Supply Chain

ThroughPut Inc. Announces New Demand Sensing AI Capabilities to Accelerate Material Flow Amidst Supply Chain Uncertainty

ThroughPut Inc., the Industrial AI Supply Chain pioneer, today announced several platform updates to its new high-impact Demand Sensing software module. These new capabilities will help Demand Planners, S&OP Professionals and Supply Chain Managers to rapidly free up existing manufacturing capacity, gain additional throughput potential, create concrete productivity gains and boost financial impact amidst ever-growing supply and demand uncertainty.

The unprecedented challenges laid bare by the COVID-19 pandemic have pushed companies to shift from yesterday's status-quo point legacy solutions  to a new generation of data-driven systemic solutions and revamp their supply chain dynamics to better prepare for the future and cement their competitive marketplace advantages. According to Gartner, more than 70% of supply chains globally have been significantly impacted due to COVID-19. Typical challenges with producing reliable forecasts include siloed and manual analysis across hundreds of thousands of SKUs to uncover and optimize the product-mix performance for near-term, seasonal, cyclical and evolving trends.

The world-renowned Theory of Constraints Expert and Throughput Economics Author, Eli Schrangenheim, explained, "The shocks from the COVID-19 pandemic have been multifold - from ups and downs in the demand to choking supply chain capacity to creating extended lags across the supply cycle. ThroughPut's Demand Sensing solution, coupled with deep understanding of the operational flow, can quickly enable companies to build resilience against future demand and supply chain shocks in the post-covid world."

As companies slowly crawl-back to the "new normal", global leaders have started working towards repurposing their operations to respond with greater agility to demand uncertainty, unforeseen market changes, and new industry trends. The demand planners and S&OP teams need to create a more accurate picture of their true demand to evaluate lost sales opportunities and uncover new executable insights to re-capture and grow their markets going forward.

"As the pandemic enters into its second year, companies are working towards predicting lead times and stocking levels more accurately. Supply chain leaders can leverage AI on their historical and current data to re-optimize existing capacity, while effectively prioritizing demand fulfillment using more frequently-generated, recent and real-time data," explained Ali Raza, CEO of ThroughPut Inc. "Without halting any on-going digital implementations or throwing out existing systems, ThroughPut provides a much-needed solution to rebalance the entire end-to-end supply chain flow on a single platform that incorporates existing siloed data stores, systems and warehouses. The ThroughPut Demand Sensing Module provides the "true North" for supply chains to fulfill."

ThroughPut Demand Sensing

The ThroughPut Demand Sensing Module empowers demand planners with critical Business Intelligence for holistic and accurate Demand Planning by minimizing silos and bottlenecks between demand and supply teams. ThroughPut's AI automatically ties existing data together that captures Demand, Capacity, and Supply behaviors, thus automating Inventory Turnover and Free-Cash-Flow improvements. Operational Improvements are now noticeably visible within days with ThroughPut's Supply Chain AI and effectively surfaced via autopilot to the right decision-making teams.

Key Updates in ThroughPut's Supply Chain AI Demand Sensing Module include:
  • Demand Planners can now quickly explore hidden demand patterns and trends to create Responsive and Agile Supply Chains to meet Near-Term Demand. Using ThroughPut's proprietary AI, demand planners can:
    • Quickly identify, analyze and understand disruptions in the supply chain that resulted in significant lost sales vs. areas where the impact of poor performance had minimal losses
    • Get prioritized Recommendations based on time and effort for the most significant Return On Investment
    • Receive timely warning signals on the parts of the supply chain ecosystem that require attention and can potentially be impacted by sudden shifts in behavior caused by supply, demand, operations, or delivery performance.
  • AI-powered Product-Mix Optimization provides ABC | XYZ segmentation of sellable products along with a month-on-month product mix tracking and sales/contribution margins to identify products at risk. These critical recommendations arm demand planners to create a truly demand-centric inventory strategy, thus preventing over- and under-stocking of the high-performing products vs. the low-performing laggards.
  • SKU health from the demand stability standpoint provides a detailed overview of the sellable products by SKU / POS location, highlights the top-performing and underperforming SKUs, and focuses on the main performance metrics, including On-Time and In-Full (OTIF) and On-Shelf-Availability (OSA) per segment. This enables companies to prioritize improvement efforts based on the actual impact on Sales Throughput.
  • Better collaboration drives higher forecast accuracy and enables businesses to build an integrated, demand-driven, systemic Supply Chain Plan. This helps strengthen the cross-functional alignment and partnership between various stakeholders for teams like Marketing, Finance, Planning, and Sales to enable more effective Demand Planning.
  • Identify Working Capital Reduction Opportunities with 360-degree views of Demand Plans on material cost and sales price changes to make informed product-mix decisions.

