Blogs discussing the advance of cognitive automation, touch-less planning, artificial intelligence & machine learning in planning
Over the weekend I made my first GPT. It’s an IBP GPT, maybe the world’s first. Although you can make GPT’s more sophisticated, you can start rather simple. That’s what I did. I took an open AI membership, created a GPT, wrote a prompt, wrote four prompt indicators. Told it to be friendly and gave it some other guidance. My aim was to help an … Continue reading Solving Your IBP Problems With the World’s First IBP GPT
Low-touch, or touchless planning, forecasting and other types of supply chain knowledge work automation have been around for a while now. A trend that started with Robotic Process Automation (RPA) in the back-office, automating dull and repetitive tasks like invoice matching, evolved into cognitive automation and autonomous execution of more advanced supply chain processes using intelligent agents. I envisioned autonomous IBP in 2016 and published … Continue reading Automation has Limits, Learning has no Boundaries
“There is only one way to eat an elephant: a bite at a time.” Desmond Tutu Outside-in thinking in theory Outside-in thinking makes sense. It has been suggested to include a market, customer, and competitor view in a strategy definition for more than 50 years. It is not new in strategy. It is not new in supply chain management either. Lee’s uncertainty framework (2002) shows … Continue reading Outside-in planning: a big elephant that needs a bite-sized approach
A Vision coming to Life IBP decisions can be segmented by machine centric S&OE decisions and human centric IBP decisions. This new planning paradigm was suggested by my colleague Hein Regeer and I in a Foresight article in 2021 Our article was a continuation of my articles autonomous supply chain planning (2019) and Technology Support in Integrated Business Planning: Automation, Augmentation and Human Centricity (2021), where I lay out a … Continue reading Decision Centric IBP is Becoming a Reality
As John Lennon said, “Live is what happens while you’re busy making other plans”. Every supply chain plan or schedule meets variations or disruptions that require corrective decisions and actions. However, a gap remains between data, plans, insights and taking action to solve short and long term issues and grasp opportunities. I called this the “Decision Gap” in a recent webinar. A week later I … Continue reading How to Overcome the Supply Chain Decision Gap
The content discusses the limitations of forecasting and the evolving role of forecasters/planners. It emphasizes the need for integrating human judgment and predictive analytics in the digital supply chain, highlighting the advantages of machine detection and correction of human bias. It suggests using decision checklists to counteract human biases, and encourages collaboration between humans and machines for improvement. Continue reading Planners, Embrace your Biased Judgements
Decision Intelligence (DI) is a natural evolution in supply chain planning technology. It closes the planning and execution automation gap which has been left by ERP and APS, both technologies that have reached the maturity phase for their functional aims. 7% of companies have started to adopt autonomous end-to-end planning. 3% of companies use autonomous execution to enhance their supply chain resilience. Prediction are that … Continue reading Decision Intelligence, a Natural Step in the Planning Evolution
Although Integrated Business Planning (IBP) is designed to make high-impact business decisions, little attention has been given to the quality of decisions in an IBP cycle. In my latest Foresight article, I argue that to continuously learn from and improve IBP decisions, decision processes ought to be integrated with the traditional IBP process and supported by Decision Intelligence technology that goes beyond existing transactional and … Continue reading A Case for a More Decision Centric IBP
The IBP paradigm has hardly changed for 30 years, the decision needle has not moved enough. We’ve entered an AI era where 74% of work can be augmented or automated and 26% eliminated. Planning will not be excluded from this evolution. However, only 3% of companies apply automated execution and 7% autonomous end to end planning. 2% of managers apply best practice decision methods. Hardly … Continue reading The Intelligent IBP Manifesto – 50 principles for a new planning paradigm
What would a Martian expert in supply chain planning and technology think when looking back at earth? With all technology available on earth would it continue with a 30+ year old, sequential, cascading, rather sluggish, manual planning process with a lack of focus on decision digitisation, decision quality and decision learning? Or would it start with a blank sheet and reimagine IBP? Closing the planning … Continue reading Reimagining IBP in the Age of AI
Supply Chain Trend 