Solvoyo, a leading supply chain planning company, is revolutionizing the industry with its autonomous business planning solution, already benefiting companies like Unilever.
The Dawn of Autonomous Planning
Autonomous planning, a concept that eliminates human intervention in the planning process, is no longer a distant dream. Omer Bakkalbasi, the Chief Innovation Officer at Solvoyo, asserts that they have already achieved this milestone. Solvoyo’s vision of autonomous supply chains, conceived back in 2010, is now a reality, creating new efficiencies for their clients by generating executable plans a high percentage of the time.
The User Acceptance Rate Metric
Solvoyo uses a unique metric called the user acceptance rate, which measures the percentage of time planners accept replenishment, transportation, or inventory plans without any changes. A 95% user acceptance rate implies that 95% of the planning recommendations are executed as is. At A101, a customer of Solvoyo, they have achieved a 99.5% planner acceptance rate, indicating near-total autonomous planning.
The Journey to Autonomous Planning
Despite the impressive results, many companies remain skeptical about autonomous planning. However, Bakkalbasi emphasizes that Solvoyo is not just an algorithm, but a platform. The platform collects data, ensures internal consistency of master data, and logs any changes made by the user. This continuous feedback loop allows the system to learn and improve the quality of the engine’s output.
The journey to autonomous planning does not rely on a highly accurate forecast. Instead, the solution creates an inventory target by SKU by channel that is automatically updated based on changes in historical sales, weather, and other external demand drivers.
The Three Stages: Digital, Intelligent, and Autonomous
The journey to achieve a high degree of autonomous planning starts with becoming digital, then intelligent, and finally achieving autonomy. The digital stage involves having a platform where all relevant data is collected and is internally consistent. The intelligence stage involves establishing the algorithms to be used and customer priority rules. Finally, the autonomous stage is achieved when the system can operate independently, creating and executing plans without human intervention.
The Road Ahead
While autonomous planning is seen as risky by many customers, Solvoyo is confident in the strong results it has already achieved. The company is committed to helping more businesses embark on their autonomous planning journey, revolutionizing the supply chain industry one client at a time.
