Franklin, TN – (July 15, 2022) Kimberly-Clarks Project “EARL” (Early Tendering and Leveling) is a collaboration with Transportation | Warehouse Optimization (T|WO) and ProvisionAi. EARL has successfully solved a major and costly problem many consumer-good companies face: deployment volatility.

“EARL” has cut the need for spot transportation buys, increased load fill, and reduced volume spikes at the shipping dock, all while maintaining or improving customer fill rates. By smoothing out network flow, EARL has saved millions of dollars.

 

“We’re excited to see our innovative technologies highlighted by a prestigious organization like CSCMP,” says ProvisionAi co-founder Dr. Jeff Schutt. “We firmly believe that this effort will foundationally change how organizations think about supply planning and execution and are thankful to have a great partner like Kimberly-Clark.”

 

Project Earl uses ProvisionAI’s LevelLoad transportation planning system to constrain deployment plans that are created by a leading supply-planning system. 
Over 30 days, LevelLoad pulls high-priority requirements early, pushes lower-priority SKUs later to level transportation requirements, and ensures that both shipping and receiving capabilities are respected network-wide. LevelLoad triggers early shipments tendering–before the loads’ actual content is defined.

AutoO2, the load builder, takes the tenders that LevelLoad initiated multiple days earlier and defines what product is to ship on each using the current planning system requirements and their priority. This postponement strategy ensures the right mix of high-priority products is shipped.

 

The innovation winner will be announced at the CSCMP Edge Conference in Nashville on September 18-21, 2022. The EARL team will present the process – an innovative technology that includes Operations Research and AI techniques and significant savings.

 

About the Innovation Award:
The CSCMP (Council of Supply Chain Management Professional) Supply Chain Innovation Award recognizes the top innovative teams who can communicate their significant and proven achievements that not only “positively affect the return on investment and performance at their own companies, but who can also give back to the industry and to their peers by sharing their stories.”