Companies Improve Their Supply Chains With Artificial Intelligence

Many large enterprises use one form or another of a supply chain application to help manage their supply chains. Supply chain vendors have been touting their investments in artificial intelligence (AI) for the last several years. Alex Pradhan, Product Strategy Leader John Galt Solutions, told me that "all planning vendors have bold marketing around AI." But the trick is to find suppliers with "field-proven AI/ML algorithms" that "have been delivered at scale." Further, while artificial intelligence helps solve certain types of problems, Jay Muelhoefer - the chief marketing officer at Kinaxis pointed out - optimization and heuristics work better for other types of planning problems. This article, which is focused on the different types of artificial intelligence used and the types of problems they are solving, is aimed at helping practitioners cut through the hype.