A Better Plan is not Necessarily a Better Decision

Some new language has been creeping in the planning vocabulary in the last year or two: planning & decision making. What used to be planning, or a planning system, is now sometimes referred to as planning & decision making. This is most likely influenced by the acknowledgement of a new category decision intelligence by Gartner, for which they provided a definition since 2022. I now … Continue reading A Better Plan is not Necessarily a Better Decision

Intelligent IBP – Closing the Decision Gaps

Preview – Most IBP cycles around the world are based on a 20-year-old process definition supported by 20-year-old planning concepts. This traditional IBP is not set up for a fast-changing world, where speed of decision making confers a competitive advantage. Intelligent automation will change this. In this series of short blogs, I will discuss the transition of traditional IBP towards a more intelligent IBP. In … Continue reading Intelligent IBP – Closing the Decision Gaps

Intelligent IBP – Unshackle the Planners!

Preview – Most IBP cycles around the world are based on a 20-year-old process definition supported by 20-year-old planning concepts. This traditional IBP is not set up for a fast-changing world, where speed of decision making confers a competitive advantage. Intelligent automation will change this. In this series of short blogs, I will discuss the transition of traditional IBP towards a more intelligent IBP. You … Continue reading Intelligent IBP – Unshackle the Planners!

Intelligent IBP – The Rise of Autonomous

Preview – Most IBP cycles around the world are based on a 20-year-old process definition supported by 20-year-old planning concepts. This traditional IBP is not set up for a fast-changing world, where speed of decision making confers a competitive advantage. Intelligent automation will change this. In a series of short blogs, I will discuss the transition of traditional IBP towards a more intelligent IBP.  In … Continue reading Intelligent IBP – The Rise of Autonomous

Traditional IBP is dead. Long live Intelligent IBP!

The evolution of Integrated Business Planning has been at a standstill for years. Traditional IBP process and planning horizon thinking, supported by traditional Advanced Planning and Business Intelligence (BI) systems, limits progress. Sure, over the years new supporting planning features have been developed. Faster calculations, a nicer GUI, more simulation capability, Machine Learning and graph databases, to name a few. But both the IBP process … Continue reading Traditional IBP is dead. Long live Intelligent IBP!

AI Is Here to Automate the Knowledge Worker!

This article is my commentary on an article published in Foresight, written by the authors of the book Humachine: Humankind, Machines, and the Future of Enterprise (Sanders & Wood, 2020). For the original Foresight article and other commentary, you can go here. INTRODUCTION: A NEW ERA The authors of The Humachine make a valid point that enterprises should not focus on artificial intelligence (AI) alone … Continue reading AI Is Here to Automate the Knowledge Worker!

Achieving Autonomous Supply Chain Planning; an expert interview

An interview on Autonomous Planning with Niels van Hove I recently got interviewed by Bethanie Maples about my Foresight article; ‘Autonomous or Lights out Planning, what’s really required?’ Bethanie is an AI and human cognition expert, does research at Standford University and is advisor to many entrepreneurs. I explain how we have to make the leap forward from Wave 1 (ERP) and Wave 2 (APS) … Continue reading Achieving Autonomous Supply Chain Planning; an expert interview

Why Cognitive Automation makes IBP more Agile and more Strategic

A common IBP cycle has a monthly cadence providing an – up to 24 months – forward view of a business. It is often supported by a weekly control cycle, sometimes called Sales & Operations Execution (S&OE). This cycle plans demand & supply in more detail and over a shorter horizon, often around 12 weeks. IBP is data and resource hungry. Planners spend up to … Continue reading Why Cognitive Automation makes IBP more Agile and more Strategic

Technology Support in Integrated Business Planning: Automation, Augmentation and Human Centricity

Preview In his 2019 Foresight article, Niels van Hove examined eight technological hurdles that must be overcome to enable autonomous or ‘lights out’ supply-chain planning. He reasoned that to support such planning we need to implement a third wave of integrated supply-chain planning software. In this article, Niels argues that these technological advances can lead to either (a) planning-process and decision automation or (b) planning … Continue reading Technology Support in Integrated Business Planning: Automation, Augmentation and Human Centricity

Achieving autonomous or “lights out” supply chain planning

Operating in the supply chain world, it’s hard to not come across terminology like supply chain planning 4.0, “light touch” planning or “lights out” planning. All have generated a lot of hype over the past few years … and for good reason. Considerable progress has been made in technology in recent years, continuing at a dizzying pace. Autonomous development is happening in most major car … Continue reading Achieving autonomous or “lights out” supply chain planning