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Logistics, Supply Chain, Transportation

AIT Worldwide Logistics Acquires Global Transport Solutions Group

Business Wire | February 05, 2024

AIT Worldwide Logistics, one of the world’s leaders in global supply chain solutions, has acquired Global Transport Solutions Group (GTS), a prominent international freight forwarder specializing in time-critical marine spare parts logistics. Headquartered in the Netherlands, GTS and its more than 600 teammates across 16 locations in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North America, serve over 2,000 ports around the world. The GTS network also includes nine consolidation hubs totaling more than 45,000 square meters of warehouse space. AIT Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Vaughn Moore, said, “I’d like to welcome our new GTS teammates to the global AIT network. This is the largest acquisition in our company’s history and GTS’ marine spare parts business is an excellent complement to AIT’s time-critical supply chain solutions.” The company’s business is divided into two sub-brands: Marinetrans (founded in 1991), excelling in “door-to-deck” spare parts logistics for ship owners and managers, and Best Global Logistics (founded in 2007), providing time-critical solutions and general forwarding for other industries, including life sciences shippers. According to AIT’s Chief Business Officer, Greg Weigel, the acquisition provides the company with new geographic presence in Greece, Japan and the Nordic region while adding significant capacity and subject matter expertise to existing AIT networks in China, the Netherlands and Singapore. The deal also provides a strong foundation to expand GTS’ world-class marine spare parts solutions via AIT’s expansive global freight network. “The acquisition of GTS creates an incredible portfolio of solutions serving the maritime industry with delivery of time-critical spare parts across all geographies. This is a perfect complement to AIT’s vertical strategies focused on expedited mission-critical services like our Critical Solutions Group, government and AOG team, and Life Sciences Division,” Weigel said. “We plan to rapidly invest and expand GTS’ North American operations by capitalizing on AIT’s robust salesforce in the United States and offering maritime customers a world-class spare parts logistics solution in every port.” AIT President and Chief Operating Officer, Keith Tholan, noted that the GTS core values – customer first, operational excellence, and partnership and collaboration – closely mirror AIT’s core values. “We are delighted to welcome GTS teammates to AIT,” Tholan said. “Their deep marine logistics expertise and three decades of proven on-time performance in a very demanding segment will complement the diverse solutions we offer across our vertical sector strategy. We also expect our best-in-class global air freight procurement will instantly benefit their time-critical operations.” According to GTS co-CEO John Burgstra, the acquisition is an opportunity for GTS to further expand their worldwide operations. “We aim to provide our clients an unrivaled experience when it comes to global visibility, transparency and on-time performance, fully unburdening them of the required logistical handling of their vessels’ spare parts,” he said. “We are excited about becoming part of a larger group and the global development opportunities this acquisition will provide for our teammates.” “Because of the highly fragmented and international nature of our clients’ requirements, they need a trusted partner with a vetted and effective global network,” added GTS co-CEO Vegard Prytz. “GTS will gain enormous benefits from leveraging the global AIT infrastructure, creating an even more integrated and seamless solution for clients around the world.”

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Operations, Sustainability, Transportation

Revoy Launches the Ultimate Scalable Sustainability Solution for Trucking

PR Newswire | February 01, 2024

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Operations, Warehousing and Distribution

LA Kings Partner with Lexani Performance Tires

PR Newswire | January 26, 2024

Turbo Wholesale Tires, and two-time Stanley Cup Champions, the LA Kings have announced a powerful brand partnership. As part of the multi-year agreement, brokered by AEG Global Partnerships, Lexani Performance Tires will become an official partner of the LA Kings, reaching millions of passionate sports fans. As an official partner of the LA Kings, Lexani Performance Tires will have the unique opportunity to engage fans each week during the season as a presenting sponsor of the LA Kings "Game Preview," which will appear on the team's official social channels. Lexani Performance Tire will also benefit from in-arena signage via dasher boards and scoreboard branding during all LA Kings home games at Crypto.com Arena. "We are proud to partner with the LA Kings and their global fanbase," said Phillip Kane, CEO of Turbo Wholesale Tires. "The Kings have a strong international brand and passionate following, we look forward to introducing their supporters to Lexani Performance Tire products." Turbo Wholesale Tires has been a trusted tire supplier, leading the industry with a strong emphasis and understanding of the independent tire dealer. Turbo Wholesale Tires has evolved into a national and international supplier of its proprietary brands, Lexani Performance Tire, RBP Tires and Lionhart Tires. With nearly a million square feet of warehouse space nationwide, Turbo Wholesale Tires continues to exceed the needs of its tire customers. "We are honored to be teaming up with Lexani Performance Tires," said Josh Veilleux, senior vice president, AEG Global Partnerships. "This collaboration not only brings a renowned tire supplier into our Kings family, but also introduces new ways for our fans to interact with its brand. We look forward to the positive impact this new partnership will bring to the team, Lexani Performance Tires and our incredible community of fans."

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Logistics, Supply Chain

Delta Cargo launches e-commerce solution DeliverDirect in collaboration with SmartKargo

PR Newswire | January 31, 2024

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