FARGO, N.D. (April 30, 2024) — Border States has partnered with GAINS to leverage the new GAINS Halo360° Decision Engineering and Orchestration Platform to deliver a machine learning (ML) solution to improve lead time accuracy and supply chain performance. Today, there is unprecedented pressure on working capital as lead time variability makes it difficult for supply chain professionals to optimize inventory and align procurement decisions. GAINS Lead Time Prediction (LTP) enables Border States to determine lead times with greater accuracy, resulting in enhanced customer service, aligned inventory and procurement functions, and improvement in working capital.
Composed in GAINS Halo360°, the AI-powered lead time prediction solution uses lateral learning to rapidly respond to changing environments and generate trustworthy lead time predictions for items with limited or no supply data. Using Border States’ data and ML techniques, GAINS LTP creates a model unique to the distributor’s supply chain. As the model is continually trained using Border States’ latest dataset, the solution will calculate lead times with greater and greater accuracy over time.
“Border States is always looking for new and innovative ways to add value throughout the supply chain for our customers, vendors and other employee owners,” said Richelle Bishoff, VP Procurement. “Partnering with GAINS to customize and develop transformative technology, like the lead time prediction tool, will support our ability to serve unstoppable businesses, because we know they can’t go it alone. This technology is one of the most exciting advancements in inventory and demand planning the industry has seen in many years, and we are thrilled to be ushering in these capabilities together.”
“Helping Border States exceed customers’ expectations drives GAINS’ Data Science team to innovate and deliver new machine learning and AI capabilities,” said Amber Salley, Vice President of Industry Solutions at GAINS. “Leveraging Halo360°, the GAINS Lead Time Prediction service uses machine learning to deliver a higher level of accuracy than traditional methods. Companies become more confident in their replenishment decisions, avoid value leakage and better meet service, cost and capacity goals — a difficult task given the volatility of today’s markets. We are delighted to partner and collaborate with the Border States team on this successful project and excited about the results they already see from the Halo360° offering.”
Border States supplies products and services to construction, industrial and utility customers. The 100% employee-owned company is rated the sixth largest electrical distributor in the United States by Electrical Wholesaling magazine. Border States has more than 3,200 employee-owners and 120 branches in 29 states. The Branch Support Center (corporate office) is located in Fargo, North Dakota.
GAINS is the supply chain performance optimization company helping companies fulfil their customer’s promise. Their first-in-class, best-in-breed composable GAINS Halo360° Decision Engineering and Orchestration Platform transcends traditional silos of ERP, supply chain planning and network design enabling integrated, smarter, faster, and composable decisions across the time to plan horizons from strategic design to order execution. Specifically designed to manage volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA), GAINS customers are able to focus on prioritizing the right decisions at the right time at the right speed and scale to optimize supply chain performance, improving profitability and customer confidence.