5 Ways to Supercharge Your Business With AI-Powered Supply Chains

The rapid evolution of AI has caught the attention of businesses across industries. As they now look to deploy AI in specific use cases, many of their operational functions are set to witness significant changes. These include supply chain operations, which are likely to be simplified.

You may ask how, given that supply chains are becoming increasingly intricate and beset with issues across the world.

To understand this, you need to look at some of AI’s new-age capabilities.

By pulling data from multiple sources in real time, discovering market conditions and trends, identifying potential disruptions and suggesting proactive action, AI can take supply chain management to the next level. Of course, all these capabilities are in addition to automating routine operations, many of which are currently performed by humans.

In fact, AI-powered tools and platforms are already playing a crucial role in cutting costs, optimizing inventories, and streamlining operations – continually contributing to more resilient supply chains.

Here are five ways AI can transform supply chains in the coming years and accelerate business growth.

1. Enhanced Disruption Management

Supply chains used to be easily thrown off track by unexpected events. Traditionally, things like floods, unreliable suppliers, or unexpected customer demand spikes could cause big problems. Now, AI can help navigate these disruptions. In addition to that, AI gives companies a clear view of their entire supply chain in real-time, and even predicts what might happen next.

AI can also assess a wealth of different data sources including historical precedents, weather forecasts, economic indicators and social media trends, and learn how to predict impending upheavals. Machine learning can help you anticipate delivery delays because of bad weather, or potential problems with a supplier by analyzing patterns in their past behavior.

AI permits better use of proactive response strategies. For instance, using AI-generated insights, supply chain managers can shift inventory levels, revise or re-route shipments, or identify and negotiate for alternative suppliers as the need arises. Doing so helps to keep disruptions at bay and minimizes the possibility of congestion, slowdowns and excessive costs that usually come with downtime or emergency logistics support.

2. Hyper-Accurate Demand Forecasting

AI-based demand forecasting is light years ahead of most standard approaches that rely on historical data and simple descriptive statistical models like moving averages and time series. AI relies on big data combined with advanced analytics that crunch multiple datasets, such as customer behaviors, market dynamics, pricing promotions and macroeconomic factors.

Where static forecasting models are just that – static, AI is a dynamic engine, continuously learning from new inputs and adjusting its predictions on the fly. This makes AI useful for companies as it can reliably forecast more granular demand shifts and adjust stock levels accordingly to avoid stockouts or overstock issues. AI systems can even react to sudden changes in consumer tastes or other high-profile events that could upset the existing forecast.

Furthermore, AI facilitates scenario planning by simulating various demand scenarios and their potential impacts on supply chain operations. This strategic AI-led capability helps businesses anticipate risks, decide where to focus their resources and stay resilient in a constantly changing marketplace.

3. Greater Automation

AI-enhanced automation is now ushering in a new era, as autonomous systems utilizing AI algorithms make their way into warehouses, distribution centers and transportation networks that are increasingly automated. Robots and machines, including autonomous vehicles, can carry out a diverse range of tasks – sorting, picking, packing and even delivery.

This automation can serve to shorten order fulfillment timelines, increase the accuracy and thoroughness of order fulfillment, reduce costs of labor, and improve the overall operation of the supply chain. For example, AI-powered robots can optimize the layout of a warehouse, analyze inventory management, and reduce inaccuracies and mistakes in how products are picked and packaged; autonomous vehicles with AI can enact complex transportation routes, improve fuel consumption and delivery timelines, reduce transport costs and improve customer satisfaction in the process.

Additionally, by tracking equipment or machinery performance in real-time and forecasting potential failures, AI can aid predictive maintenance, minimizing downtime, maximizing asset utilization, and lowering the cost of equipment maintenance for supply chain operations. Predictive maintenance not only helps to prevent unplanned supply disruptions but can also keep the supply chain working seamlessly, while improving reliability across the network.

4. Sustainable and Ethical Practices

AI is a critical driver of more sustainable and ethical supply chains as consumers and governments seek to hold corporations accountable through increasing transparency and disclosure. AI facilitates the adoption of sustainable sourcing strategies and compliance with ethical standards.

AI-powered analytics can optimize logistics activities to reduce the carbon footprint and environmental impact. By analyzing transport routes, fuel consumption patterns and delivery times, AI can identify opportunities for efficiency and carbon footprint improvements. For example, AI may suggest more environmentally friendly transport alternatives, optimize packaging materials and promote energy-efficient processes.

5. Transparency and Trust

Emerging AI-driven initiatives on supply chain transparency are using information about the manufacturing process, product origins and labor standards to radically transform company reputation-building and stakeholder relations. Blockchains and other new technologies both enhance supply chain transparency and contribute to trust.

Secure traceability of every transaction and movement throughout the entire supply chain is guaranteed via blockchain-enabled transparency. In doing so, it will enable stakeholders to manage their supply chains in real-time and ensure compliance with regulatory standards.

AI-based analytics empowers firms to track supply chain activities in real-time and provide regular reports to managers. Information made available by AI systems can be applied to key business operations such as to reduce safety inventories, customize production to a customer’s requirements, or predict supplier defaults. AI-driven analytics not only builds corporate abilities to make decisions fast but also synergizes operational trends to enhance efficiency. Furthermore, this approach helps build positive relationships with suppliers and customers by establishing the quality of goods and compliance with the performance by examining the supply chain in detail.

To Sum Up

AI can transform how supply chains are coordinated and managed, rather than just bringing about operational efficiencies. It can help achieve sustainability, resilience, social responsibility and operational resilience of supply chains, and ultimately improve stakeholder trust. As mainstream AI technologies continue to develop and corporatize, they’ll become an inevitable part of supply chain management in the future.

Explore GEP’s AI-driven supply chain solutions.