Artificial Intelligence For The Supply Chain

Are you a supply chain executive, technologist, or academic interested in using AI to make a difference in the supply chain?

Then ai4sc.org is the place for you...

We are a non-profit organization that provides a forum for sharing insights and experiences on the use of AI in the supply chain. We also offer a variety of resources and events to help you learn more about AI and how to use it to make a positive impact.

Our VISION is a world in which AI-powered supply chains are more efficient, sustainable, and equitable.

Our MISSION is to unite supply chain leaders, tech innovators, and academics in transforming supply chain challenges into opportunities through the power of AI

Why Join Us?

Gain exclusive access to cutting edge resources, thought-provoking events, and a network of like-minded professionals.

Our Community

ai4sc.org is a groundbreaking initiative founded in collaboration with the University of Washington's Master of Supply Chain Transportation and Logistics Program and DHAUZ-US, an international leader in AI/ML and advanced analytics. This partnership equips our community with academic rigor and real-world applications.

Who We Are: We're a dynamic community of supply chain experts, tech innovators, and academics committed to leveraging AI for a more efficient and equitable supply chain.

What We Believe: We see AI as a transformative force capable of making supply chains more efficient, sustainable, and equitable.

Why Join Us: Engage in insightful dialogues, access exclusive resources, and collaborate on projects that are shaping the future of supply chains.

Ready to make a difference?

Join our community today

Events

Join us for engaging events that help you share your ideas and experiences.

Executive Roundtables

Engage in high-level discussions with industry pioneers at our exclusive, invitation-only Executive Roundtables. Explore transformative AI applications in supply chain management in a confidential, small-group setting.

Seminars & Fireside Chats

Stay ahead of the curve with our insightful seminars and fireside chats, featuring industry luminaries. Learn about emerging technologies and gain actionable insights.

Express your interest in future Seminars and Fireside Chats

Lunch 'N Learns

Elevate your team's expertise with our tailored Lunch 'N Learns. Choose from a range of topics or let us design a session that addresses your unique challenges. Sessions typically last 40-45 minutes.

Host a Lunch 'N Learn today

Upcoming Events

Fireside Chat: AI & ML for Logistics & Supply Chain Management

Tuesday, October 24, 2023. 12:00pm - 1:00pm Pacific Time (US & Canada

There is growing demand for more resilient supply chain systems with improved visibility and connectivity. Artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and data analytics have emerged as innovative solutions to address challenges and mitigate risks. AI-powered solutions have the potential to enhance the entire supply chain process by proactively identifying issues and providing solutions to manage disruption. They can also optimize operations through smart automation, offering valuable insights and visibility to support effective decision-making and planning. The applications of AI and ML are diverse and there are various effective ways to implement them. Join us for a Fireside Chat discussion on automation and machine learning in supply chain processes. We'll explore topics such as: - The role of generative AI in automating supply chain systems - The impact of advances in demand and supply forecasting on short- and long-term inventory planning - Strategies for experienced logistics and supply chain professionals to stay current with new technology - Preparing early-career professionals to stand out in the job market - The advantages and pitfalls are in early adaption - Understanding how large language models will influence workflows Register: https://bit.ly/AI-ML-Supply-Chain Unable to attend? Register to receive a link to the recording following the event.

Register Now! https://bit.ly/AI-ML-Supply-Chain

Executive Roundtable

Wednesday, January 24, 2024 12:00pm - 1:00pm Pacific Time (US & Canada)

By Invitation Only

Senior supply chain executives will engage in a confidential, virtual peer-to-peer exchange on the impact of AI on their supply chains.

Topics Suggested by Invitees:

How do I determine the AI roadmap for our supply chain?
What functions/applications are the "low hanging fruit"?
How do I leverage AI and what are the tradeoffs?

Meet the Team

Meet The Team

Meet our team of thought leaders and community builders.

