While artificial intelligence (AI) in supply chains (SC) has become a popular topic, there is a distinct lack of conceptual frameworks with which to categorize and review how various subtopics of AI can help in subfields of supply chain management. To address this gap, this chapter conceptualizes the new topic of SC AI through a human-mimicking intelligent agent that exhibits “smart” SC behavior. It then develops several SC AI capability blocks for the intelligent agent and reviews and synthesizes studies to date within these capability blocks. The chapter concludes by highlighting several industrial use cases and extant challenges reported in the literature that need to be tackled to move this exciting new field forward.
An Initial Analysis of the Shortcomings of Conventional AI and the Benefits of Distributed AI Approaches in Industrial Use Cases
