REVOLUTIONISING SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT WITH ‘ ELF ’
Digitalisation is at the core of General Mills strategy , and the company ramped up its efforts during the pandemic to ensure business continuity and value generation amid disruptions .
The company ’ s focus on digitalisation began with sourcing , where it has created a comprehensive digital platform providing end-to-end visibility into the supply chain .
Collaborating with software developer Palantir Technologies , the duo created a comprehensive digital platform providing end-to-end logistics flow ( ELF ) visibility into the supply chain . This platform is built on a digital twin of the supply chain , advanced analytics and AI .
“ ELF enables full transparency across our end-to-end supply chain with dynamic order processing and optimisation depending on the varying inputs that we put in , whether that be cost , weather , customer timelines or even greenhouse gas emissions ,”
Paul Gallagher , General Mills Chief Supply Chain Officer says .
“ What we ’ ve seen in the six months from its initiation – especially where we started , our US human foods business – is that , everyday , those 3,000 orders are being assessed more than 100 times and up to 400 recommendations are coming through the process to our team . 70 % of those are now automatically accepted and it ’ s translating into tens of thousands of dollars daily .
“ The key outcome includes decision speed . What would have taken us a day is now taking us a minute . Also , it ’ s driving value by giving time back to our team .
“ We ’ re moving from a world where people make those decisions supported by machines to one where the machines make most of the decisions , guided by people . This intelligent execution at scale is where we ’ re seeing the benefits come through to our supply chain .”