Hwy Haul uses a digital platform to match shipments with truckers. As Director of Supply Chain, Syed Aman spent several years making sure when produce reached Walmart WMT stores, it wasn't rotten. Now, as CEO and co-founder of Hwy Haul, he's using what he learned to give other supermarkets the same insurance, because it's not just a few bad apples spoiling the whole bunch. "Produce spends half its life in the supply chain and more than $15 billion is wasted or rejected in transit every year," said Aman. "On average 14% of the produce shipments get rejected." The lingering Covid-19 pandemic has only exacerbated the problem with supply chain disruptions and strict packaging requirements by top retailers such as Walmart and Target TGT adding to the complexity of getting fruit and vegetables from farm to produce shelves while still fresh, Aman said.

Due to accessible big data collections from consumers, products, and stores, advanced sales forecasting capabilities have drawn great attention from many companies especially in the retail business because of its importance in decision making. Improvement of the forecasting accuracy, even by a small percentage, may have a substantial impact on companies' production and financial planning, marketing strategies, inventory controls, supply chain management, and eventually stock prices. Specifically, our research goal is to forecast the sales of each product in each store in the near future. Motivated by tensor factorization methodologies for personalized context-aware recommender systems, we propose a novel approach called the Advanced Temporal Latent-factor Approach to Sales forecasting (ATLAS), which achieves accurate and individualized prediction for sales by building a single tensor-factorization model across multiple stores and products. Our contribution is a combination of: tensor framework (to leverage information across stores and products), a new regularization function (to incorporate demand dynamics), and extrapolation of tensor into future time periods using state-of-the-art statistical (seasonal auto-regressive integrated moving-average models) and machine-learning (recurrent neural networks) models. The advantages of ATLAS are demonstrated on eight product category datasets collected by the Information Resource, Inc., where a total of 165 million weekly sales transactions from more than 1,500 grocery stores over 15,560 products are analyzed.

This eufy vac is insanely discounted right now. Purchases you make through our links may earn us a commission. In the age of smart home technology, robot vacuums are a must. These little devices roam around your home, sweeping and suctioning up dirt, pet hair and grime from your floors, all while you work, run errands or relax. These best-selling machines don't typically come cheap, but thanks to Walmart's current Black Friday 2020 sale, you can get a popular eufy robot vacuum for less than $100.

Many of us have already encountered artificial intelligence (AI) in product searches, online shopping processes, and out-of-home advertising. It seems to offer unlimited potential, from AI-powered automated content to predictive targeting and personalized product recommendations in real-time. AI's capability to collect and analyses vast quantities of data in record time is also a big advantage in marketing. AI is already providing guidance at many touchpoints along the customer journey with personalized content, product recommendations, and dialogue with virtual assistants such as Hallo Magenta, Amazon Alexa, or the Google Assistant. The latter uses RankBrain, a machine learning-based search engine algorithm, to increase search result precision.

As the pandemic raged on, enterprises of all scales rushed to accelerate their digital transformation efforts for maintaining business continuity. The retail sector also didn't escape unscathed and had to take a flurry of measures to remain operational amidst rising discretionary spending by consumers. The crisis has pushed the retail organizations to take pivotal digital decisions instantly to achieve tangible business results. One of the technologies that has garnered much attention in these tricky times is Artificial Intelligence (AI). The technology enables organizations to make well-informed data-driven decisions and predict the possible outcome of those decisions.

Amazon unofficially kicked things off on Prime Day last month, and now we're starting to see a number of early Black Friday deals pop up at other retailers. Walmart will actually have a couple of rounds of deals going live on its website and in its stores this month, and the first rolled out online tonight at 7pm ET. We sifted through the list and found the best tech deals you can get right now. This is a new all-time-low price for Apple's standard AirPods with wired charging case. The previous low came last month during Amazon Prime Day when these earbuds dropped to $115.

Disruptive technology like artificial intelligence (AI) is definitely leaving an indelible mark amid a COVID-19 pandemic where social distancing measures are forcing more reliance on tech. The same can be said in the retail sector and as more consumers head online to do their shopping the retail industry is deploying AI to enhance the experience. "Since the coronavirus outbreak, online retailers like Wayfair, Etsy Inc. and Pinterest Inc. are ratcheting up efforts to leverage data from a surge in e-commerce to get better at helping customers find what they are looking for--even when they don't know what that is," a Wall Street Journal article noted. "To do that, these Web-only stores are supercharging search-and-recommendation engines by feeding data into sophisticated algorithms, building predictive models with a level of accuracy unimaginable just a few years ago." "Not all of the capabilities are new--algorithms have been around for decades," the article added.

Coupa Software (NASDAQ: COUP), a leader in Business Spend Management (BSM), announced that it has acquired LLamasoft, a leader in AI-powered supply chain design and planning for a purchase price of approximately $1.5 billion. Based in Ann Arbor, Mich., LLamasoft's technology is used by hundreds of enterprise customers, including brands such as Boeing, Danone S.A., Home Depot, and Nestle. The acquisition will strengthen Coupa's supply chain capabilities, enabling businesses to drive greater value through Business Spend Management. The events of this year continue to demonstrate the importance of supply chain agility, as companies work to more rapidly adapt to changing consumer preferences, economic conditions, and the political landscape. With demand uncertainty on one hand and supply volatility on the other, companies are in need of supply chain technology that can help them assess alternatives and balance trade-offs to achieve desired business results.

You'll find some serious steals in this sale. Purchases you make through our links may earn us a commission. Black Friday doesn't officially begin until November 27, but already, plenty of retailers are serving up their best deals of the season, allowing for a full-on shopping bonanza all month long. QVC, for one, just dropped a massive Black Friday 2020 preview sale, with huge savings and free shipping across all categories, including electronics, beauty, kitchen, home, shoes, jewelry and more. Through November 8, QVC shoppers can enjoy savings of more than 30% on a ton of tried-and-true brands and items, with free shipping and handling on all applicable items.

Snag some of our favorite robot vacuums along with other customer-loved models at Best Buy. Purchases you make through our links may earn us a commission. Ready or not, Black Friday is here! Well… maybe not officially, but customer-loved retailers such as Best Buy have already kicked off their first and second rounds of Turkey Day-themed savings that you're not going to want to miss. The electronics hotspot is currently offering tons of discounts on everything from small home appliances to Reviewed-approved headphones and speakers, but some of the most exciting price drops on the site have come on iRobot's famous Roomba vacuums.