Mars, Five Below & Generac: Building Collaborative and Resilient Supply Chains With AI

Data’s Role in Combating Disruption

Weather and tariffs are two things that can significantly impact the supply chain. For Neil Bhandar, vice president of IT,  enterprise data, analytics and innovation for Generac — an energy technology and backup power solutions business — a weather-caused power outage creates an immediate need for a backup supply.

“Our inventory level, our supply chain preparedness and our customer service teams have to be prepared to respond,” Bhandar said, noting that the company must be able to connect data related to weather, utilities, consumers and demographics so service is restored quickly and accurately. 

Kim Sussman, vice president of supply chain solutions for discount retailer Five Below, said the current tariff situation has also shone a light on the importance of having a data strategy and the right data architecture, giving retailers a better depth of understanding about their sourcing and their value chain. 

The Build vs. Buy Equation 

Don’t fall into the “fear of missing out” trap; avoid making decisions for fear of being left behind if you don’t adopt AI, Fox stressed. Understanding the specific problem that needs to be solved is the first step. 

“This is going from saying, ‘I want to use AI in demand sensing’ to ‘I want to improve forecasting outcomes for my customers in different segments and be able to be responsive to demand trends.’ From there, we can start to have the build versus buy discussion,” he said.

Also read: Mars says it is on the cusp of bringing AI agents to its internal platform

Fox suggested scanning the marketplace to assess available solutions, while recognizing that off-the-shelf solutions potentially only put companies on par with their competitors.

AI Case Studies

Digital Twins

At Mars Snacking, an AI-powered digital twin allowed the company to get answers in seconds to questions that would have normally required months to explore, Fox said. It allowed the company to run thousands of scenarios to identify vulnerabilities it hadn’t yet considered around opening a new warehouse or changing its distribution network. 

Talking to Data

Generac’s internal AI platform has enabled the company to have natural language conversations. “You can ask it questions like, ‘What were my sales last year?’ and ‘How is the power of the region being affected?’ We’ve uncovered so many new things through that natural language interaction with that data,” Bhandar said.

Training & Development

The technology has helped Five Below train hundreds of crew members at its five distribution centers. Not only has it made the process significantly faster and improved content quality, but it has also helped translate that content for non-English speakers, Sussmann said. AI also has the potential to help the company better model freight flow within the supply chain, she added.