July 21, 2026 | From the Hotel Interactive Newsroom
SAVANNAH, Ga. — Supply chain disruptions have become a lasting part of hospitality development and renovation, requiring procurement teams to anticipate delays, prepare transportation alternatives and involve project partners earlier than they may have in the past.
That was a central theme during “Overcoming Supply Chain, Shipping, and Warehousing Delays While Advancing Cost Per Key Performance,” a session at BITAC Purchasing & Design Summer 2026. The event brought hospitality executives together July 12-14 at the JW Marriott Savannah Plant Riverside District in Savannah, Ga.
Cody Adent, president of Vibrant Management, moderated the discussion. Panelists were Maddie Comeaux, procurement manager at InterMountain Management, LLC; Corina Heizer, vice president of procurement at Premier Project Management; and Kristine Williams, director of procurement at Vida Design.
Vet the Vendors and Anticipate the Delays
Adent opened by asking the panelists to identify a past decision they regretted and what they would change today. Comeaux pointed to insufficient vendor vetting and overreliance on a single supplier.
“I think that not vetting your vendors well enough, and also putting all your eggs in one basket, we can get kind of starry-eyed by a really great vendor,” Comeaux said. “And if you put a lot of projects in their basket, it may overwhelm them. And so, just vet those vendors and make sure you’re spreading the wealth a little bit.”
Heizer expanded on that idea, noting that while relationships remain important, information supplied by project partners should still be verified.
“You build these relationships as we all talk about here, which are very valuable, and you trust what’s being told [to you],” she said. “But then, there’s misinformation is provided.”
Williams recalled a lesson from renovation work: Design development and FF&E design should proceed simultaneously, particularly when accurate as-built drawings are unavailable. She said a larger change in her supply-chain strategy has been a move away from waiting for problems to emerge.
“The past few years, we have pivoted to anticipating delays instead of just reacting to them,” Williams said.
Comeaux said disruptions remain a routine concern, particularly in renovation work, where conditions can change substantially between early planning and project completion. The best protection, she said, is to work through potential savings, lead times and scheduling constraints before orders are placed.
“I’m a huge proponent of planning,” she said. “If you plan and work through all of your cost-savings opportunities and lead times, and you know your project schedule,” then those disruptions won’t be as impactful. “And let’s face it, they’re going to happen.”
Compounding that uncertainty are the long timelines for many renovation projects, Comeaux said. Products selected and scheduled at the beginning of a project may be affected by different market or transportation conditions by the time they are needed.
“You start a project and then you end it about a year later,” she said. Over the course of the project, “you’re going to see just … how supply chain works, [and] you’re going to see those disruptions.”
Build Transportation Alternatives Early
For remote or logistically difficult projects, Heizer said transportation plans should be developed before orders are released. She cited a project in Alaska that required the team to evaluate the potential costs of air freight, barge transportation and trucking. Preparing those options early gives owners choices when a delay affects the original plan.
“When the delays do come, you have the options to the owners and to the project team,” Heizer said.
She also uses artificial intelligence tools to test assumptions and identify possible routing alternatives. A team facing expensive air freight, for example, might be able to ship to a different city and move the product by road for part of the journey. Heizer cautioned that the usefulness of an AI platform depends heavily on the information entered, and said she uses multiple platforms rather than relying on a single tool.
“What you feed into it is what you’re going to get out of it,” she said.
Warehousing as Schedule Protection
Comeaux said warehousing is sometimes viewed by owners as an expensive line item that could be reduced or used as contingency elsewhere in the budget. Used strategically, however, it can reduce risk and protect the construction schedule. A warehouse allows products to arrive before they are needed on site, be staged for installation and be inspected for damage while the team still has time to respond.
“You’re seeing those damages earlier, which means you can handle them earlier, so it’s not impacting your schedule,” Comeaux said. “And in my opinion, schedule snafu can be a bigger price impact than even the cost of an item.”
Heizer said sequencing helps teams decide which shipments need expedited service, which can remain on a slower route and whether an item should be manufactured domestically. Fabric delays remain a recurring issue, she said, making it important to understand how individual containers and product categories fit into the installation schedule. Those decisions, she said, should be made in the context of the full project schedule rather than product by product.
Focus on Value Before Cutting Costs
When budgets tighten, Williams said the instinct to cut across the board is the wrong one. The better starting point is a conversation with the owner and design team about what actually matters to the project, the brand, the guest experience. “And once we understand the priorities,” she said, “then we can strategize on where to save,” whether that’s value-engineering low-visibility items or consolidating freight.
The same tradeoffs should be presented clearly when supply chain disruptions threaten a project deadline, Heizer said.
“If I stick with this product or this manufacturer, this will impact your schedule,” she said. “Or if I go to this one, this one’s going to impact your budget.”
