Supply chain professionals face very diverse challenges in their supply chains. These challenges vary across business industry, activity and department. The purpose of this qualitative research project was to explore what are the real challenges that a few manufacturing firms face in their daily activities, in different areas and departments. The project is based in six interviews made to supply chain professionals in six different manufacturing firms in the Chicago area. These interviews led to three main themes: supply chain challenges that these individuals are facing in their day-to-day activities, performance measurement of such activities and the concepts of flexibility and agility in their supply chains. The results show that the challenges predicted by the academics are very close to the ones mentioned by the interviewees, that these challenges vary across industry, department and business strategy, and that there is a different understanding of the concept of agility and flexibility among the different supply chains.