Executive Summary

In our weekly Supply Chain Briefing series, we discuss how technology is transforming the various stages of the retail supply chain, including product design, demand forecasting, manufacturing, logistics, warehousing, last-mile delivery and sales.

This report discusses machine learning, a branch of Artificial Intelligence (AI) that generates insights from data to help companies make better decisions and predictions.

• AI and machine learning have the potential to create around $2 trillion in value by 2020 in manufacturing and supply chain planning, according to McKinsey.
• Machine learning can deliver personalization to shoppers that facilitates better inventory management by anticipating what the customer is likely to buy.
• Machine learning can help retailers optimize routes for more efficient delivery based on prior consumer behavior data.