Key Trends in Supply Chain Optimisation: What Businesses Need to Know

Supply chain optimisation is no longer a competitive advantage; it’s an operational imperative for managing resource constraints, growing customer demands and increasing regularity requirements. More than this, it’s essential to the bottom line.  79% of companies with high-performing supply chains achieve revenue growth significantly above the industry average.

Biarri’s approach to supply chain optimisation combines advanced mathematical modelling, algorithmic automation and bespoke solutions tailored to your business. By offering data-driven insights and strategic automation, Biarri enables your organisation to make better decisions, reduce costs and build systems that can adapt to change in real-time.

This blog looks at five trends in supply chain optimisation and how Biarri’s solutions respond to them, delivering tangible results across industries.

1. Automating Operational Planning for Efficiency

Operational planning traditionally involves time-consuming manual processes that are prone to errors and inconsistencies. Arduous tasks like scheduling, rostering, and resource allocation often depend heavily on human input, leading to errors, inefficiencies and missed opportunities. By strategically incorporating automation, businesses can streamline these processes, reduce errors, and ensure consistent, scalable operations.

How Biarri Helps

Biarri’s Workbench automates and optimises planning processes via its advanced optimisation engine, saving time and effort. This technology allows businesses to handle complex workflows such as crew rostering and logistics planningwith ease, ensuring rule compliance and scalability.

Biarri recently implemented a tailored backend rostering solution for a global platform managing crew relief for thousands of vessel operators. The system reduced manual planning efforts by up to 80% by generating rule-compliant, cost-optimised rosters that also matched employee preferences. By aligning crew relief times with contract end dates, the solution improved staff retention while ensuring operational efficiency.

2. Enhancing Scalability Through Resource Optimisation

As businesses grow, managing resources effectively becomes increasingly complex. Scaling operations requires balancing multiple factors, including worker utilisation, asset allocation, and capital planning, to maintain efficiency and control costs. Without proper optimisation, businesses face operational inefficiencies, bottlenecks, and rising labour costs.

How Biarri Helps

Biarri’s optimisation software empowers businesses to tackle complex operational challenges with precision and efficiency. Using advanced mathematical modelling, Biarri’s tools dynamically allocate resources based on real-time data, ensuring alignment with operational priorities and reducing inefficiencies.

• Integrated Logistics & Production Planning: Streamlines the flow of goods and materials across production and distribution networks, minimising delays and maximising throughput.
• Maintenance Planning: Optimises scheduling and resource allocation for maintenance activities to reduce downtime and ensure asset reliability.
• Rostering and Scheduling: Automates workforce planning to balance team availability, skill sets, and operational requirements.
• Inventory Optimisation: Analyses customer behaviour to balance ordering and stocking strategies while managing inventory capacity effectively.

Biarri’s resource optimisation tools have delivered cost savings of up to 11% in efficiency improvements across client operations, enabling businesses to scale sustainably without overspending.

By integrating these automation and resource optimisation solutions, businesses can unlock efficiencies, manage complexity, and achieve sustainable growth in their supply chain operations.

3. Driving Decision-Making with Data-Driven Insights

In today’s complex supply chains, relying on intuition or past experiences like “I’ve been burned before” is no longer sufficient. The sheer volume of data businesses generate—from procurement and production to distribution—offers an untapped opportunity. By ingesting and analysing these vast and growing data sources, companies can base decisions on objective insights rather than gut feelings. This approach allows businesses to anticipate challenges, streamline operations, and reduce waste, turning raw data into a strategic advantage.

How Biarri Helps

Biarri Workbench integrates mathematically driven predictive analytics, enabling demand forecasting, optimised resource allocation, and streamlined planning. This ensures that businesses not only react to market changes but are able to manage them proactively. By offering fully costed, risk-adjusted plans in seconds, Biarri empowers organisations to make informed decisions quickly.

4. Building Resilience with Scenario Modelling

In an increasingly interconnected global economy, supply chain resilience is paramount to business longevity. Disruptions, from natural disasters to geopolitical tensions, can significantly and unexpectedly, impact operations. To mitigate these risks, businesses are increasingly adopting scenario modelling to anticipate potential challenges and develop robust contingency plans.

Scenario modelling allows organisations to simulate potential disruptions and assess their potential effects on the supply chain. This proactive approach enables companies to:

• Identify Vulnerabilities: Pinpoint weak points within their supply chain, identifying what may be affected by specific disruptions.
• Evaluate Response Strategies: Test the effectiveness of mitigation tactics before actual implementation.
• Enhance Decision-Making: Using data-driven insights to inform strategic choices during crises.

How Biarri Helps

At Biarri, our software and services enable businesses to conduct comprehensive scenario analyses:

• Perform “What-If” Analyses: Explore various hypothetical situations to understand optimal decisions under different conditions.
• Conduct Sensitivity Analyses: Determine how changes in individual factors affect overall operational performance.

5. Maximising Workforce Utilisation and Retention

Labour costs make up a significant portion of operational expenses, and underutilisation of employees combined with high turnover rates can drive costs significantly higher. Aligning schedules with employee preferences, operational needs, and compliance requirements is key to maximising productivity and satisfaction.

How Biarri Helps

Biarri’s planning software autogenerates compliant and cost-optimised workforce plans, routes, and work schedules. By balancing operational efficiency with employee needs, Biarri helps organisations reduce staff burnout and increase retention. By automating compliant, preference-driven schedules, Biarri helps businesses deliver up to a 50% increase in planned service delivery, ensuring staff are engaged while meeting operational goals.

Discover the Biarri Difference

Biarris delivers tailored solutions at scale. With a proven track record across industries that rely heavily on supply chain management—including logistics, retail, and energy—Biarri leverages its proprietary Workbench to provide:

• Rapid Deployment: Our custom solutions are delivered efficiently, minimising potential downtime.
• Robust Applications: customisable planning software built on the a reliable core technology.
• Proven Results: Tangible benefits like cost savings, improved utilisation, and enhanced scalability.

By using advanced mathematical modelling and a consultative approach, Biarri delivers tools that are not only powerful but intuitive for end users.

Ready to transform your supply chain operations? Schedule a consultation today and explore how Biarri can help your business achieve measurable results.