Google Cloud is helping companies build a digital twin of their supply chains to give them a more complete view of suppliers, inventories and other information.

Supply Chain Twin is a purpose-built digital twin as a virtual representation of a physical supply chain. It orchestrates data from disparate sources so users can see a fuller view of suppliers and inventories.

In addition, the Supply Chain Pulse module, announced at the same time, can be used with Supply Chain Twin to provide real-time dashboards, analytics, alerts on critical issues such as potential disruptions, and collaboration in Google Workspace.

Most companies do not have complete visibility of their supply chains, resulting in retail stock outs, aging manufacturing inventory or weather-related disruptions. In 2020, out-of-stock items alone cost the retail industry an estimated $1.14tn. The past year-and-a-half of supply chain disruptions related to Covid-19 has further proven the need for more up-to-date insights into operations, inventory levels and more.

“Siloed and incomplete data are limiting the visibility companies have into their supply chains,” said Hans Thalbauer, managing director of supply chain and logistics for Google Cloud. “The Supply Chain Twin enables customers to gain deeper insights into their operations, helping them optimise supply chain functions from sourcing and planning, to distribution and logistics.”

With Supply Chain Twin, companies can bring together data from multiple sources, all while requiring less partner integration time than traditional API-based integration. Some have seen a 95% reduction in analytics processing time, with times for some dropping from 2.5 hours down to eight minutes.

Data types supported in Supply Chain Twin include:

• Enterprise business systems: Better understand operations by integrating information such as locations, products, orders and inventory from ERPs and other internal systems.
• Supplier and partner systems: Gain a more holistic view across businesses by integrating data from suppliers, such as stock and inventory levels, and partners, such as material transportation status.
• Public sources: Understand the supply chain in the context of the broader environment by connecting contextual data from public sources, such as weather, risk or sustainability-related data, including public datasets from Google.

Once up-and-running on Supply Chain Twin, the Supply Chain Pulse module enables further visibility, simulations and collaboration features such as real-time visibility and analytics. Users can drill down into key operational metrics with executive performance dashboards that make it easier to view the status of the supply chain.

Alert-driven event management and collaboration across teams mean users can set mobile alerts that trigger when key metrics reach user-defined thresholds, and build shared workflows that allow users to collaborate quickly in Google Workspace to resolve issues.

AI-driven optimisation and simulation let users trigger AI-driven algorithm recommendations to suggest tactical responses to changing events, flag more complex issues to the user, and simulate the impact of hypothetical situations.

“At Renault, we are innovating on how we run efficient supply chains,” said Jean-François Salles, vice president at Renault Group. “Improving visibility to inventory levels across our network is a key initiative. By aggregating inventory data from our suppliers and leveraging Google Cloud’s strength in organising and orchestrating data, with solutions like the Supply Chain Twin we expect to achieve a holistic view. We aim to work with Google tools to manage both stock, improve forecasting, and eventually optimise our fulfilment.”

Simon Ellis, programme vice president at IDC, added: “End-to-end visibility across the entire supply chain is a top priority for supply chain professionals to optimise planning, real-time decision making and monitoring. Google Cloud’s approach to a digital twin of the supply chain spans internal, external and partner data networks without complex integrations. This approach can help organisations to better plan, monitor, collaborate and respond at scale.”

Retailers, manufacturers, CPG firms, healthcare networks and other logistics-heavy companies can deploy Supply Chain Twin by working directly with Google Cloud’s partner ecosystem. For example, system integration partners such as Deloitte, Pluto7, and TCS can help their customers integrate the Supply Chain Twin and relevant datasets into their existing infrastructure.

In addition, data partners such as Climate Engine, Craft and Crux can augment Supply Chain Twin by providing geospatial, sustainability and risk management data sets for a more complete macroenvironment view. Finally, application partners such as Anaplan, Automation Anywhere and Project44 can provide information from their platforms into Supply Chain Twin to help users better understand product lifecycles, track shipments across carriers, predict ETAs and more.