3 Ways AI & ML Are Transforming Supply Chain Planning

Arthur C. Clarke made a point when he stated that beyond a certain point, technology becomes indistinguishable from magic.

AI/ML technology use and adoption in supply chain planning are still in their infancy. However, the promises of such innovative technology are already beyond the wildest dreams of many planners who still work in outdated applications or excel spreadsheets.

There is no debate that artificial intelligence and machine learning provide powerful solutions to address planning challenges. Several cases demonstrate the positive impact.

The challenge is to scale up, develop a large enough expert's pool to accelerate the learning curve for all of us and increase our collective expertise in this field.

Many used cases show great promise. Below are the three main ones we see gaining momentum in the supply chain space:

1. AI/ML Forecasting

Forecasts used to be based on statistical time series. The techniques and applied math focused on cleansing past sales history to determine events and correlations that might drive a deviation of the future sales from history.

Former GE exec Ian Wilson has a point when he stated, "No amount of sophistication is going to allay the fact that all of your knowledge is about the past…