IBM announced the launch of IBM Sterling Inventory Control Tower to further help companies manage inventory and build resilient supply chains. IBM Sterling Inventory Control Tower is enabled with AI and is designed to provide insights to see inventory wherever it is, identify and understand the impact of external events to predict disruptions and take actions based on playbook recommendations to mitigate the upstream and downstream effects.

Supply chain Inventory Control Towers is built to be used by organizations to get near real-time insights with anticipated use cases such as:

• In grocery stores to expand inventory visibility to see beyond warehouses, including in-store locations and supply in-transit.
• In hospitals to provide visibility into supply and demand gaps for critical items at PAR locations such as critical lifesaving equipment and supplies.
• In automotive to get visibility into aftermarket service parts by SKU, and stocking locations across ERP and other systems, to help ensure critical parts are in stock.

The purpose-built Sterling Inventory Control Tower can help organizations see, predict and effectively act on inventory to better predict disruptions, improve resiliency, manage exceptions and respond to unplanned events. Capabilities include:

“The past few months have shown us that what was once considered ‘good enough’ inventory management may no longer be sufficient. Even as businesses strive to reopen and emerge smarter, inventory remains dynamic because supply, demand and transportation capacity are in flux,” said Jeanette Barlow, VP of Offering Management, IBM Sterling. “As a result, some businesses may be losing sales, aggravating customers by over promising, losing margins due to markdowns and expedited shipping charges, carrying excess safety stock, all while limiting their ability to enter new sales channels. Enterprises should embrace advanced technologies such as AI to more effectively act on their inventory across all channels in near real-time, which can help mitigate fluctuations in demand and supply disruptions in order create smarter, innovative and resilient supply chains.”

IBM Sterling Inventory Control Tower is part of the IBM Sterling Supply Chain Suite, which includes applications for supplier, order and inventory management, providing connectivity to an ecosystem of customers, suppliers and partners through one of the market’s leading multi-enterprise business networks, the IBM Sterling Supply Chain Business Network.

About IBM Sterling Supply Chain

IBM Sterling Supply Chain solutions empower IT and supply chain professionals with visibility, transparency and trust to help proactively predict and mitigate disruption, improve B2B information flow, and optimize inventory utilization and fulfillment.