Academic Director & Co-Founder

Professor Amelia Regan

Amelia brings her extensive research and academic prowess to our community. With a focus on sustainability and efficiency, she is a guiding force in our academic endeavors. Amelia is director of the University of Washington's Master of Supply Chain Transportation & Logistics Program and teaching professor at the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering. Now emeritus, Regan previously directed University of California, Irvine’s professional master of computer science and the MS and PhD degrees in Transportation. Her extensive career touches on the development of computational methods to improve the efficiency, sustainability, and security of transportation systems. Her research has included warehouse logistics, freight transportation planning, and technology adoption across transportation industries. She has been supported by various sources including the National Science Foundation, Transportation Research Board and J.B. Hunt, and has been published in more than 175 refereed articles. Regan holds a bachelor's systems engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, a master's in applied mathematics from Johns Hopkins University, and a Ph.D. in civil engineering (Transportation Systems) from the University of Texas, Austin.

Technical Director & Co-Founder

Fabio Ferraretto

With over 20 years of experience in business analytics, Fabio is our go-to expert for translating complex supply chain challenges into actionable AI solutions. He has helped solve complex supply chain business challenges for many of the top 100 companies in Latin America. Fabio is on the board of advisors for the UW's SCTL Program. He holds a master's degree in logistics systems engineering and a bachelor's degree in construction engineering, both from the University of São Paulo in Brazil. He is also a certified Lead of Analytics & AI from Northwestern University. Fabio has a proven track record of translating complex business problems into analytical solutions that involve developing critical and scalable AI and analytical models. He is dedicated to bringing cutting-edge data solutions to life and is highly specialized in how companies' decision-making changes by applying analytical intelligence to business scenarios and environments. Fabio developed his professional career at Accenture Latin America, where he started in 2002. In 2010, he was one of the first executives in the Analytics Group. In 2015, he led the Gapso Acquisition on the Accenture side and became the Lead for Advanced Analytics and Data Science in the region. He eventually led Supply Chain Analytics for Growth Markets until 2020. Now he is CEO and Partner of DHAUZ, an AI and Analytics boutique based in Sao Paulo, Brazil that serve some of the top 100 clients in Latin America to transform their decision making processes based on data and AI.

Community Relations Director & Co-Founder

Dan Stull

A seasoned business leader and educator, Dan bridges the gap between academia and industry. His focus on ethical AI governance adds a unique dimension to our community. He is an affiliate professor at the UW’s Master of SCTL Program. He teaches the finance and performance management course. In his doctoral studies, Dan examined how boards of directors can most effectively govern the development and use of AI technologies. He presented his research at a symposium on AI and Controls at Bayes Business School in London. As a fractional COO, Dan leverages his expertise in AI and supply chain management to help businesses achieve their goals. He recently moderated a panel discussion about the legal and ethical issues raised by AI, featuring prominent attorneys and AI entrepreneurs. For 10 years, Dan served as a board member of a large privately-held distribution and logistics business. He has served on numerous for-profit and not-for-profit boards of directors. Dan earned his BA and MBA from the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business.

Resources

We hope to advance knowledge by keeping you up to date on interesting and thought-provoking articles and papers.

Industry Reports

1. AI's role in supply chain management and how organizations can get started (Stühler, 2023)

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2023/08/08/ais-role-in-supply-chain-management-and-how-organizations-can-get-started/?sh=39e20fe745dd

Introduction: The more stable a company is, the more competitive it is—and competitive advantage is gold, especially during times of economic uncertainty. However, maintaining stability is becoming harder than ever, as many supply chain issues threaten companies' resilience throughout 2023 and beyond. Businesses everywhere need to take steps today to proactively mitigate these situations to ensure that they stay resilient and keep their competitive advantage, both now and in the future. According to a Gartner, Inc. survey, 61% of respondents said that technology is a source of competitive advantage. Technology—especially investments in enterprise data and generative AI tools—remains a strategic imperative for procurement and supply chain organizations. The right technology infrastructure can help companies stay agile, accelerate their response times, improve decision making and optimize their operations to drive stability and resilience. Companies that haven't changed their approach or upped their investments in technology since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic will be at a huge disadvantage heading into a potential recession.

