Supply Chain Discussion: Concerns That Are Top of Mind for Supply Chain Professionals

In this discussion, Russell Goodman from Supply Chain Brain speaks with Lionel Agostini, the global vice president of sales at Dassault Systèmes. They are a software provider and innovation platform that provides organizations with a holistic, real-time vision of their business activity and ecosystem.

In this interview, he says that artificial intelligence is among the innovations that will help supply chain managers mitigate risk and boost operational efficiency in the future.

A resilient supply chain is one that is ready for the unexpected, be that political shifts, such as Brexit, pandemics or uncertain tariff exposure, Agostini says. “We have seen how those disruptions can simply cripple supply chains that were initially only optimized for efficiency or cost. Today, resilience is about absorbing those kinds of shocks, adapting quickly, and even finding some ways to turn those disruptions into advantage.” 

Such disruptions have made clear that resilience has moved to a board-level priority, he says. “Now, customers are talking about the need for a more flexible sourcing strategy and the ability to pivot operations quickly when such disruptions happen.”

That ability depends on three things, Agostini says. First, there must be a move toward more advanced modeling and simulation, meaning the ability to create a full digital representation of the supply chain in order to test different scenarios before they happen. 

Second, there must be a digital representation of a product’s entire lifecycle, from design all the way through manufacturing.

Third, “Artificial intelligence enables better automatic decision making, not just predicting the demand, but actively prescribing the best supply, production and logistics strategy in real time.”

Nucleus would add partnering with a 4PL provider as another way for businesses to address these problems as it provides flexible sourcing, advanced modeling, the ability to pivot operations quickly, and reduces reliance on any single service provider.

If anything, the future of supply chains depends on AI, he says. The ability to anticipate, adapt and survive disruption will rely on a transformation fueled by the technology. “It’s going to drive significant value, not just to automate tasks, but to help planners, operators and executives to make smarter, faster and more connected decisions. This is, for me, the future of the supply chain.”

Source: Supply Chain Brain