Watch: The Shift From Digitization to AI-Driven Orchestration

Orchestration enables the shift from isolated improvements to adaptive, autonomous supply chains, says Gopal VK, senior vice president, global supply chain, at Genpact.

Orchestration combines organizing, which drives operating models; optimization, which uses technology and analytics; and operations, which links coordination and execution. “When you put these three together in unison with AI, you're essentially driving toward desired outcomes,” VK says. “That is a big change, which you can see across the industry in supply chain. Multiple service providers are bringing all of these things in pieces, and I think the direction is to bring it together.” 

Combining the components is crucial, in his view, because a piecemeal approach may provide incremental but insufficient benefits to drive a big enough impact for a company. 

VK says the key is in defining the end state. “I want an improvement in, let's say, my supply chain metrics or improvement in on-time, in-full or dispatch rates or forecast accuracy or logistics costs and so on. How do you redesign for that outcome?”

For example, it may be desirable to run a supply plan and a transportation plan together in an integrated fashion. “Present technology doesn't let you do that,” he says, “but AI enables that working in unison and in bringing multiple scenarios to the planner, who can then make a decision guided by AI. Not assisted by AI, but augmented by AI. The big change is AI technologies, bringing together multiple sub-functions, bringing together people, technologies and processes in a company, enabling a shift to be an orchestrator.”

VK says orchestration, as he defines it, has improved field productivity, asset utilization and inventory management at a vending machine company. A consumer packaged goods \company utilizing such orchestration saw great improvements in forecast accuracy and waste reduction.