3SC’s Session 1 Insights from Gartner Supply Chain Symposium, 2024

At the pinnacle forum for supply chain executives, 3SC had the platform today with its speakers Winfried Rockensteiner and Mohneesh Saxena, focusing on the role of AI/ML and Generative AI for Enhanced Supply Chain Planning and Resilience. This blog covers the synopsis of the all-important session.

The Problem Statement

The Need for Resiliency: We know how important it is to maintain continuity in business. And it is achieved by focusing on resiliency from the management point of view. With the recent pandemic, geopolitical tension, man-made disruptions, and volatile economy, unplanned supply chain resilience sees itself at the crux of a business’s scalability.

1. Expectation vs. Capabilities: While management does want to see their revenue goals in the green, it’s their infrastructure devoid of modernity that truncates their inherent expectations to the final objectives. It is here in the planning stages that the stakeholders must take account of their exact resource abilities and bridge the gap to attain the elusive goal of being an all-season supply chain.
2. Data Analytics: With the ever-rising prominence of data intelligence, analytics have shaped how organizations plan ahead. Any industry still stuck in the implementation of archaic methods will find itself devoid of the foresight that smart information processing can provide.
3. Lack of Expert: Access to industry experts provides the leadership with nuances that are hard to match from the vast resources available in a single click. Moreover, these expert insights aid a business plan and promise scalability based on practicality, keeping SCM in good stead with all the wisdom.
4. Flexibility: Each enterprise finds itself challenged at various stages of its functioning. It is during these junctures that a value chain process has to be proactive, flexible, and have the ability to make informed decisions to ensure zero hiccups throughout the process.
5. E2E Digitization: Traditional methods, due to their lack of unification, transparency, and collaboration, result in delayed responses. With time being of the essence in the face of disruption, end-to-end digitization pays huge dividends with faster outputs.
6. Sustainability: Needless to say, sustainability is the headliner act for supply chain management. With customers well-inclined to support environmentally friendly initiatives, leadership is endowed with the fact that sustainability is the norm ahead. Lack of it will make your brand obsolete.
7. Uncertainties: No matter how comprehensive your planning is, uncertainties will always be a curveball. The best bet for any organization is to insulate its processes with advanced systems and proactive planning and execution.
8. Organizational Transformation: Adaptability is not only technological but also structural. From upskilling your workforce to employing people with the right skillset at the right functions, a transformation done right can set the foundation for efficiency and optimization.
9. New Logistics: Perhaps the most significant driving factor in customer satisfaction is how well logistics functioning is up to date. With applications fueled by artificial intelligence and machine learning algos charting out route optimization and smart inventory management for maximum value for bucks, the new tech does indeed give a constructive spin to how value chain functioning has redefined itself.

The Pillars of Resilience

On a prerequisite level for supply chain resiliency, these four pillars set the foundation.

• Strategic Desire: An organization should intend to change its existing framework to tackle disruptions and uncertainties. This means being open to embracing new applications, processes, and principles that will catalyze its value chain operation in the face of bottlenecks.
• Setting KPIs: Setting the right indicators for your processes helps you keep a tab on how exactly the output is affecting your value chain during recovery.
• Continuous Improvement: Based on the KPIs, management can make necessary changes to their processes and look for continuous improvement and flexibility in their operations.
• Collaboration:  Collaboration is a crucial pillar for seamless functioning. Stakeholders for each process have to be in sync by sharing information and being on the same page when the execution is underway.

The 3SC Risk AI Showcase

As a comprehensive supply chain resilience platform, 3SC Risk AI sets the base for achieving a synchronous, resilient, and sustainable framework. With a cutting-edge suite enabled by GenAI empowering businesses with unparalleled insights, counter tactics, and risk management modules to optimize operations and mitigate disruption, 3SC Risk AI stands leaps ahead of its competition.

• Command Center: Minimizing misalignment between your planning and execution, Risk AI’s command center enables seamless collaboration and improved efficiency with added virtues of foresight, giving ample time to know the best way ahead.
• Disruption Management: By sensing and predicting the gaps in your risk defenses, the disruption management module identifies supply chain bottlenecks and opportunities to proactively safeguard the execution plan, which provides better margins and improved cost efficiency.
• Resilience Monitoring: You can monitor your processes with complete transparency and visibility. By alerting you to any adverse development that might halt your end-to-end functioning, resilience monitoring builds strategic framework into your supply chain design for better risk management and improved decision-making.
• Digital Twin: Giving you a bird’s eye view of complete processes with the drivers behind them, Digital Twin identified inefficiencies for better exception management and improved collaboration to fuel ground-level execution of your finalized plans.
• Simulation Workbench: Run simulations to determine the efficacy of the best risk mitigation plan. The management will then know which KPIs are being impacted and which plan’s execution will offer the minimum disruption to the processes being carried out.
• GAURI: An acronym for Generative AI Unlocks Resilience Intelligence, GAURI is a virtual assistant that addresses queries, offers insights and provides actionable recommendations to address potential problem statements.

By infusing agility and responsiveness into the value chain system, 3SC Risk AI finds itself at the fulcrum of modern supply chain management, revamping turnaround time to tackle disruptions and maintain business continuity with streamlined revenue.