Artificial Intelligence in SCM: insights from two illustrative cases

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Supply Chain Management (SCM) have gained increasing attention in the last few years. Many literature review papers address the issue and highlight the importance of deepening the interplay between AI and SCM. The different contributions offer together a double-faced picture of such interplay. On the one hand the opportunities stemming from AI applications in SCM are emphasised. On the other hand, the future of such applications has still undefined contours and poses important challenges. In this work-in-progress paper we try to analyse this ongoing scenario from the perspective of two firms engaged in the introduction of AI in two different positions in the Supply Chain (SC). The main aim of this paper is explorative and is that of understanding the main constraints and opportunities that a firm meets when it attempts to integrate an AI tool in the context of a bundle of resources (both tangible and intangible) that have been already settled for a specific purpose. Notably, we assume that AI is not in a vacuum and AI applications require an integration with other resources in the company’s SC, in order to exploit its potential and to limit possible negative effects on the overall performance. From this perspective, the two cases offer interesting insights that will constitute the basis for the refinement of the research design and for the framing of more specific and bounded research questions in such a domain.