CASE STUDY
Manufacturing
Manufacturing Intelligence
Achieving operational excellence in the age of AI.
A Seismic Shift
It is estimated that AI will boost overall productivity in the manufacturing sector by an average of 20% this decade. However, with great opportunity comes technical challenges and fierce competition.
Our client is a North American manufacturing company with a focus on sustainable packaging products and B2B value-added services. The company was recently acquired by a global conglomerate, creating challenges with integrating data and institutional knowledge across entities. In addition, the organization faced rising material and labor costs, compounded by changing customer expectations and mounting industry competition.
With so much at stake, our client enlisted Astral as their trusted partner to design an Azure-based AI & analytics platform to drive operational excellence and profitability. Astral also supported the development and execution of a broader Industry 4.0 transformation strategy, maximizing the impact of new processes and technology.
An Integrated Solution
We began by gathering key client stakeholders across the organization. By establishing a set of desired business outcomes, we laid the foundation to develop a roadmap to deploy an integrated AI & analytics platform powered by Microsoft Fabric.
Our deployment began by designing purpose-built architecture to deliver insights to support decision making in key areas: sales & operations planning (S&OP), logistics, inventory management, and finance. Our solution needed to support the automated ingestion, harmonization, and transformation of data from a multitude of sources, including ERP, WMS, CRM, Excel, and 3rd party raw materials market data. To this end, we leveraged the powerful Microsoft Fabric suite to begin deploying functional prototypes in 2-week sprint phases to deliver value quickly.
With a keen understanding of the causal relationships between actions (e.g., selecting a new supplier) and business outcomes (e.g., optimizing inventory holding periods), client leadership pinpointed the insights they needed to ensure decisions were made with accuracy and efficiency.
Over the next 12 months, we continued adding features to the platform to support the workflows of over 100 employees. With personalized information delivered through intuitive tools, our engagement generated substantial returns on the initial investment.
A Lasting Impact
In the first 12 months of our engagement with the Client, we generated a 335% return on investment through reduced inventory holding costs, more predictable lead times, and increased supply chain visibility.
Our cloud-based solution unlocked a one-stop-shop for data-driven insights to fuel more efficient operations and profitable strategic decision making across the organization.
Our client continues to work with us as a partner to maintain and improve their data & AI infrastructure, now addressing the organization’s supplier base in new detail to optimize contract terms.
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