News Room

In the face of the coronavirus crisis, building improved supply chain resilience is perhaps the hottest topic in the industry right now, with literally dozens if not hundreds of articles and pundits weighing in on what companies need to do to become more resilient.

Visual cues are overtaking the text in their messaging in defining online conversations. A new study published by INFORMS, an international association for operations research and analytics professionals, and conducted by researchers from the University of Colorado, the New Economics School in Russia and the University of Washington, found a strong link between the visual portrayal of a brand in online imagery created by consumers and the larger brand perceptions.

The "multiechelon inventory optimization" model turned an inventory management process that previously relied on "rule-of-thumb heuristics and spreadsheets" into one where planners accept an algorithm's automatically generated inventory targets 99.5% of the time, the researchers said.

For many Americans, “Hey, Siri, type a text,” or “Alexa, turn up the volume” have become common phrases as voice assistants and smart speakers have become more popular. Now, artificial intelligence and voice tech experts predict that consumers will be issuing similar commands in retail spaces if doing so helps reduce the spread of the coronavirus.