Bekaert already uses AI agents together with Unison Planning™ optimization engines to speed up decision-making and move toward autonomous planning
OMP, leader in supply chain orchestration, has expanded today UnisonIQ, the artificial intelligence framework of its Unison Planning™ platform, with Agent Library, a library of ready-to-deploy AI agents, and Agent Studio, a tool that allows companies to create their own agents. The agents run on the Unison Planning™ optimization engines and generate executable plans for the supply chain. Bekaert is among the first companies to adopt UnisonIQ.
Organizations responsible for the supply chain face pressure from boards of directors to demonstrate progress in artificial intelligence, but many find it difficult to move beyond the experimental phase. Generic AI models and decision-intelligence tools lack the sector-specific context and semantics on which planning depends, while planning tools with an added AI layer lack reasoning depth. Both can generate responses that appear reliable yet ignore real-world constraints, such as product shelf life, co-products, and shared capacity.
By contrast, in UnisonIQ, each agent works from a digital twin based on the real-world situation of the client’s own supply chain and draws on the Unison Planning™ optimization engines, so that changes to the plans it prepares are viable in practice. Planners interact with the agents through Unison Companion, the AI assistant integrated into the platform. A planner formulates a question in natural language and Companion assigns the appropriate agents to answer it or prepare a modification to the plan.
Bekaert: scenario comparison for S&OP using natural language
Bekaert, a leader in steel wire transformation and coating technologies, uses Unison Companion in the sales and operations planning (S&OP) process of its Energy Transition subdivision. Planners describe the scenario they want to test in natural language, such as adding capacity in bottlenecks while demand increases. UnisonIQ then models it, executes it, and compares it with the current plan. Bekaert is now expanding the use of Unison Companion to demand planning in its Steel Wire Solutions division, where planners use it to challenge their forecasts.
"Our planners can describe different scenarios in natural language and compare the modeled results with the current plan. This helps us keep our S&OP conversations focused on evaluating options and making informed decisions," said Filip Lanckmans, Global Supply Chain Director at Bekaert.
Agent Library covers supply, demand and data management, enabling teams to put ready-to-deploy agents into operation. With Agent Studio, companies can develop their own agents using the same digital twin and the same optimization engines. Whether agents are developed in-house or pre-designed, each organization decides what it can decide, execute, or scale an agent, and moves toward autonomous planning at its own pace.
"Most companies have no difficulty starting to use AI. They have difficulty scaling its use," said Tom Wouters, Product Director at OMP. "An agent is only as good as the engine behind it. UnisonIQ agents run on the same optimization engines that underpin our customers' plans, so planners can delegate more work as confidence grows, without losing control".
For more information on UnisonIQ and how OMP helps organizations adopt AI in a scalable and reliable way, visit the website.
About OMP
OMP helps companies facing complex planning challenges achieve excellence, grow and thrive through the best digitized supply chain planning solution on the market. Hundreds of customers from a wide variety of sectors, including consumer goods, life sciences, the chemical industry, metals, paper and packaging, benefit from the use of Unison Planning™, OMP’s exclusive solution.