With approximately $4.0 billion in revenues, Armada is a supply chain solutions provider to many of America’s largest restaurant chains. With locations nationwide, Armada moves nearly 100 million cases annually and approximately 450,000 truckloads with speed and agility. One in eight US consumers benefits from Armada’s services each day.
Historia de éxito
Armada
Supply Chain Command Center, Warehouse Management System, Demand Planning, Store Fulfillment
Armada achieves real-time visibility and cuts disruption response times by 65% with Blue Yonder Control Tower
La compañía
El desafío empresarial
To maximize the value of its end-to-end solutions for existing clients — while also attracting new ones — Armada was focused on enablement of next-generation supply chain orchestration solutions. The company wanted to create a digital thread across the network that would enhance real-time visibility and connectivity of network stakeholders, leading to greater agility and responsiveness in the face of inevitable disruptions.
La solución
As a long-time user of multiple Blue Yonder planning and execution solutions, Armada partnered with Blue Yonder as an early adopter of Blue Yonder's Control Tower for enablement of Armada’s Profitable Response Orchestration™ solution. Powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), this solution monitors conditions across the network in real time. By digitally connecting Armada’s orchestrators with all network stakeholders, Blue Yonder's Control Tower enables a fast, coordinated response when the unexpected occurs, adding value via cost savings and continuity of supply.
“Blue Yonder's Control Tower gives Armada real-time visibility into every aspect of our operations, including inventory availability, shipment status and predicted delivery time. When an exception occurs — from a demand spike to a network event — it’s recognized and communicated to all stakeholders within one hour, 96% of the time. That gives us an incredible customer service advantage.”
–Chief Innovation Officer
Savings potential in the millions from minimizing unplanned freight
“Because Blue Yonder's Control Tower enables Armada to identify issues and respond faster, we avoid many network costs related to unplanned activities. Unexpected freight costs, including spot market rates and expediting fees, represented a category of savings that were achieved at an early stage. By proactively identifying alternative strategies and quantifying the financial impacts upfront — instead of taking a reactive stance — we’ve achieved an estimated $1 million in cost savings from just one program that targeted specific lanes. We expect several million in savings from freight-related cost mitigations as we continue to expand.”
Beneficios de la Solución
Blue Yonder's Control Tower provides a real-time, unified view of events and critical alerts that help Armada connect the dots when an exception occurs anywhere in the network. Armada can confidently predict the impacts on service levels and costs before orchestrating a corrective action.
Based on the ability of AI and ML to ingest huge volumes of data, recognize patterns and anticipate outcomes, Armada can make fact-based, optimal decisions in a fraction of the time required for manual analysis.
Blue Yonder's Control Tower has significantly increased the efficiency of Armada’s orchestration team via automation. With fewer manual interventions and faster task completion, the Armada team and network stakeholders can focus on higher-value work.
A 65% reduction in resolution time for disruptions
“Blue Yonder's Control Tower creates a digitally connected environment in which disruptions can be managed quickly and strategically, many in an automated manner. For more complex issues, it enables Armada’s orchestration professionals to collaboratively test scenarios, predict outcomes in advance and enact an optimized solution. For many scenarios, we’ve reduced our disruption response time by 65% compared to our previous manual resolution methods.”
“Our long partnership with Blue Yonder gives Armada the ability to stay at the leading edge of technology, taking us from legacy systems to a true digital transformation. We are continuing to expand our Blue Yonder footprint because of its cloud based solutions, its emphasis on AI and ML, and its open platform, which supports real-time integration and interoperability with Armada’s other systems.”
