Now more than ever, supply chains need to be resilient, agile, cost efficient, and sustainable. Supply Chain AI by BCG X helps companies optimize on all levels—with no tradeoffs.
2pp-4pp
boost in EBITDA
10%-20%
decline in costs
5%-15%
increase in service levels
15%-30%
reduction in working capital
20%-30%
decrease in near-term CO2e emissions
How it works
Supply Chain AI’s seven solutions help companies fuse the best of technical and human capabilities, enhancing visibility, agility, and decision-making across the supply chain.
Emerging technologies, particularly advanced analytics and generative AI, enable businesses to optimize their supply chain processes and decision making, predict flash points, and quickly adjust course. But digital supply chain technologies cover a lot of ground. The aim, and often the challenge, is to use them where they matter most.
Supply Chain AI has a set of specialized AI solutions built by BCG X, that can be combined and customized in ways that maximize value—keeping the focus on the most important opportunities and issues. Each solution provides a rapid diagnostic to uncover high-value use cases, establishing a complete vision before recommending the right combination of people, processes, and technology. Supply Chain AI can be tailored to a company’s unique targets and benchmarks, and our digital supply chain consultants can build and deploy AI-enabled processes in any environment.
We’ve worked with businesses across industries and across the globe to help build the supply chains of the future. Here are some examples of our impact.
Through a multitiered transformation program, we helped optimize the client’s warehouse footprint and reduced network costs by lowering transportation costs and leveraging synergies. We deployed technology to facilitate planning, increase automation, and reduce manual labor and error rates. And we cut complexity in “kitting” via kit simplification and standardization. The expected outturn: annualized run-rate savings of up to $155 million.
BCG’s digital supply chain experts helped a global steel producer complete a comprehensive digital transformation. Using predictive analytics, we focused production decisions on optimizing margins by building a data management infrastructure and developing advance forecasting algorithms. The outcome: a boost in EBITDA of 2 to 4 percentage points and a transition to net positive from year one onwards.
Using PLAN AI and next-generation analytical inventory models, we developed advanced forecasting tools to spark faster, more precise decision making. And to ensure that our client could build on this foundation long after we completed our work, we embedded new processes and upskilled in-house teams. The result: an inventory reduction of more than $100 million in the first 12 months and a 15% increase in forecasting accuracy.
Experts
Our digital supply chain consultants are thought leaders on AI in the supply chain—and hands-on practitioners who work side by side with clients on strategy, implementation, and industry-specific topics. Here are some members of our team.
Olivier Bouffault
Managing Director & Senior Partner; Europe, Middle East, South America, and Africa Chair, BCG X
Dustin Burke is a core member of Boston Consulting Group's Operations practice and global co-leader of BCG’s manufacturing and supply chain topic. He leads the infrastructure, transportation, and cities work for North America.
As a core member of Boston Consulting Group's Consumer, Industrial Goods, and Operations practices, Manoj Kothiyal focuses on large-scale data science transformations, digital manufacturing, and supply chain programs.
Ashish Pathak is the chapter lead for Boston Consulting Group's Operations practice and is the global offer director for its supply chain business. He is currently focusing on building offers around cutting-edge supply chain topics such as; supply chains of the future, GenAI in supply chains, resilient and sustainable operations, and digital supply chain transformations at scale.
Olivier Bouffault
Managing Director & Senior Partner; Europe, Middle East, South America, and Africa Chair, BCG X
Olivier Bouffault is the Europe, Middle East, South America, and Africa regional chair for BCG X, Boston Consulting Group’s tech build and design unit.
Paari Rajendran leads Boston Consulting Group's West Coast Operations practice, and is a core member of the firm’s Health Care practice. He is an operations and supply chain expert and works with health care, biopharma, and consumer clients on end-to-end operations transformations including digital transformation and digital solution development.
Kosuke Uchida joined Boston Consulting Group in 2006. He leads the firm's Operations practice in Northeast Asia, and is a core member of the Industrial Goods and Energy practices.
Camille Engel joined Boston Consulting Group in 2012. She is a core member of both the Health Care and Public Sector practices with a focus on advanced analytics and digital supply chain. She leads the supply chain AI team for those practices, and co-leads digital and AI for health care operations. In addition, Camille is the CDC advisor for associates.
Llorenç Mitjavila joined Boston Consulting Group in 2007. He is the leader of BCG’s Technology Advantage practice in Western Europe, South America, and Africa. He also heads BCG’s advanced analytics and AI business in Iberia.
Latest thinking
Black swan events and growing volatility have snarled supply chains. BCG X offers a virtual solution: Value Chain Digital Twin.
Powered by cutting-edge machine learning and optimization models, BCG X's proprietary advanced analytics solution solves end-to-end supply chain optimization problems easier, faster, and more cost-effectively
Companies that transform their supply chain for digitization, resilience, and sustainability while optimizing costs will create a powerful source of innovation and competitive advantage.
To boost their resilience to supply chain disruptions, auto companies need new methods to anticipate and mitigate risks across the supplier spectrum.
Organizations must use all their data, customize and link their underlying systems, and manage the transition patiently to get the best from the new breed of IBP platforms.
Companies often struggle to match decision-making speed with changing dynamics. That’s why a decision-led approach to end-to-end planning transformation is key.
Understanding every warehouse archetype, developing critical use cases, and improving existing ROI before the work begins are key to warehouse automation success.
The root cause of the problem lies not with technology but with how and where companies are applying it.
BCG X's cutting-edge tools combine the latest technology with advanced analytics and BCG's wealth of expertise across industries and capabilities, providing tailored solutions that allow our clients to build a better tomorrow.
Explore further
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BCG helps organizations focus on building resilience and sustainability into their supply chains to mitigate disruptions and trade instability. We also help maximize the return on these critical investments.
BCG X disrupts the present and creates the future by building new products, services, and businesses in partnership with the world’s largest organizations.