Sometimes the fix isn’t the product at all but the sequence of work, she said. If restaurant banquettes are delayed, for example, crews may be able to shift to the fitness center or meeting rooms until the product arrives. Heizer said schedule concerns can outweigh individual budget decisions when a delay affects brand funding, investor expectations or the timing of revenue generation.
Treat Procurement as a Project Partner
Williams said the recurring failure point on projects is procurement getting looped in after the major decisions are already made, rather than treated as a strategic partner from the start. She described her role as sitting at the center of a Venn diagram connecting the owner, design team, manufacturers, freight partners, warehouses and installers — proximity that only pays off, she said, if the communication stays proactive.
“We’re right at the center of that, and that is key in keeping projects on track and also with very proactive communication,” Williams said.
Heizer said expediting reports should support active decision-making rather than merely document delays. Her team has added financial information to those reports to verify that vendors have been paid and prevent relatively small outstanding amounts from holding up orders.
“Not just reporting the delays like we discussed earlier, but being proactive in discussing options, then the owners and everybody can decide how to resequence projects,” Heizer said.
Learn from the Data
Comeaux said procurement teams generate plenty of data, such as budget-to-actual comparisons, freight estimates versus real costs, how long a vendor actually took to deliver after payment and shop-drawing approval. But most of it never gets revisited. “A trend for us, at least, is not just collecting your data, but going back and looking at it,” she said.
That review can include budget-to-actual comparisons, estimated and actual freight expenses and the length of time a supplier really took to deliver after payment and shop drawings.
“Who actually goes back and looks at this? ‘Vendor told me 12 weeks,’ ” Comeaux said. “How long did it truly take to get there after your payment and after your shops?”
Comeaux said InterMountain uses procurement software, spreadsheets and internal historical data rather than a dedicated analysis platform.
Heizer encouraged teams to document case studies soon after project completion, while vendor performance, cost-per-key figures and other details remain readily available.
“You know which vendors you used, how much the per-key cost,” she said. “So, if you have a moment to just stop right there and document case studies, that helps also with business development.”
Heizer also described bringing manufacturers into calls with designers and owners before specifications are finalized, a process that resembles a pre-bid meeting and gives vendors the same information about acceptable materials, budget limits and possible alternates.
“That way, the vendors are bidding on the same thing,” she said. “They’re not interpreting it different. They know what a designer is willing to accept for an alternate material, right?”
The approach can help teams obtain rough order-of-magnitude estimates earlier and shorten the turnaround time for final quotes and bid analysis, she said.
Realistic Budgets and Early Involvement
Asked for one piece of advice to owners and project teams, all three panelists came back to timing.
Comeaux emphasized early collaboration. “I would ask that owners bring in all of your disciplines and as early as possible,” she said. “We have design, procurement and project management all in house, and we all bring something to the table.”
Williams also called for procurement to be involved from the beginning.
“That is something that I’m a firm believer in,” she said.
Heizer made a recommendation that drew applause from the audience.
“I would ask owners to be realistic with the budgets,” she said.
She said changes in sourcing markets and procurement conditions have made it difficult to deliver durable products for long-term use when project budgets do not reflect current costs.
Using AI to Reduce Repetitive Work
The panel later discussed how artificial intelligence is entering procurement workflows. Comeaux said she has used AI to close small knowledge gaps without waiting on a designer or vendor. She offered the example of pasting a photo of a sofa into an AI tool to estimate how much fabric it would take. “Don’t be scared of the information that you don’t know. Figure it out.”
Heizer said her company has five staff members working on AI initiatives across its businesses. One application, described as an RFP or specification slicer, can separate specification PDFs into individual sections within minutes.
“We’re trying to take every step of our process and see where AI can be added,” she said.
Williams said Vida Design is trying to connect its procurement and accounting systems so staff stop entering the same financial data twice — a change aimed less at speed than at cutting the errors that come with duplicate manual entry.
Start Earlier Than Expected
Closing the session, Adent asked what operators should change in the next 12 months. Comeaux’s answer was planning, repeated for emphasis: Get design and procurement in the same room early on. “I want you to have the most beautiful hotel that you can have. I just want it to also be the best value, not necessarily the cheapest.”
Heizer said operators and on-property staff need to be at the table before plans are finished. She cited a ground-up project that had to be replanned and repriced after the operator decided, late, that the market needed more double-queen rooms.
Williams said operator input also settles disputes over what counts as FF&E versus operating supplies and equipment, heading off late surprises over who’s responsible for items like mattresses. Her advice for renovation work in particular: “You almost can’t start soon enough.”
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Jacqui Barrineau is editor at Hotel Interactive, an online trade publication covering developments, trends and thought leaders in the hospitality industry through curated news stories, contributed guest columns and event recaps developed from AI-assisted transcripts, which are manually reviewed and edited for accuracy, clarity and context.
