AI, digitization and orchestration are among the most important developments in supply chain today, says Omer Rashid, vice president of operations development at DHL Supply Chain.

It’s no surprise that artificial intelligence is a trend that’s top of mind for supply-chain managers, but automation and resilience also figure greatly in company wish lists and strategies.

Rashid notes that managers have tried to harness supply chain data for years. With AI, companies can move from a reactive mindset to predictive decision-making, he says. “I think that's one huge trend that will continue to be prevalent.”

He says automation in supply chain ties directly into AI and analytics, specifically within fulfillment and warehousing. As for resilience, Rashid says the talk among supply chain managers today is how unstable supply chains are, and not just from ongoing geopolitical situations that have hampered transit operations. “Threats coming from a cybersecurity space has made resiliency front and center for most supply chain organizations,” he says. 

AI is a broad term, he says. Machine learning, for example, has been around for quite a while. “If you think about robotics and fulfillment and some of the tools we've been using to optimize our distribution centers, machine learning has played a prominent role in there,” Rashid says. “And some of the vision systems they're using to navigate autonomously are part of the AI landscape.

“I think the newest and most exciting application of AI is going to be generative AI,” Rashid continues. “We are in early days in supply chain experimenting with that and understanding how we can apply it. And in a practical sense right now, I think when we talk about demand planning — moving from a reactive to a predictive mode of demand planning — AI is really helping with that, and helping inventories get more accurate with greater visibility.”

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