Middleware Consulting International

Provides End-to-End Visibility and Intelligent Insights to More Effectively Act on Inventory to Meet Actual Demand

ARMONK, N.Y., – IBM today announced the launch of IBM Sterling Inventory Control Tower (ICT) to further help companies manage inventory and build resilient supply chains more effectively. Many companies lack the end-to-end inventory visibility and intelligence needed to effectively predict disruptions, optimize decision-making and mitigate the business impact. IBM Sterling Inventory Control Tower is enabled with AI and is designed to provide insights to see inventory wherever it is, identify and understand the impact of external events to predict disruptions, and take actions based on playbook recommendations to mitigate the upstream and downstream effects. This can allow for faster response to market changes and the delivery of better customer experiences.

Now more than ever, inventory challenges are top of mind across every industry. Supply chain Inventory Control Towers is purpose-built to be used by organizations to get near real-time insights with anticipated use cases such as:

• In grocery stores to expand inventory visibility to see beyond warehouses, including in-store locations and supply in-transit, and keep shelves stocked;
• In hospitals to provide visibility into supply and demand gaps for critical items at PAR locations such as critical lifesaving equipment and supplies, making them available at the right place and time;
• In automotive to get visibility into aftermarket service parts by SKU, and stocking locations across ERP and other systems, to help ensure critical parts are in stock to meet customer expectations.

The purpose-built Sterling Inventory Control Tower can help organizations see, predict and more effectively act on inventory to better predict disruptions, improve resiliency, manage exceptions and respond to unplanned events. Capabilities include:

• See Inventory Across the Supply Chain. Correlate data across silos and disparate systems to provide a single inventory view, while quickly detecting internal and external events that could impact inventory. By establishing end-to-end visibility throughout the entire supply chain all the way from raw material availability and supplier order to the “last mile” of customer delivery, businesses can track days of supply by product to customize safety stock reserves by location and reallocate inventory across locations and channels.

• Predict and Assess Disruptions. Help businesses by connecting data between a wide array of internal and external sources. Smart-alerts can help quickly detect the most relevant and impactful events so disruptions can be predicted sooner, while data drill down enabled by natural language queries helps to understand and assess the supply chain impact. This can allow businesses to adapt to growing market and customer complexity and meet customer commitments with accurate inventory information and insights.

• Act to Mitigate Potentially Disruptive Events. Allow businesses to better collaborate across the supply chain to quickly respond to unplanned events. The solution’s AI-powered virtual Resolution Rooms can provide a collaboration space that can help teams quick convene and identify the root causes of supply chain disruptions and develop the right solutions. Additionally, Digital Playbooks provide guidance on best practices and preserving organizational knowledge to help speed issue resolution over time, while natural language capabilities provide immediate answer to questions, driving greater productivity for a wide range of users.

“The past few months have shown us that what was once considered ‘good enough’ inventory management may no longer be sufficient. Even as businesses strive to reopen and emerge smarter, inventory remains dynamic because supply, demand and transportation capacity are in flux,” said Jeanette Barlow, VP of Offering Management, IBM Sterling. “As a result, some businesses may be losing sales, aggravating customers by over promising, losing margins due to markdowns and expedited shipping charges, carrying excess safety stock, all while limiting their ability to enter new sales channels. Enterprises should embrace advanced technologies such as AI to more effectively act on their inventory across all channels in near real-time, which can help mitigate fluctuations in demand and supply disruptions in order create smarter, innovative and resilient supply chains.”

IBM Sterling Inventory Control Tower is part of the IBM Sterling Supply Chain Suite, which includes applications for supplier, order and inventory management, providing connectivity to an extensive ecosystem of customers, suppliers and partners through one of the market’s leading multi-enterprise business networks, the IBM Sterling Supply Chain Business Network.

To learn more about the new IBM Sterling Inventory Control Tower read the IBM Sterling blog, “Navigate Supply Chain Disruption with an Inventory Control Tower.” To learn more about how to improve supplier collaboration with the recently released IBM Sterling Business Transaction Intelligence solution read the IBM Sterling blog, “What Will it Take to Enable Transparent and Efficient Supplier Collaboration.”

Leading Norwegian seafood producers turn to blockchain for help in using technology to provide high-quality, fully traceable products

ARMONK, N.Y. and OSLO, Norway, — Atea, IBM and Sjømatbedriftene, the Norwegian Seafood Association, today announced a new cross-industry collaboration to use blockchain technology to share supply chain data throughout Norway’s seafood industry to provide safer, better seafood to consumers worldwide.

Several Norwegian seafood companies are now in the process of putting data onto the network. One of these companies is Kvarøy Arctic, a leading provider of naturally sea farmed salmon, who will soon begin delivering products to leading retailers in the United States and Canada using the tracking and provenance technology. BioMar, a leading provider of high-grade fish feed, has also joined the network allowing Nordic seafood companies to provide insight into the origin and quality of seafood as well as the quality of feed the fish consume.

“It is important for our customers to know that the seafood they eat is not only safe but produced in a sustainable and healthy manner,” says Alf-Gøran Knutsen, CEO of Kvarøy Arctic. “Blockchain lets us share the fish’s journey from the ocean to the store. This is now more timely than ever, as consumers want more information about where the food they eat comes from.”