2. Autonomous supply chain planning for consumer goods companies, (Alicke et al., 2022)

https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/operations/our-insights/autonomous-supply-chain-planning-for-consumer-goods-companies

Introduction: To capitalize on analytics, consumer packaged goods organizations—especially in Asia—can build an integrated system with the power to oversee and control the entire supply chain from end to end. AI and machine learning hold the potential to dramatically improve supply chain performance for consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies. Yet most companies are limited by their approach thus far: investing in a collection of point solutions that work well for individual processes but don’t talk to each other or integrate data. The problem with this approach is that it still requires COOs and ops teams to be directly involved in decision making and oversight in order to manage the junction points and interdependencies among individual applications. Most Popular Insights The economic potential of generative AI: The next productivity frontier Some employees are destroying value. Others are building it. Do you know the difference? The state of AI in 2023: Generative AI’s breakout year Gen AI in high gear: Mercedes-Benz leverages the power of ChatGPT Investors want to hear from companies about the value of sustainability To capitalize on the true potential from analytics, a better approach is for CPG companies to integrate the entire end-to-end supply chain so that they can run the majority of processes and decisions through real-time, autonomous planning. Forecast changes in demand can be automatically factored into all processes and decisions along the chain, back to inventory, production planning and scheduling, and raw-material procurement. The experiences of a few major CPG companies show that autonomous supply chain planning can lead to an increase in revenue of up to 4 percent, a reduction in inventory of up to 20 percent, and a decrease in supply chain costs of up to 10 percent. But capturing these benefits is a journey, not a one-time transaction, and it entails thinking beyond technology to include process redesign, talent, performance management, and other aspects of operations.

Blog Posts & Articles

1. How Artificial Intelligence is Revolutionizing Supply Chain Management (Patel, 2023)

https://www.computer.org/publications/tech-news/trends/ai-revolutionizing-supply-chain

Introduction: To remain competitive and succeed in today’s global marketplace, companies need to run their organizations like a fine-tuned engine to sustain growth. With that in mind, businesses that use transformative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are well-positioned to conquer challenges and better manage their supply chains while improving costs and enhancing efficiency, operations, performance, and the customer experience. One of the most critical ways AI revolutionizes supply chain management is through predictive analytics. AI can accurately predict future demand by analyzing data, allowing companies to optimize inventory levels, streamline supply chain processes, and reduce the risk of stockouts or overstocking. This type of supply chain automation is only possible with AI.

2. Unlocking the Value of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Supply Chains and Logistics (Jacobs, 2023)

https://throughput.world/blog/ai-in-supply-chain-and-logistics/

Introduction: Speed in decision-making. Speed in reducing cycle-times. Speed in operations. And, speed in continuous improvement. The use of Artificial Intelligence in the supply chain is here to stay and will make huge waves in the years to come. According to Gartner, supply chain organizations expect the level of machine automation in their supply chain processes to double in the next five years. At the same time, global spending on IIoT Platforms is predicted to grow from $1.67B in 2018 to $12.44B in 2024, attaining a 40% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in seven years. In today’s connected digital world, maximizing productivity by reducing uncertainties is the top priority across industries. Plus, mounting expectations of supersonic speed and operational efficiencies further underscore the need to leverage the prowess of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in supply chains and logistics.

3. Top 20 AI Applications in Supply Chain (Inbound Logistics, 2023)

https://www.inboundlogistics.com/articles/top-20-ai-applications-in-the-supply-chain/

Introduction: For small to mid-sized businesses and global corporations alike, artificial intelligence (AI) has far-ranging supply chain applications. AI-enabled solutions can ingest vast reserves of supply chain data, spot patterns, and generate human-sounding advice. And they can learn on the job—integrating with other technologies to sharpen their capabilities over time.

