The food industry is facing profound change. Increasing market demands, regulatory requirements and growing sustainability pressure require a rethink in production and logistics planning. AI can be a decisive lever here to improve efficiency and flexibility in Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) and increase competitiveness.
By Matthias Banike, Mitglied der Geschäftsleitun
The focus is on the seamless integration of AI technologies into production and logistics processes. Ommm considers the entire value chain and takes into account essential constraints such as shelf life, limited resources and set-up times. Business planning plays a key role within the integrated S&OP process. Companies can use AI-supported software to carry out medium-term planning with a time horizon of 12 to 36 months. Questions can be answered quantifiably: What impact do changes in sales volumes have on available resources? Which shift models are the most efficient? How do changes in the product portfolio affect labour requirements and storage capacities? AI also makes it possible to comprehensively analyse the resilience of the entire supply chain.
Effective planning must be able to simulate different scenarios and thus support well-founded decisions. The consideration of different target functions and strategies as well as the flexible adaptation of resource availability, sales and work plans are an important factor. The software must be able to map both single-plan and multi-plan functionality.
In addition, the consideration of restrictions plays a central role. Set-up times and costs, stock levels and limiting transport and storage capacities must be factored into planning, as must limited personnel resources. Through AI optimisation, the software can ensure the best possible planning, taking into account all constraints, evaluate different planning variants based on KPIs and map transparent inventory development across all production stages.
Successful utilisation depends to a large extent on the existing data quality. Many companies still work with outdated systems and record data in an unstructured way. Companies must ensure that their planning relevant data is complete, consistent and up-to-date. Ommm therefore also supports its customers in optimising their data structures. This ensures that AI-supported supply chain planning can realise its full potential.
The integration of AI into the S&OP process offers the food industry significant competitive advantages. It increases efficiency, flexibility and resilience, optimises resources and enables sustainable, economically viable decisions. Companies that rely on AI-supported planning at an early stage and improve their data quality secure their long-term market position in a dynamic environment.
