Enterprise software vendor Oracle has introduced new AI-powered logistics and order management capabilities within its “Oracle Fusion Cloud Supply Chain & Manufacturing” (Oracle Cloud SCM) platform, saying the upgrade will help supply chain and logistics leaders increase visibility, reduce costs, enhance decision-making, and improve customer satisfaction.
The company’s Oracle Cloud SCM is part of its Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications Suite, and enables customers to connect supply chain processes and quickly respond to changing demand, supply, and market conditions. In addition, embedded AI now acts as an advisor to help analyze supply chain data, generate content, and augment or automate processes to help improve business operations and create a resilient supply network to outpace change, Oracle says.
The new tech comes in the form of role-based AI agents within Oracle Cloud SCM that are designed to automate routine tasks, deliver personalized insights and recommendations, and allow organizations to focus more time on strategic supply chain initiatives. While past versions of Oracle software already included AI assistants—that could formulate descriptions or write emails—the new AI agents can help users by answering natural language queries about complex rules such as a policy document on returns or claims.
“One of our goals is to not have AI be an esoteric thing that you need special training to use, but just to act as part of the tool, to help you accomplish each task according to the standards of your own particular company,” Srini Rajagopal, Oracle’s vice president of logistics product strategy, said in a briefing.
For example, once a company’s IT office has uploaded the firm’s unique policy documents—on issues such as packaging, deadlines, or transaction requirements—then all the company’s customer service representatives (CSRs) can use the new AI-based advisory agents to type natural-language queries into a text-based chat box to obtain quick answers to complicated questions.
In addition to providing quick business answers to current employees, that approach can also help to train new workers on company policies in a labor market with high turnover rates. Additional use cases could apply to workers in roles such as a shop floor operator or warehouse worker, Rajagopal said.
In another application of the new AI, the updates have added new capabilities to Oracle Transportation Management, Oracle Global Trade Management, and Oracle Order Management.
Applied to the transportation management system (TMS) product, the AI enables “better, faster, smarter” operations through new capabilities such as AI-powered order route predictions, transit time predictions, and a transportation emissions calculator. In the global trade management (GTM) took, the new AI supports a user-configurable platform that can provide trade incentive program processing relief and reporting. And in the order management software, the AI can provide a returns summary, pricing promotions summary, item availability check, and order fulfillment view.
“To successfully navigate an increasingly complex global landscape, supply chain leaders need agile and efficient processes that can help them diversify and strengthen supplier networks, adapt transportation and logistics strategies, and stay ahead of regulatory changes,” Rajagopal said in a release.