4. How AI Can Revolutionize Our Broken Supply Chain (Monarch, 2023)

https://www.entrepreneur.com/science-technology/how-ai-can-revolutionize-our-broken-supply-chain/450789#:~:text=The%20pandemic%20brought%20to%20light,freight%20pricing%20and%20port%20operations.

Introduction: The Covid-19 pandemic sent shockwaves through the global supply chain, exposing vulnerabilities and inefficiencies that were previously hidden. From inventory mismanagement to port backlogs, the pandemic magnified a myriad of issues that challenged even the most robust supply chains. As businesses search for innovative solutions to address these problems, Artificial Intelligence (AI) stands out as a powerful ally. We explore how AI-driven predictive analytics can support and enhance experienced human decision-making in the face of evolving global supply chain dynamics.

Academic Research Papers

1. Artificial intelligence and bid data analytics for supply chain resilience: a systematic literature review (Zamani et al., 2022)

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10479-022-04983-y

Abstract: Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data Analytics (BDA) have the potential to significantly improve resilience of supply chains and to facilitate more effective management of supply chain resources. Despite such potential benefits and the increase in popularity of AI and BDA in the context of supply chains, research to date is dispersed into research streams that is largely based on the publication outlet. We curate and synthesise this dispersed knowledge by conducting a systematic literature review of AI and BDA research in supply chain resilience that have been published in the Chartered Association of Business School (CABS) ranked journals between 2011 and 2021. The search strategy resulted in 522 studies, of which 23 were identified as primary papers relevant to this research. The findings advance knowledge by (i) assessing the current state of AI and BDA in supply chain literature, (ii) identifying the phases of supply chain resilience (readiness, response, recovery, adaptability) that AI and BDA have been reported to improve, and (iii) synthesising the reported benefits of AI and BDA in the context of supply chain resilience.

2. Machine learning demand forecasting and supply chain performance (Felzabadl, J., 2022)

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13675567.2020.1803246

Abstract: In many supply chains, firms staged in upstream of the chain suffer from variance amplification emanating from demand information distortion in a multi-stage supply chain and, consequently, their operation inefficiency. Prior research suggest that employing advanced demand forecasting, such as machine learning, could mitigate the effect and improve the performance; however, it is less known what is the extent and magnitude of savings as tangible supply chain performance outcomes. In this research, hybrid demand forecasting methods grounded on machine learning i.e. ARIMAX and Neural Network is developed. Both time series and explanatory factors are feed into the developed method. The method was applied and evaluated in the context of functional product and a steel manufacturer. The statistically significant supply chain performance improvement differences were found across traditional and ML-based demand forecasting methods. The implications for the theory and practice are also presented.

3. Future of artificial intelligence and its influence on supply chain risk management- A systematic review (Ganesh & Kalpana, 2022)

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360835222002765

Abstract: Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM) is a rapidly growing field of research encompassing identification, assessment, mitigation, and monitoring of the risks or unexpected and unprecedented events. Among the researchers, there has been a significant focus on identifying, mitigating, and managing the risks that affect the supply chain (SC). Though the research on SCRM remains for an extended period, still the industries are facing difficulties in managing the SC risks. Also, the SC managers have begun to focus on decision-making based on numerous data sources for predicting the uncertainties more accurately to achieve a proactive and predictive intelligent risk management mechanism. These attributes make Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine learning (ML) suitable techniques in the SCRM field. The application of these techniques in SCRM is in a nascent stage. In this view, this paper presents a systematic and descriptive review of the literature and identifies the various AI and ML methods applied in different phases related to SCRM. Also, it investigates the different categories of SC risks and the existing articles based on the AI technique used. This analysis focuses on research articles related to SCRM from three scientific databases published between 2010 and 2021 for detailed study. Finally, this review provides unexplored and missing aspects in current research, challenges on implementing AI technologies, and describes promising avenues for the future.

