AWS reveals enhanced features for supply chain service

On November 29, 2023, Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), unveiled four new capabilities for the AWS Supply Chain. Revealed at AWS re:Invent, they bring together almost three decades of Amazon's supply chain know-how with the robustness, security, and business continuity of an AWS managed service for optimising customers' supply chains.

The incoming features, set to launch in 2024, expand the existing capabilities of data lake, demand planning, and machine learning (ML)-powered insights. They provide new support for upstream supply chain processes, such as supplier orders, thus enabling a new set of customers, including manufacturers, to gain from the service. The overseas businesses that have already adopted the new capabilities include Boston Consulting Group, Equipment Depot, and Woodside Energy.

The AWS Supply Chain Supply Planning helps businesses to predict, plan, position and replenish components and finished products, enabling a quicker response to variations in demand and supply disruptions. Not only does this mitigate inventory costs, but it also leads to improved in-stock rates across customer supply chains.

The N-Tier Visibility feature of AWS Supply Chain aims to simplify communication between customers and suppliers by facilitating the publishing of forecasts and confirming of orders, thus improving the accuracy of planning and execution of these processes. AWS Supply Chain Sustainability is another new feature which provides a one-stop, auditable mechanism for requesting and collating carbon emissions and other compliance data from suppliers.

Moreover, the new Amazon Q, a generative AI-powered tool, allows supply chain professionals to view a summary of key risks and to visualise various scenarios in order to optimise supply chain decisions. Diego Pantoja-Navajas, Vice President of AWS Supply Chain, commented, "Our customers have been able to increase inventory visibility and execute on insights to mitigate supply chain risks, reduce cost, and improve customer satisfaction. And thanks to the power of generative AI, customers can ask Amazon Q in AWS Supply Chain what is happening across their supply chains and receive intelligent, conversational answers to complex questions."

The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Equipment Depot, and Woodside Energy are among the first customers utilising these new capabilities. Drake Watten, Managing Director and Partner at BCG, stated, "Our partnership provides a compelling and tangible business benefit to customers, as BCG brings expertise in strategy, organisational transformation and business integration to help deploy, scale, and drive adoption of AWS supply chain solutions."

Joakim Langkaas, Director of Operations at Equipment Depot, added, "AWS Supply Chain will transform our planning process, improve inventory levels, and increase our ability to make data-driven supply decisions. As an early adopter of this technology, we expect these new capabilities to enable our teams to put the right parts in the right place at the right time."

Tracey Simpson, Vice President of Supply Chain at Woodside Energy remarked, "If fully scaled, we expect the proactive visibility of order status, delivery issues, and recommendations enabled by Order Insights will improve the efficiency of our system and ways of working."