Bill Foy, Director and APJ Automotive Sales Leader at AWS, explains how legacy systems are slowing down supply chains
How AWS is Modernising Supply Chains With AI
Bill Foy, Director and APJ Automotive Sales Leader at AWS, explains how legacy systems are slowing down supply chains
According to Bill Foy, Director and APJ Automotive Sales Leader at AWS 94 % of companies have been affected by supply chain disruptions – with legacy systems causing real-time visibility gaps.
“ Whether it’ s a port strike, an earthquake or a natural disaster, most companies don’ t even know a problem exists until it’ s downstream,” he says.
Managing this disconnected data can be particularly challenging for original equipment manufacturers( OEMs), Bill explains.
“ OEMs struggle with data scattered across Excel spreadsheets, mainframes – all sorts of different systems,” he says.“ They don’ t communicate together, so there is no unified model.”
To overcome this, Bill says that companies need to take a more unified and predictive approach to managing their supply chains.
“ OEMs that are really moving forward are moving from a reactive, batch-driven operation to real-time AI-powered, customercentric supply chains,” he says.
Legacy systems slow AI adoption
“ For almost all of the OEMs I work with, their data is trapped in legacy systems,” Bill says.“ They’ re running missioncritical supply chain operations in mainframes that are 30 to 45 years old.”
Much of this software is written in COBOL – a software language very few people still operate in.
“ There’ s no documentation,” says Bill.“ The reverse engineering alone can take hundreds of hours, just to understand what’ s in those systems.”
Having these legacy systems in place can also make it harder for companies to adopt new systems.
Bill shares that, while 87 % of manufactures see AI as an important tool, only 8 % have researched the mature stage of implementation.
“ One of the biggest challenges with data being trapped in legacy systems is that they weren’ t designed for realtime data exchange,” he says.“ This disconnected, siloed data remains one of the biggest barriers for AI adoption.”