The world is changing. In fact, this change is going faster than ever before. Born in 1985 I grew up without cell phones and internet. I had to go past my friends after school to see if they were home to play with me. It could take up the whole afternoon to find someone who was available to entertain me. Thinking back I can only conclude that I wasted tons of time on that age. 36 years later we talk about Big data, Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence. I do not even have to call my friends to see if they are available, a green indicator will tell me. In 35 years time life became fast, accessible, connected, but also a bit stressful. Our minds are struggling to catch up with the speed of change.
Also in business this rapid change is felt. Supply chain and logistics planning was done manually 40-50 years ago. Planners used planning boards and Gantt charts on pieces of paper to determine the most efficient transport, production or inventory planning. Vast resources and time were required when the scope of products increased. With the rise of the personal computers in the 70’s and the internet coming up in the 80’s planning of operations became more efficient. But still people were involved to compute the right planning. With Artificial Intelligence we take a new leap in technology. Planning can now be automated based on tons of meta data. It even results in situations1 where the algorithm becomes smarter than the human brain.
The question now rises: is this the finish line or are we overcompensating with our technology?
Advanced made simple: combine human and artifical intelligence
My name is Stijn Wouters and I am the product manager of Lanza. We provide organizations with a digital software solution and service that plans and optimizes spare parts inventories.
Lanza invests a lot in state-of-the-art forecasting and inventory models and smart AI applications. But at the end of the line it is about the best planning decision for a planner to take. At the end of the line we do not believe in full AI automation as gut feel and creative expertise are crucial and can only be added by a human planner. Combining the two is for us the winning formula.
