Pepperl+Fuchs To Use o9 AI Tech For Supply Chain Innovation

Pepperl+Fuchs, which works in industrial sensor technology and explosion protection, will work with o9 Solutions' artificial intelligence (AI)-powered platform, which will help bolster decision making and better visibility, a press release says.

Pepperl+Fuchs will utilize o9's technology to establish "demand, supply and integrated business planning," the release says, and help access "real-time visibility across its end-to-end supply chain, to improve decision-making, and to reduce costs."

Pepperl+Fuchs' operation will be boosted by the new partnership, with the ability to establish a digital twin of its business network and integrate numerous data sources from both internal and external sources. Because of that, the company will be able to engage with what-if scenarios and boost decision making across every node in the supply chain network and "modeling its network, capacities, lead times, and other supply parameters."

Also, the integrations will help to do away with various manual tasks.

"Pepperl+Fuchs is an amazing company with an impressive history — a recognized pioneer in sensor and explosion protection technology," says Igor Rikalo, president and chief operating officer at o9 Solutions in the released statement. "Pepperl+Fuchs has earned that reputation by delivering superior, futureproof solutions in today's world, and realizes that in order to continue this tradition, they need to drive supply chain digital transformation too. We at o9 are immensely proud to assist Pepperl+Fuchs on this journey."

Tobias Bloecher, director of global supply chain management at Pepperl+Fuchs, said the o9 technology would "aim to bring all planning and decision-making processes together on a highly advanced, intuitive AI-powered, and cloud-native platform."

The pandemic has made the friction in supply chains worse,  with plentiful import activity but logistics hurdles making it take longer to get things where they're going. Dr. Paul Sheard, senior fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School, told Karen Webster that the pandemic had shown how precarious the supply chain could be in the event of outside disruptions shutting down channels to transport things.