Gartner 2019 Interview: Brian Dooley, Supply Chain Director at AIMMS

Q: What is your number-one takeaway from Gartner 2019?

A: The digital supply chain is here, supported by technological advances. When coupled with ever- increasing complexity and the fast pace of business, it demands changes in our approach to how we plan and execute the supply chain. Despite this, it's still difficult to precisely define what “digital” means. Defining a digital roadmap for your organization over a long horizon is key – simply kicking off an artificial intelligence (AI) project is not the answer, avoid the trap of ‘solutions looking for a problem'.

Q: What are the three key market trends from your perspective?

A: Vertical integration across planning layers, Gartner's CORE model, perfectly positions the planning challenge of providing a robust and resilient long term plan whilst providing accuracy in short term planning & execution. The ability to link between strategic, tactical, and operational relevant ranges is key to this and if done well enables effective supply chain decision making that is in sync with the clock speed of business. Also, horizontal integration of planning. Planning decisions need to be aligned and synchronized across the end-to-end supply chain, including extending beyond a single enterprise. The common platform to achieve this horizontal and vertical integration is the digital twin providing the ability to seamlessly move up and down planning hierarchies and span multiple horizons. Finally, augmented/automated decision making. Using the power of advanced analytics and AI to do the heavy lifting previously done by planners, thus allowing them to focus on value add-decision making.

Q: How is your organization reacting to these market trends?

A: We already have a lot of applications across the four levels in the CORE model and our architecture supports the integration across these layers. Many of our customers are seeing great ROI by using the data they already have and leveraging the embedded advanced analytics capabilities to run through all the possible scenarios and identify the best possible alternatives, or even uncover new opportunities. Our focus right now is on further developing this integration with our digital twin to provide a digital representation of a supply chain that becomes the common link for all applications. These apps will continue to leverage our powerful mathematical optimization and package this in a way that is accessible to the entire planning team. Finally, we're exploring use cases for machine learning to support powerful simulation and scenario modeling with further insight on the factors that drive sensitivity.

To learn more about how leading companies are transforming their supply chains with advanced analytics check out this white paper.

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