Norwegian seafood is known for its quality and the country exported more than 2.7 million tons of seafood in 2019, the equivalent of 25,000 meals per minute.  At the same time, monitoring where the fish comes from, its growing and storage conditions, and reducing food waste remain of critical concern to seafood consumers who care deeply about sustainability.

Robert Eriksson, CEO of the Norwegian Seafood Association, believes that the technology will be of great significance going forward and that it will increase the competitive edge of the industry: “Norwegian seafood is known for its quality. Yet we still do not have the ability to trace where the fish came from, how it was grown or how it was stored. This creates the potential for fraud and food waste. Blockchain can help eliminate these problems with a transparent, accountable record of where each fish came from. We believe that this is only the start of something that will mean a great deal for the industry by creating more sustainable food production, which in turn will increase the return for producers,” Eriksson states.

Blockchain technology can help seafood producers create a “single version of the truth” about supply chain events, allowing consumers to trace their seafood products directly back to the source and enabling producers to tell stories about the products, where they come from, and how to prepare them. The private blockchain network records data about catch location and time, supply chain events like shipping updates and customs clearance, and even temperature, which can then be shared with permissioned parties.

According to a recent IBM study, 71% of consumers indicate that traceability is important to them and that they are willing to pay a premium for brands that provide it. Customers are also demanding more documentation about the food they eat. This new blockchain-based network will allow customers in-store to know the fjord where the fish is from, when it was fished, the feed it has eaten and whether the facility uses sustainable methods. Customs agencies will be able to more easily access data about volume and location of shipments to expedite customs clearance. By sharing all this information across the supply chain, seafood producers who invest in quality will also be able to charge a premium, increasing pay for the people who catch your fish.

“The Norwegian seafood industry exports more than $800 million worth of fish a year, making this an incredible opportunity to improve the quality of the products Norway shares with the world. While this specific application of the technology will be used in the seafood industry, we feel it has great potential in other prominent Nordic industries such as agriculture and retail.  Working through the Atea Innovation Center, we will help network members innovate using the platform and drive new efficiencies,” says Steinar Sønsteby, CEO of Atea ASA.

The blockchain network uses IBM Blockchain Transparent Supply, an innovative offering from IBM using the underlying technology behind Food Trust. It enables organizations and consortia to rapidly build out their own sustainable blockchain-based ecosystem for improved supply chain operations across numerous industries. IBM Blockchain Transparent Supply promotes transparency and collaboration, allowing networks to manage their own membership, securely share documents and create a permanent record of the history and lifecycle of physical and digital assets.

“Blockchain is about enhancing flexibility and transparency, and IBM Blockchain Transparent Supply provides just that to clients who are interested in rapidly launching their own blockchain network with ecosystem partners, and using their own branding,” said IBM Food Trust General Manager Raj Rao. “This powerful technology gives network members the option to develop their own governance and determine how and what information is shared.”

The launch of Wipro IBM Novus Lounge in Bengaluru will foster innovation and build industry solutions leveraging Cloud, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Internet of Things

East Brunswick, New Jersey, USA and Bengaluru: Wipro Limited (NYSE: WIT, BSE: 507685, NSE: WIPRO), a leading global information technology, consulting and business process services company, today announced a collaboration with IBM to assist Wipro customers embark on a seamless and secure hybrid cloud journey. Through this alliance Wipro will develop hybrid cloud offerings to help businesses migrate, manage and transform mission-critical workloads and applications, with security across public or private cloud and on-premises IT environments.

Wipro IBM Novus Lounge, located at Wipro’s Kodathi campus in Bengaluru is a dedicated innovation center. It will offer a comprehensive suite of solutions leveraging Cloud, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Internet of Things capabilities to foster innovation for enterprises, developers and start-ups. Customers will have remote access to IBM and Red Hat solutions, designed to help them scale their technology investments for improved experience and business agility with connected insights. Additionally, Wipro will leverage IBM Cloud offerings and technologies alongside in-house services to develop industry solutions for clients in Banking and Financial Services, Energy and Utilities, Retail, Manufacturing and Healthcare space.

Ramesh Nagarajan, Senior Vice President – Cloud Services, Wipro Limited said, “Wipro empowers customers across industries to re-imagine their cloud journey with its business-first strategy and industrialized solution approach. Wipro IBM Novus Lounge will allow us to showcase hybrid multi-cloud and open source solutions even more comprehensively and support our customers’ continuous business transformation journey.”

Gaurav Sharma, Vice President – Cloud and Cognitive Software, IBM India said, “As companies across the world continue to drive digital transformation, decision-makers must rethink radically on how to leverage the combined power of data, cloud and open source technologies to become industry leaders. Wipro IBM Novus Lounge brings together Wipro’s expertise across industries and IBM’s open source technologies, designed to be secure and scalable across hybrid cloud, Data and AI, all running on Red Hat OpenShift promoting the journey to Cloud and journey to AI.”

Wipro recently received the IBM Beacon Award for Best IBM Hybrid Multi Cloud Practice at IBM PartnerWorld 2020.

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