Hollywood has finally made a movie about Supply Chains.
I went to see the movie “Everything Everywhere all at once.” Notable for its lead female actor, Michelle Yeoh as the first Asian woman to win the Oscar for best lead actor.
The interesting observation was the conjecture online about what the true meaning of the movie was. Everyone had a view, and yet could everyone be wrong?
Without a shadow of a doubt the movie is actually about the supply chain. The clue is in the title. Everything Everywhere all at Once (and often going wrong) is the best description of the actual behavior of supply chains regardless of industry or geography.
The shear volume and complexity of permutations that make up the supply chain expertise or money spent on supply chains is staggering. The challenge of innumerable interwoven (well actually barely interwoven) actions and processes that get something from A to B on time, in full at the right price and cost as effortlessly as is possible is almost impossible!
So, you cannot fault the effort or many of the assumptions, mainly done on spreadsheets to realise that learning how to juggle knives and hope someone else catches one is an argument once can posit with a degree of assurance.
It just takes one or two of those permutations to not align and the ricochet ripples through the supply chain.
And it’s all about to change…for the better.
Digital twins, probabilistic forecasting, LLM’s, Agentic AI can combine, without doubt to shift supply chain processes and adaptability into the modern on demand world they thus far participate awkwardly in.
No wild promises shall be made here. What we, at Orchestrated Intelligence, can promise is by deploying a data focused AI view, all supply chains will be able to fix the leaking pipes in the basement that are commonly known as the service cost cash triangle.
The ability to have these 3 crucial elements as close to a harmonious balanced interaction as possible whilst the supply chain is doing its everything everywhere all in once dance.
The critical ability to regularly generate recommendations to apply (RTA’s) and close to real time adaptability as supply chains face the reality that anything can and will happen at the time you least expect it, will build a level of confidence to execute on more ambitious plans is just one significant step forward.
And the cost of waiting around till the perfect “end to end” solution comes knocking at your door to say “are you ready it your turn now” is a trope that remarkably still gets people attention.
Step outside the supply chain for a moment and consider the rapid advancement of AI on the consumer end, the level of consumer intimacy that is coming down the pipe is impressive if not a little frightening.
No supply chain in their current state is prepared for the level of AI propelled consumer demand and consumer expectations that is going to manifest. Not one!
Approach’ of major software upgrades every 5-7 years.
It’s all about unlocking the latent value in data to be in the right spot when the AI supported consumer turns up to buy.
As we head into the future of AI informed supply chains, much will change and is changing now!
One thing is for certain, if your supply chain is not attuned to and is not deploying AI to strengthen both the signal from, and your response to, the AI informed consumer, then perhaps there is another movie title might be more apt to your circumstance.
I‘ll let you choose which movie title you think fits best!!
