Is your supply chain living in the past? The integration of Artificial Intelligence into logistics and supply chain management has moved from a “future luxury” to a core competitive necessity. By transforming raw data into actionable intelligence, AI is solving the industry’s three oldest problems: uncertainty, waste, and speed. Opportunities arise in different business areas.
- 13:00-13:10: Introduction of the program Steven Dhooghe and Jan De Kimpe
- 13:10-13:30: AI in Logistics – how is it applied and what are the pitfalls – Lennart Heip
- AI has been around for quite a while and has found different applications in Logistics and Supply Chain but with the recent developments in Large Language Models (LLMs), new opportunities and new risks are emerging. This presentation attempts to paint a picture of what types of applications are available today. Zooming in on where Dow Inc., a global, integrated material science company, already deploys this and what the future plans are.
- LLMs also hold risks. Lennart Heip will run the audience through the most common pitfalls and how they pertain to Logistics.
- 13:35-13:55: Risks and insurance of AI application- Charlotte Van Bouwel
- 14:00-14:20: AI in Order Management: From Manual Order Entry to Autonomous Customer Engagement – Tom Devos
- B2B distributors still receive most of their orders through unstructured channels: email, PDF, portals, WhatsApp, voice. The order desk has long been the translation layer between the customer and the ERP, and the bottleneck of the business.
- AI is rewriting that role. The first wave automates the translation itself: reading every format, mapping customer-specific codes, validating against the contract, and routing clean orders into Business Central, SAP, Odoo or Exact in under 30 seconds. The second wave goes further: the same layer that processes orders becomes the early-warning system for the commercial team, surfacing churn risk and contract gaps before they hit the P&L.
- 14:25-14:45: AI in Warehousing: From hype to hard ROI – Bart Gadeyne
- The AI quick wins in logistics that actually work
- How to decrease walking distance in warehousing supported by digital twin & optimizers
- How to reduce transport cost
- AI vision: quick wins
- 14:50-15:10: From Forecast to Forklift: Agentic AI Forecasting that Actually Improves Service, Inventory & Transport Capacity – Steven Pauly and Jason Ashton
- In transport & distribution, the forecast isn’t a number—it’s a capacity reservation. It decides how many pallets you position, which lanes you secure, how you load your DCs, and whether tomorrow becomes firefighting or flow. This seminar starts from the ASCM/APICS Manufacturing Planning & Control (MPC) hierarchy—the proven planning “spine” that connects strategy to execution—then shows how Agentic AI forecasting can strengthen demand planning and translate that improvement into better S&OP process outputs and hence a sharper distribution planning (warehouses & inventory).
- 15:15-15:25: AI in administrative process automation Filip Van De Veire
- The blind spot: back-office and administrative tasks are often repetitive and invisible, yet consume a significant amount of valuable time.
- AI & RPA as the perfect tandem: together they automate back-office processes without replacing your TMS or ERP.
- Start small, scale fast: the key lies in process analysis before technology choice, not the other way around. Start with small projects that deliver immediate results.
- 15:30-15:50: AI in Warehousing Jan De Kimpe
- Applying AI for flow and space optimization : dynamic slotting, intelligent path finding, space usage optimization
- Applying AI in robotics and automation integration: Fleet Orchestration, AI-Enhanced Vision Systems and Robotic Picking and Palletizing
- Applying AI in labour and performance management : Predictive Labor Allocation, Task Interleaving and Safety Monitoring
- Applying AI in inventory and quality control : autonomous counting and predictive maintenance
- 15:50-16:00: Closure by Jan De Kimpe & Steven Dhooghe