AI Opens New Frontier in Supply Chain Planning

Some of the steep challenges supply chain managers face in forecasting upcoming demand date back to COVID. The pandemic threw a wrench into conventional forecasting, complicating and altering expected consumer behavior with shutdowns, inflation, and other shocks. As a result, companies overbought, resulting in swollen inventories. This proved costly for business and for society more broadly. Writing for Supply Chain Drive, Ben Unglesbee explains that many companies migrated to artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning solutions to develop alternative supply chain management solutions. He offers insight into how and why companies are using these tools and how they might manage expectations.