The Digital Supply Chain Challenge

THE EVOLVING VIEWS OF THE SUPPLY CHAIN COMMUNITY

Looking down the list of topics and identifying those that fall into the broad category of SCD, there is an unmistakable trend that these topics are becoming more front of mind for supply chain managers. Two of the three topics with the biggest increase in importance are SCD topics: big data, using real-time, contextual data to increase demand planning and forecast accuracy and artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning . ( Supply chain sustainability is the third.) These topics are truly enablers, capabilities that can drive deeper insights and improve many aspects of supply chain. It’s a sign of the consistency and clear-eyed wisdom of the respondents that these two topics are increasing in importance, as they can help power many of the other topics on the list. A further demonstration of this coherence is that big data is needed to power the AI in the service of improved demand planning. We will address the potential of AI in demand planning later in this chapter.

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