For those who frequently attend ProMat or MODEX, you know there is serious buzz and momentum around Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based solutions. The sheer volume of options for crafting your ideal tech stack has never been more exciting and overwhelming. More supply chain AI solutions are being deployed every day.
We live in one of the richest innovation environments our profession has ever experienced. The trade-off for that selection is that knowing what AI investments are right for the business can be difficult.
AI is a prime example of an incredible amount of promise coupled with a lot of confusion and hesitancy about how it will be deployed.
- What are the AI use cases for supply chain solutions?
- Where is the best place to deploy AI?
- How do you differentiate between buzzy and real?
Deposco wanted to know too!
Recently, we completed a product roadmap review with a selection of our customer base, and I gained some interesting insights into their view of AI from the session.
Deposco’s customers are investing in AI!
It starts with curiosity, asking questions, and thinking about how AI is going to make your facility and teams better.
68% of our customers were interested in how AI would fit into their future supply chain solution plans. Despite all the efforts to get the public excited, there is some confusion about what AI is, what it does, and even how it applies in the supply chain space.
Within that, a solid third of Deposco users see AI supply chain solutions as an integral or beneficial deployment, meaning operations professionals are ready to adopt it when it is right.
Explore what each role desires out of AI: Executives, Operations, and IT/Security.
Knowledge and education are always the first steps in embracing emerging supply chain solutions, especially when a technology like AI is so different from the advancements of previous supply chain software generations.
The last third likely represents two themes, either:
- The customers serve sectors with lower complexity or low rates of innovation and change or
- The use case they are looking for is underdeveloped or underwhelming – for now.
Deposco doesn’t see this as disillusionment; it’s simply uncertainty about where AI fits into their supply chain’s strategic plan.
What do supply chains need from AI?
While our users are curious about AI but still have some uncertainty, they know what they need for growth.
Proactive Intelligence
Our customers are looking for better supply chain data analytics and reporting. Either they need better “what happened and root cause?” KPIs, or they need better “where am I going, and how do I get there?” prescriptions.
Actionable intelligence
The core theme is clear: 74% of surveyed users need more “personal intelligence,” – and they need automation around creating and delivering it. One of the biggest challenges for managers and team leads is timely and accessible supply chain intelligence that can be actioned.
Competitive intelligence
The remainder can be neatly summed up as “competitive intelligence.” Either they need better information about their industry vertical and competitors, or they want benchmarking against other Deposco tenants.
The best implementations are embedded labor management gamification that challenges your teams to beat the average – whether around performance gaps, bottlenecks, order accuracy, warehouse space, labor, or time.
Growth requires identifying the best supply chain metrics for your business and having tailored tools that ensure these KPIs are always optimized.
Investments in supply chain AI continue
While the focus on what our customers need is intelligence, they are starting with investing in their teams and automating supply chain processes. It is worth noting that this is different than mechanical automation, which I’ll talk about next. These are systems and digital skills.
The two main things comprised 61% of the responders. That’s a pretty strong message to dig into.
Digital upskilling
Staff investment continues to be a strong theme for the year. Either to reinvest in the workforce, maintain morale, or prepare for tomorrow’s challenges, facilities live and die on their people. Making sure that your workers are ready for the tools that are coming will be essential. Especially in the third-party logistics (3PL) space, this covers the entire journey of team building from recruiting to retention.
AI-based decision-making
In the same vein, you can make your people happier with their work by removing unimportant decisions. Supply chain AI solutions and other regression tools are ideal for streamlining work processes.
Does rate shopping benefit from a person selecting it, or can the software produce the answer? Do you decide how your wave should be worked, or can rules manage that for you? Throughput increases significantly by providing instruction over options.
SCP: the chicken and the egg
The lower scoring on planning software and advanced analytics should not be seen as a lack of value but a lack of priority. If you don’t address the people and process foundations first, you add tasks and complexity to overwhelmed people.
Conversely, the investment might already have been made there, and now the people and process need to catch up. Each customer’s scenario will be different, but this looks like a chicken-and-egg result – the immediate focus is on the results.
Only 16% didn’t have immediate plans, and – similar to before – this is likely a sign of predictability in specific industries and use cases over a lack of investment or disbelief in its value.
Wrap-up
The rate of ecommerce growth is not sparing the logistics space, either owned or third-party, and the industry is definitely not adding operators as fast as consumer demand is growing.
Are you aware that you need to make some changes but feel overwhelmed? Don’t buy an expensive AI supply chain solution just to buy it. Or go in without the WMS foundation to support it.
