International. Europe's largest auto parts wholesaler is looking to improve its ability to detect and adapt to the increasing volatility in its markets by participating in an innovative pilot project.
Together with project partners, research firm Supply Chain Insights and o9 Solutions, a leading provider of enterprise AI software platforms, LKQ Europe will implement data-driven, outside-in supply chain planning processes.
LKQ Europe created a cross-functional team comprised of supply chain leaders and data analytics experts to implement the pilot into their business processes.
Project Zebra is an interdisciplinary group of business leaders, academics and technologists working together since 2021 to drive supply chain improvement by applying management processes from the outside in.
"Being selected as an industry partner in Project Zebra's research and using this innovative new approach will allow us to detect the behavior of customers and suppliers in the face of changing market conditions and see the impact on our business from the beginning," said LKQ Europe's Vice President of Logistics and Supply Chain. Claudia Martins.
According to Martins, "by making smart use of these market signals, we expect to significantly reduce decision response time in supply chain planning."
"With a more detailed forecast on supply and demand, our planning will improve. We will be able to provide better services to our customers, fostering our relationships with suppliers, saving time, resources and costs," he highlights.
In a statement, the company notes that automotive supply chains are driven by immense and diverse data sets. This includes weather patterns, geolocation and telematics data, rating and review comments, fuel prices, pallet and truck sensor data, and information from various smart devices.
"With Project Zebra, LKQ Europe can detect all the data surrounding its supply chain to create and improve AI-assisted demand detection. This information will help build a master data layer to manage supply variability based on market changes," the company says.
With that, LKQ Europe expects its supply chain planning to be more predictable and decision-making processes to be more agile.
"Today's supply chains are not very good at detection, so they find it difficult to respond," adds o9 Solutionsv President and COO Igor Rikalo.
"New planning capabilities can only be harnessed to their full potential if companies change their business models and planning processes. We are delighted to test this new outside-in approach and new forms of data analytics together with LKQ Europe and redefine their supply chain processes," concludes Rikalo.
