Bionic Supply Chain
Assembly Line
Garvis Raises €3.5 Million Euros for a Bionic AI Platform to Optimize Supply Chain Management
A year after the launch of its AI platform for demand and inventory planning, Belgian startup Garvis raised € 3.5 million to develop the platform. Investors include British investment funds Superseed and Scalebridge Capital, and the German group Bosch Ventures. Garvis’ technology enables companies to respond at lightning speed to upheavals and evolutions that influence customer purchase behavior. One unique feature: even non-specialists are able to use the platform within a day.
Businesses need a radical new planning method that uses risk profiles, insight and real-time data. The platform Garvis developed, maps relevant environmental factors and provides transparent, explainable insights and predictions of demand patterns for various industries such as automotive, semiconductor, retail, and food and beverage. It uses open-box AI to respond to global fluctuations in buying behavior. Unexpected changes in demand patterns are recognized early, allowing planners to immediately adjust their forecasts and keep schedules up to date. Garvis works with the University of Antwerp (Belgium) to continuously optimize the predictive algorithms.
Building the Bionic Supply Chain
To capture the greatest value from their end-to-end (E2E) supply chains, companies need to adopt a bionic operating model. With the help of adaptable key performance indicators (KPIs) that focus on optimizing overall performance in any situation, a platform organization that works cross-functionally, and a data and digital platform (DDP) that enables collaboration, a bionic supply chain leverages the best of what both machines and humans have to offer.
Building a bionic supply chain requires a comprehensive digital transformation where employees as well as leaders play crucial roles. Although the size of the effort is enormous, a bionic supply chain can lead to substantial improvements in performance. It can boost revenue by 4% to 6%, customer service levels by 5 to 30 percentage points (pp), and EBITDA by 2 to 4 pp. Moreover, a bionic supply chain has the potential to reduce manufacturing, warehousing, and distribution costs by 10% to 20% and working capital by 15% to 30%. It’s also more able to react swiftly to sudden changes in demand, supply prices, trade policies, and so on—perhaps the most important consideration of all in the current business environment.