What if we could significantly improve your stock forecasting accuracy?

You want to know how artificial intelligence can be safely implemented to improve your forecasting accuracy, reducing waste & cost whilst minimising out-of-stock…

If yes, then you’re in the right place.

Choosing and implementing the right intelligent automation solution is hard, finding talented data scientists is harder still that’s why customers choose an accelerated solution.

7 million forecasts across

500,000 unique items within stores

Cut Costs

Optimise the entire re-stock & ordering process

Half a million orders a day is just the start for one of our customers, easily ramped to 5 million. Crucially, you remain in control of decision-making to optimise cost savings.

Reduce operating costs and increase profit

Half a million orders calculated and processed every day
Unique calculation for every SKU in every store
Bespoke algorithm for each retailer
Significantly reduce human intervention and labor costs

Reduce Waste

Accurate prediction keeps the bins empty

Waste reduction is the ultimate goal of super-accurate forecasting. Using flexible variables and continual learning improves the model producing incremental reductions over time.

More accurate orders minimise waste without creating lost sales
Savings in store, distribution and supply chain
Reduced disposal costs

Reduce waste by 75%

Sustainable

Reduced food miles

The use of super-accurate forecasts reduces all aspects of a retailer’s footprint, reducing food mile emissions and energy use, cutting wasted energy and production consumables.

Technology must be a force for good. Precisely forecasting stock levels and demand means less waste, reduced transportation emissions, lower energy consumption all of which help our planet and the ecosystems on which we depend.

Improve SDG by reducing wastage

Integrated

Advanced AI solutions

Ground-breaking use of advanced AI modelling wrapped in a beautiful front-end experience enables super-precise forecasts for stock levels, especially powerful for seasonal forecasts.

Fits with existing systems

Streamlined daily implementation with automatic generation of essential insights
Efficient seasonal forecasting at busy trading times such as Christmas

Automated forecasts, reports & analytics

Forecasts with just 14 data points

Configurable

Highly adaptable to any retail challenge

Our solution codifies human behaviour, hence we are free of the constraints of data quality, data volume or black-box compute complexity. Just fourteen days of sales data is sufficient to drive improvements.

Easy configuration and customization

Just 2 weeks of sales data required for existing stores – Minimum
One model store required for new store opening – Minimum

Inexpensive

Advanced data-light AI solution

In contrast with typical AI solution projects we do not need vast data lakes or armies of data scientists. SueBot is a small-data solution relying on the decision-making process not its history.

Low running costs

Scalable for all multi-site retailers globally
Over one million orders per hour can be increased where required

1.3 million forecasts per hour

CASE STUDY

Case study: Transforming forecasting operations for a global retail company

A leading retail company, had a critical need to improve their day-to-day forecasting system. With a vast array of 500 item ranges available in more than 1000 stores, accurate demand forecasting was crucial for efficient inventory management, optimizing cost, and enhancing customer satisfaction.

Challenge

The existing forecasting system lacked efficiency, robustness, and flexibility. It was unable to accurately factor in all the critical variables that significantly influence retail demand, such as payday weekends, bank holidays, promotions, and weather conditions. All of which vary on an individual Item and Store level.

Solution

Two proof-of-concept projects were undertaken to demonstrate the effectiveness of a new forecasting.

The initial proof-of-concept was to take a sample of 4 months of historical Sales data across 20 stores and see if we could build a forecasting algorithm which improves on their existing one.

Over a few weeks of trial and error, testing different ML software and a myriad of variables we managed to come up with a new algorithm incorporated a multitude of parameters, including day, week of the month, month, payday weekend, bank holiday, promotion, and weather. Furthermore, it employed time-series forecasting, allowing it to consider the previous month’s trend when forecasting for the current period. This enabled the use of all Historical data to train the model, and not be hindered by Sales patterns for Items and Stores changing year upon year.

We eventually settled on software called ‘A Bot Named SUE’ (ABNS), which is perfect for the implementation we chose, and perfect for the challenge facing our client. This software is unlike most other ML software as it is suited and optimised for small data. This allowed us to start predicting with as little as 14 data points, so 2 weeks after a new Item hit the shelves, we could start producing forecasts for it. It was also extremely quick and lightweight, which would enable us to be able to produce the number of forecasts within the timeframe available each day.

Following the initial proof-of-concept, they were happy with the results, but wanted to know how it would perform during, historically, the most difficult periods to forecast (i.e., Christmas), so we performed a similar process and built a model that produced accurate results for seasonal periods (models that were unique to Christmas, that included different parameters such as ‘Days to Christmas’ etc).

Happy with these results, the Client then gave the green light to go with a full build and rollout which would lead up to 500 Item ranges and 1000 Stores nationwide.

A distinctive feature of the solution was its full configurability with a user-friendly front-end application that enabled real-time analytics, error logging, model health/diagnostics, and full configurability. The process, while being completely automated, allowed granular adjustments such as the length of the forecast period, the length of the Trend, the days that go into training the model (extreme periods can be removed that may prove to be unreliable predictions for the future such as certain times during COVID). Providing the Retail company with maximum control and flexibility.

Implementation

The algorithm was applied across the range of 500 items in 1000 stores. Each Item in each Store being individually modelled as every single combination has a unique Sales pattern, which, if not modelled individually would sacrifice accuracy. Despite the vast volume of data, the automated system could produce 7 million forecasts in a mere 2 hours, a remarkable feat that underscored the power and efficiency of the new solution. At every turn, the solution was built with best practices, and data optimisation in mind. The sheer number of forecasts and data produced meant that it was critical that there was no redundant logic or data. The whole process is fully automated and requires no manual intervention (though is configurable if necessary).

Results

The implementation of the new forecasting algorithm by ABNS led to significant improvements in the retail supermarket company’s forecasting system. The enhanced accuracy in demand prediction led to:

Optimised inventory management, leading to a decrease in costs associated with overstocking and understocking.
Increased customer satisfaction due to better availability of products.
Greater operational efficiency with the automation and configurability of the forecasting process.
Improved decision-making ability due to the incorporation of real-time analytics in the front-end application.

The improvements noted during the two proof-of-concept projects translated into real-world gains when the solution is being implemented across all stores, confirming the effectiveness of the new algorithm and its adaptability to complex, real-world retail operations.

Conclusion

The forecasting implementation with ABNS transformed the Retail company’s approach to demand forecasting. With the new solution, the company is now able to react quickly and intelligently to shifts in demand patterns, effectively optimizing inventory, enhancing customer satisfaction, and driving overall business growth. This case study underscores the power of advanced algorithms and predictive analytics in revolutionizing retail operations.

Let’s Introduce SUE

See a working Artificial Intelligence model built in ten minutes flat! We can build an AI model for any industry with no programming or maths needed.

Our Intelligent Automation Partners

A bot named SUE

SUE is a technology that allows experts to transfer their knowledge to computers – giving the ability to replicate the decisioning performance of the top experts throughout an organisation.

Outsystems

OutSystems is the leading enterprise grade, low code application development platform. Using an AI assisted, Visual IDE, developers can create complex responsive web and native mobile applications 3-5 times faster than traditional coding techniques. With its WYSIWYG screen editor, visual debugging and full support for deploying and monitoring your applications, OutSystems brings a high degree of automation to the Software Development Life Cycle.

Green Lemon Company

Green Lemon engineer solutions rapidly with low technical debt. They favour enterprise-grade Low-Code as their core technology platform. Low-Code enables them to deliver many times faster than traditional coding, minimise technical debt and architect for optimum scalability and performance.