace for reviewing AI-assisted work, with a lead drafter, a reviewer when the stakes warrant it, and a person who owns the decision.
Motorsports offers a simple lesson for improvement work. Make one change, observe its effect and write down what you’ll try on the next run.
The Decision Review Loop and the Exception Brief are working frameworks for decisions that need a clear owner and a record of the evidence.
Before escalating, record the signal, the impact and deadline, the viable options, and who can decide.
A simulated outbound trailer may miss cutoff. The proposed recovery relies on spare capacity that nobody has confirmed. The next step is to check dispatch capacity and record who owns the decision. If capacity remains unknown at cutoff, escalate to the shift lead.
For operations leaders, executive education groups and teams testing their first AI workflows.
Choose a bounded decision, test it against a baseline, and decide where a person must sign off.
Work through a simulated service disruption and leave with an Exception Brief you can adapt.
Trace a service promise through the people, processes and handoffs that determine whether customers experience it.
In November 2026, I took part in the University of North Dakota’s Customer Experience Advisory Connect, contributing to a breakout discussion and submitting my group’s recap.
My background includes a business administration degree from North Dakota State University and MIT Sloan’s Artificial Intelligence: Implications for Business Strategy program.
To discuss a keynote, workshop or guest lecture, email ryder.erman@gmail.com.