How AI/ML Are The Keys To A Resilient Supply Chain Future

By Mahesh Veerina, CEO, ParkourSC

Heading into 2024, I am excited about our supply chain industry. The industry faced significant challenges during the pandemic, but we overcame them and remained resilient. Today, we are in a great position to learn and thrive from that period, and advances like AI/ML will help us move faster and make better decisions. 

Our customers transformed their supply chain operations using AI/ML within 6 weeks and have experienced increased ROI of up to 20X. Now, they deliver sustainable business outcomes by making decisions quickly with improved end-to-end visibility and real-time data.

We participated at The Gartner Supply Chain Planning Summit in Phoenix last week, where the theme was all about how “Tomorrow’s resilience is built today.” . We enjoyed speaking with many businesses looking to modernize their supply chain operations with AI/ML. These conversations energize us, and we’re looking forward to partnering with many more forward-thinking organizations that want to transform with the power of AI/ML. 

We’d also like to thank our customer speaker, Ronald Odio, Executive Director of Supply Chain Operations Transformation and Performance Analytics at Organon, who spoke about how the company saved costs and lowered risk by digitizing its supply chain process in just 6 weeks. 

How Real-Time Intelligence Saves Costs For Organon

As a leader in healthcare therapeutics for women across 135 countries, Organon needed to connect their disparate systems to visualize the flow and spending patterns better to optimize costs. The company worked with ParkourSC to pull data from all these disconnected systems and carriers to see the flow and spending patterns to optimize lanes, routes, and carriers to reduce expedited shipments and fees. This all-in-one view allowed Organon to lower shipment costs dramatically.

In addition to adding logistics information to ParkourSC, they also added product data and quality monitoring to their packages and shipments. With ParkourSC, they could see each lot, shipment, or package, its location, temperature, dwell time, and other product-related factors like manufacture date, product facility, or other lot characteristics in our platform. 

This complete visibility enabled them to find and ship by FIFO to prevent spoilage and immediately act on any potential temperature excursion to save the lot or shipment. A connected and fully digitized supply chain allowed Organon to easily monitor their products from production to final destination to ensure quality. 

Our partnership with Organon enabled them to optimize inventory allocation, production planning, packaging sequences, rhythm wheel for transportation, and product allocation. This helped reduce IQV (Inventory of Questionable Value) risk, improve OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness), and improve gross margins across 80% of stable SKUs.

Mark Talens, AVP of Supply Chain Operations at Organon, said: “We want to drive optimal Gross Margin in 80% of stable SKUs using the Digital Decision Engine. We want to differentiate ourselves with the limited resources we have.  We see fast benefits with ParkourSC in our portfolio.” 

Before transforming their supply chain operations, Organon – as with many other companies across industries like pharma, CPG, retail, and logistics, couldn’t exceed customer expectations because of legacy supply chain technologies. 

While traditional ERP systems were great at delivering annual, quarterly, or even monthly planning data, customers expect your products immediately today. Modern businesses are agile, making decisions based on real-time data across their operations and delighting customers with excellent CX. With AI/ML, larger companies can be as agile as startups.

ParkourSC Decision Intelligence Platform: Driven By AI/ML For Agile Decision Making

What does AI/ML mean in supply chain operations in practice? Let’s imagine that an energy drinks manufacturer has launched 5 new flavors. Sales are steady as curious customers try the new flavors, but no revenue spikes exist. Suddenly, a TikTok influencer drops a viral video featuring one of the flavors, and the drink starts to fly off the shelves.  

A manufacturer with a legacy supply chain operation couldn’t easily monitor or anticipate this sudden spike of a single SKU. Still, an operation based on AI/ML can react to or even predict these events and make quick decisions to ensure production and shipments of the popular flavor are ramped up and delivered to the right retailers. 

The ParkourSC Decision Intelligence bridges real-world operations, enabling businesses to make informed decisions quickly based on end-to-end data from sensors, packages, carriers, planes, context, risk, and crowd. The platform helps companies make informed decisions based on real-time manufacturing, logistics, and inventory management data. 

We’re excited about the future of supply chain operations and can’t wait to show you these new advances. We’ll be happy to hear from you and answer your questions. Let’s build tomorrow’s resilient supply chain operations together!