Here’s how autonomous supply chain planning helps businesses make faster and more informed decisions than ever before.
Supply chain data may be readily available, but there is no guarantee it can help your business. Consider the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on supply chain planning. We’ve seen many businesses forced to temporarily shut down; other companies have needed to shift their operations on the fly from selling products in brick-and-mortar stores to selling them online.
Businesses have faced many other supply chain planning challenges caused by the disruption of the pandemic. Most companies can no longer rely on historical data to predict demand and inform supply chain forecasting. Instead, they struggle to keep pace with customer demand or have too much inventory at their disposal. And in either scenario, poor supply chain planning hurts their bottom line.
Businesses are increasingly reviewing and revamping their supply chain planning capabilities, and autonomous supply chain planning is one such capability that helps yield maximum value from supply chain data.
Here’s What You Need to Know
Autonomous supply chain planning leverages advanced technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI). It supports the evaluation of millions of data points and the generation of insights from them. Your business will gain a better understanding of historical and current supply and demand to determine the best course of action to keep pace with customer requests, regardless of market conditions.
Autonomous planning for the supply chain ensures your company can accurately forecast how myriad conditions may affect its operations. For example, it can forecast what would happen to the supply chain if its operations came to a sudden halt. This allows you to plan for worst-case scenarios and limit their impact.
These solutions can provide time and cost savings as well, since you can use autonomous supply chain planning to identify performance issues in their early stages. Plus, your business can produce reports to track supply chain performance over time and find ways to enhance supply chain operations and keep the costs associated with them as low as possible.
How to Use Autonomous Planning to Adapt to the “New Normal”
The pandemic continues to affect supply chain businesses all over the world, but companies that look beyond traditional supply chain planning solutions may find an autonomous option that serves them well as they adapt to the “new normal” of the pandemic.
To get started with autonomous planning for your supply chain, first look at how you use data. There is no shortage of supply chain data available, but to maximize the value of this information, that data must be stored, organized, and managed properly.
Using an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system can be beneficial for data management. However, setting up and maintaining the system can be problematic. It can take months to implement an ERP system across a business. After the system is in place, if your business does not allocate sufficient time, energy, and resources to maintaining it, data management issues can start to appear. When left unaddressed, these issues affect the integrity of data to the point where it becomes too difficult to get the insights you need to make fast, informed supply chain decisions.
For autonomous planning, consider looking beyond a traditional ERP to a dedicated supply chain planning platform. Your business should prioritize a solution that provides a one-stop-shop for high-quality data and insights, is easy to manage, and won’t require lengthy or expensive implementation processes.
Find the Right Autonomous Supply Chain Planning Solution for your Business
An ERP system alone is insufficient for companies that want autonomous supply chain planning. Your business needs a solution that allows it to track data and perform predictive analysis. The solution should also produce forecasts and reports, so you can avoid product shortages and overstock.
Autonomous planning solutions are evolving, and new options could help your business take its supply chain operations to new heights.
Logility offers a digital supply chain platform designed to help businesses capitalize on autonomous supply chain planning. Our platform lets companies track changing market dynamics, so they can keep their supply chain operations up to date.
