We might hate or love AI, but we cannot deny its inclusion in our businesses. The role of AI in every aspect of business is expanding constantly and offers a lot of potential to enhance operational management. It is changing everything from financial management to manufacturing and supply chain.
Similarly, the supply chain is the most significant part of any business. AI is also changing its dynamics. Microsoft has stepped forward by revolutionising the Supply Chain with Dynamics 365.
In this article, we will talk about the AI benefits in the supply chain and how it benefits Dynamics 365.
What is AI for the Supply Chain?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the simulation of human intelligence by machines. This includes the ability to learn, reason, and rectify oneself. Simply said, AI allows machines to execute jobs that would normally need human intelligence.
In the context of supply chain management, AI may help automate repetitive and time-consuming processes, analyse data to identify trends, and forecast future results. This enables firms to make more informed decisions and enhance supply chain procedures.
Benefits & Features of Microsoft Dynamics 365 AI for Supply Chain
Today’s supply chain is becoming increasingly sophisticated, with big product portfolios, numerous partners, market volatility, rising costs, and environmental sustainability expectations. However, AI in Dynamics 365 can assist firms in bringing all data points under one umbrella and developing an end-to-end strategy.
It is capable of predicting, analyzing, and automating for comprehensive visibility. Some of the latest features announced by the Microsoft for Dynamics 365 AI are:
A global manufacturer often has to coordinate demand planning activities across multiple countries. With this feature of Dynamics 365, Demand planners from various regions can collaborate on the same information with access limited to the data specific to their area.
This ensures transparency and facilitates consensus building among regional teams, while version control keeps track of changes for traceability and responsibility.
Microsoft has also added a capability to assist with purchase order administration. To do so, change the workspace in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management to match the confirmed purchase orders.
This workspace, powered by powerful AI technology, supports procurement professionals in reviewing, managing, and tracking modifications to confirmed purchase orders.
This workspace is designed for easy interaction and makes use of Copilot as a technology to create natural language reports and draft messages for your vendors.
It finds relevant downstream orders based on changes to confirmed purchase orders and provides clear summaries and content drafts to help you monitor order process fluctuations.
Companies can now foresee and respond to disruptions across channels, suppliers, and locations by integrating data sources and business applications and using Dynamics 365 Supply Chain AI.
Predictive analytics also identify affected orders across materials, inventory, carriers, distribution networks, and other areas. So, it makes processes faster and more efficient.
Using real-time omnichannel inventory data, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management (IOM) intelligently enables businesses to plan and automate fulfilment through a rule-based system.
IOM can improve order fulfilment models by automating the identification and selection of optimal fulfilment decisions using artificial intelligence.
The capacity to improve AI models when recommendations are not optimal, using the training, feedback, and improvement process.
Contextual email outreach might be a simple tool for Microsoft D365 supply chain management Co-pilot users to implement these findings.
Due to geopolitical tension, supply chain users can save time and collaborate with impacted suppliers to quickly calculate new ETAs, reroute a purchase order (PO), or fulfil a top-priority customer order via a different distribution centre by employing a bespoke and contextual response.
Surprisingly, this capacity is one of the standout aspects of the Microsoft Supply Chain Platform.
Conversational AI enables analysts to easily obtain and analyze data, which speeds up supplier onboarding and contract evaluations.
For example, analysts can simply ask Dynamics 365 Copilot to “Display the returned orders within the last 30 days,” or it can also ask about the inventory available and for how long.
You just need some prompt engineering, and you can easily analyze your stocks and keep track of orders and inventory.
Next-generation AI contributes to the development of adaptable, self-regulating supply chains that consider many situations and make data-driven judgments. It eliminates manual processes, generates alarms, and makes actionable suggestions. It has the potential to self-learn from user interactions and automatically take appropriate actions.
The potential of Supply Chain Management with AI to automate many of the recurrent decision touchpoints is undeniable at this point. Furthermore, it is going to free up important human resources for higher-level productive jobs requiring creativity, judgment, and challenging problem-solving abilities.
AI bots can do duties such as scanning emails for new procurement requests, logging into different systems for data entry, resolving supply chain alerts, and initiating workflows.
Bottom Line
AI is a powerful force. Dynamics 365 supply chain management and AI together will be a complete package for businesses.
If you choose it as your partner, you can gain a competitive edge in the market. The question is whether you are ready for this futuristic approach to the supply chain.
If so, reach out to a DHRP professional to get started today! Let’s race into the future by working together.
