The webinar, Supercharging Supply Chain Planning: What AI Can (and Can’t) Fix Today, was chaired by Professor Jan Godsell, Director of the UK SCALE Centre and Professor of Operations and Supply Chain Strategy at Loughborough Business School.
Speakers included Professor Donato Masi from the UK SCALE Centre, Dr Maria Jesus Saenz from the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics, Professor Richard Pibernik from the University of Würzburg and Zaragoza Logistics Center, Dr Emad Alenany from the Ningbo China Institute for Supply Chain Innovation and Dr Daniel Prato Sánchez from the Center for Latin-American Logistics Innovation at LOGYCA.
Opening the session, Professor Godsell said:
“Planning is the glue that holds supply chains together and is a very data-rich environment. The way in which we can potentially use AI to supercharge supply chain planning has both huge opportunity, but potentially some limitations too.”
Across the discussion, speakers explored where AI is already creating value in forecasting, inventory management and repetitive planning tasks, alongside the factors that can limit its impact.
Recurring themes included data quality, organisational readiness, human–AI collaboration, trust, governance and change management. The panel also highlighted that AI is not automatically the best solution in every planning context, with performance depending heavily on the quality of the data, the use case and the wider operating environment.
A live poll at the beginning of the webinar showed a relatively even split between participants who viewed AI as an evolution in supply chain planning and those who saw it as a revolution.
The webinar builds on the UK SCALE Centre’s Supercharging Supply Chain Planning: What AI Can (and Can’t) Fix Today whitepaper, which explores the conditions organisations need to realise value from AI in planning.