4. The role of artificial intelligence in the procurement process: State of the art and research agenda (Guida et al., 2023)

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1478409223000079

Abstract: Artificial intelligence (AI) is widely adopted in many areas, but it is still in its infancy in procurement, despite its potential. To map the state of the art of both research and practice and identify future research directions, this paper presents a mixed methodology exploratory study of the role of AI in the procurement process. The paper combines a systematic literature review, a mapping of the offerings of providers of AI-based procurement platforms and a focus group with procurement managers. Results map the functionalities of AI-based solutions throughout the procurement process, describe benefits and challenges to their adoption and identify future research directions.

In The News

October 10, 2023

ai4sc.org Launches to Promote the Use of AI in Supply Chain Management

Partnership between the University of Washington Master of Supply Chain Transportation and Logistics Program and DHAUZ-US Seattle, WA & São Paulo, Brazil – October 10, 2023 – ai4sc.org, a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in supply chain management, announced its launch today. The organization is a partnership between the University of Washington Master of Supply Chain Transportation and Logistics (MSCTL) Program, a top-ranked program in the United States, and DHAUZ-US, a global provider of supply chain analytics and AI solutions. ai4sc.org.org will provide a forum for supply chain executives, technologists, and academics, to share insights and experiences on the use of AI in the supply chain throughout the Americas. The organization will also offer a variety of resources and events to help people learn about AI and how to use it to make a positive impact on the supply chain. “We are excited to launch ai4sc.org and to partner with the University of Washington MSCTL Program to advance the use of AI in supply chain management,” said Fabio Ferraretto, CEO of DHAUZ-US. “AI has the potential to revolutionize the supply chain, but it is important to ensure that it is used in a responsible and ethical way. ai4sc.org will play a vital role in bringing together the brightest minds in AI and supply chain management to make this happen.” “ai4sc.org is a valuable resource for anyone who is interested in the use of AI in supply chain management,” said Prof. Amelia Regan, director of the UW MSCTL Program. “The organization provides a platform for people to share their knowledge and experiences, and it offers a variety of resources to help people learn about AI and how to use it in the supply chain. I am grateful to DHAUZ-US for their partnership in launching ai4sc.org, and I look forward to seeing the impact that the organization has on the supply chain industry.” About the UW’s Master of SCTL Program The University of Washington's Master of Supply Chain Transportation and Logistics Program is a leading graduate program that combines academic rigor with industry relevance. Housed within the prestigious Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, the program offers a comprehensive curriculum that prepares students for leadership roles in supply chain management. With a strong focus on data analytics, sustainability, and AI, graduates are equipped to drive innovation and efficiency in today's complex supply chain ecosystems. Learn more at https://www.supply-chain-transportation.uw.edu/. About DHAUZ-US DHAUZ-US is a premier provider of AI-powered supply chain analytics and solutions, dedicated to elevating supply chain efficiency, resilience, and sustainability. With a comprehensive suite of services—including supply chain analytics, AI-driven forecasting, transportation optimization, and warehouse management—DHAUZ-US stands at the forefront of technological innovation. Complemented by a range of educational resources and training programs, DHAUZ-US empowers their clients to harness the full potential of AI in their supply chain operations. Their team of seasoned supply chain and technology experts is committed to delivering unparalleled service and support. For more information, visit https://dhauz.com/. About ai4sc.org ai4sc.org is a pioneering non-profit organization dedicated to transforming supply chain management through the power of AI. Established in alliance with the University of Washington and DHAUZ-US, ai4sc.org is committed to creating a more efficient, sustainable, and equitable supply chain ecosystem. By uniting executives, technologists, and academics, ai4sc.org aims to solve pressing supply chain challenges and shape the future. Visit https://www.ai4sc.org for more information.

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