Michelin taps AI to improve supply chain

Paris – Michelin is tapping artificial intelligence (AI) to address supply chain challenges, according to Gilles Colas des Francs, responsible for AI transformation factory at the French group.

Project S@@M, service alerting and acting machine, employs AI to predict shortcomings in supply chain as early as three weeks in advance, allowing enough time to react and avoid shortages, explained Colas des Francs in a presentation at Assises de la Data Transformation Conference 28 Jan. 

The idea of S@@M emerged two years ago when the French group decided to use AI to manage the increasing complexity of its supply chain – to provide the client with the right product, at the right time and the right place with the right price

“We created a team of data scientists and supply chain experts to see how AI could solve this problem and better anticipate the supply shortages. 

“After several months of iteration and in-depth work on data we designed an algorithm that can predict supply chain shortages three weeks in advance,” he added. 

The algorithm, according to Colas des Francs, not only allows Michelin to plan ahead but it also helps it to understand why this supply shortages may occur. 

“Is it, for example, a manufacturing problem or a problem of poor market forecasting or simply poor logistics management?” he noted.

According to Colas des Francs, the programme has now been fully rolled out in Europe and with 4,000 products on 15 different stores in the region, Michelin says it achieved “excellent results”. 

Through the project, said the AI chief, Michelin has managed to gain eight customer service points on 10% of the hardest products to manage in its supply chain.